Opinion ID: 1866213
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: staten's custodial statements

Text: As an additional aspect of the search and seizure question, Staten claims that her custodial statements, as fruits of that search, are constitutionally inadmissible evidence and should have been suppressed. Thus, Staten contends that her custodial statements should have been suppressed because her statements were the product of an illegal search or, as condemned by Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963), were the fruit of the poisonous tree. In Wong Sun, the U.S. Supreme Court required exclusion not only of evidence directly produced by a constitutionally invalid search, but also of evidence indirectly derived from the unconstitutional search. Reference to fruit of the poisonous tree in Wong Sun is a condemnation of the government's subsequent exploitation of a prior violation of a defendant's constitutional right. As expressed in Wong Sun, whether evidence is the derivative product of a constitutionally invalid search turns on the question `whether, granting establishment of the primary illegality, the evidence to which instant objection is made has been come at by exploitation of that illegality or instead by means sufficiently distinguishable to be purged of the primary taint.' Maguire, Evidence of Guilt, 221 (1959). 371 U.S. at 488, 83 S.Ct. at 417. However, since the arrest and search of Staten are constitutionally sustainable, the Wong Sun doctrine is inapplicable as a bar to admissibility of Staten's custodial statements. Cf. State v. Abdouch, 230 Neb. 929, 434 N.W.2d 317 (1989) (defendant's voluntary custodial statements to police, after defendant was confronted with physical evidence seized during a constitutionally invalid search, were inadmissible in the prosecution of a charge related to the subject matter of the custodial interrogation). Therefore, Staten's statements were constitutionally admissible as evidence on the cocaine charge against Staten.