Court Opinion

ID: 9669312
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 02:49:12.461818+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:55.365442
License: Public Domain

ROBERTSON, Justice,
dissenting.
I concur in the dissenting opinion of Judge Holstein. I write separately because I find another basis upon which to affirm the conviction in this case.
Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 95 S.Ct. 2254, 45 L.Ed.2d 416 (1975), seems to permit introduction of a confession obtained following an unconstitutional arrest if the statements are sufficiently attenuated from the unconstitutional arrest to render the confession the product of free will.
In this case, defendant Miller made several statements after he received Miranda warnings and after he was taken from the scene of the arrest that, taken together, amount to a confession. The latest in time of these attempted to absolve Ms. Tope (“She’s innocent. She doesn’t know anything about this.”) and admitted that he thought all of the cocaine was out of the container.
In United States v. Ramos, 42 F.3d 1160, 1164 (1994), the Eighth Circuit stated that where a police officer “was not attempting to exploit an illegal situation” a consent to a search following an unconstitutional detention amounted to “an affirmative waiver of [the defendant’s] Fourth Amendment right to prevent a search of his vehicle.” That court held that the defendant’s “voluntarily signing the consent form was sufficiently an act of free will to purge the taint of the preceding illegal detention.” Id.
Here the officers clearly informed Ms. Tope that she did not have to consent to the search of her vehicle. Miller makes no suggestion that the officers were “attempting to exploit an illegal situation,” to use the words of Ramos. The separation in time and location of Miller’s statements from the unconstitutional stop, and the making of those statements following his receipt of Miranda warnings was sufficient attenuation to remove the taint, if any, of the stop, and render the statements the product of free will.
“[I]f evidence is improperly admitted, but other evidence before the court establishes essentially the same facts, there is no prejudice to [the] defendant and no reversible error.” State v. Zagorski, 632 S.W.2d 475, 478, n. 2, (Mo. banc 1982), citing Harris v. Goggins, 374 S.W.2d 6, 15 (Mo. banc 1963). With the admission of Miller’s statements into evidence, the State established Miller’s possession of cocaine. The admission of the actual container of cocaine was, therefore, not prejudicial, the statements alone being sufficient to support the conviction.
I would affirm the conviction.