Court Opinion

ID: 9859746
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 22:34:18.492725+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:04:44.547041
License: Public Domain

Concurring Opinion
Hunter, J.
Appellant was arrested without a warrant and without probable cause. His arrest violated the Fourth Amendment. After his arrest, appellant confessed. The trial court found that appellant’s confession was voluntary and was not procured in violation of the Fifth Amendment. As Brown v. Illinois, (1975) 422 U.S. 590, 95 S.Ct. 2254, 45 L.Ed.2d 416, made clear, a finding that the Fifth Amendment has not been violated in obtaining a confession does not render a confession admissible if it appears that the confession was made possible by and was the product of an illegal arrest. In determining whether a confession is a product of an illegal arrest, Brown instructs us to consider the temporal proximity of the arrest and the confession, the presence of intervening circumstances and the purpose and flagrancy of official misconduct.
In Brown, the initial inculpatory statement came within an hour and a half of Brown’s illegal arrest. Here, appellant’s first statement was far removed from the illegal arrest, occurring some sixty-eight hours later. Theoretically, as the time span between the arrest and the statement increases, the taint of the bad arrest decreases. The factor of temporal proximity is much weaker here than in Brown.
*680Intervening circumstances which may neutralize the taint of an illegal arrest include significant breaks in custodial interrogation, release from custody on bail or recognizance, consultation with an attorney, and presentment before a magistrate for determination of probable cause. See Johnson v. Louisiana, (1972) 406 U.S. 356, 92 S.Ct. 1620, 32 L.Ed.2d 152, and cases cited in n. 8, Brown, supra. Chief among these circumstances is the probable cause hearing. Appellant, like Brown, was not taken before a magistrate until after his confession had been extracted.
Purpose and flagrancy of the official misconduct is at léast as galling here as in Broton. This case presents a specific example of Gary police procedures which were recently condemned and barred by an order of the federal District Court for the Northern District of Indiana in Dommer v. Hatcher, (1975) 48 Ind. Dec. 1996. Appellant was arrested without probable cause and held precisely for the purpose of producing information which would sustain a finding of probable cause so that appellant might be taken before a magistrate. This procedure was an intentional, flagrant violation of appellant’s Fourth Amendment rights.
Taken as a whole, the foregoing analysis of Brown guidelines demonstrates that appellant’s confession was not an act of free will unaffected by his illegal arrest. For the reasons stated in Brown, appellant’s confession must be excluded on remand.
I agree with the majority that the Fourth Amendment and Gerstein v. Pugh, (1975) 420 U.S. 103, 95 S.Ct. 854, 43 L. Ed.2d 54, require a reasonably prompt judicial determination of probable- cause prior to extended restraint following an arrest. I also agree that under the facts of this case, appellant’s detention for sixty-eight hours without a judicial determination of probable cause violated his Fourth Amendment rights. I join in reversal, however, solely on the basis of Brown. I find Gerstein to be applicable only when “a police*681man’s on-the-scene assessment of probable cause provides legal justification for arresting a person suspected of crime.” 420 U.S. 103, 113-14, 95 S.Ct. 854, 863, 43 L.Ed.2d 54, 65. Here, we are confronted with the officer’s candid admission that no good faith on-the-scene assessment of probable cause could be made. Such admission places this case in the posture of Brown where the arrest is without on-the-scene probable cause, not in the posture of Gerstein where the arrest is with on-the-scene probable cause, but there follows an excessive delay in confirmation of the on-the-scene probable cause by independent judicial authority. Thus, I find it wholly unnecessary to synthesize Brown and Gerstein, as the majority does, to remedy a delay in presentment following an invalid arrest.