Court Opinion

ID: 9674027
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:21:56.319137+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:25.250214
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON PETITION TO REHEAR
FONES, Chief Justice.
In their petition to rehear, petitioners Robert and Dewayne Strickland assert that this Court overlooked the assignment of error which alleged a violation of Davis v. Mississippi, 394 U.S. 721, 89 S.Ct. 1394, 22 L.Ed.2d 676 (1969). The Davis case involved a situation where the police, without arrest warrants, took at least twenty-four (24) youths to police headquarters where they were questioned, fingerprinted, and released without being charged. The police also interrogated forty (40) to fifty (50) other youths either at the police station, at school, or elsewhere. The Court found that defendant’s arrest was illegal and that the fingerprints obtained while defendant was illegally detained were not admissible.
A factor in the Davis decision was the wholesale roundup and questioning of young men without probable cause to arrest them. In the instant case testimony indicated that only ten (10) to fifteen (15) young people were questioned at police headquarters; among those questioned were the five (5) defendants subsequently charged with the offenses. This did not appear to us to fit within the Davis situation. Petitioners maintained that they were not allowed to fully develop the facts surrounding the alleged wholesale roundup, *923detention, and questioning of suspects in the instant case. We initially felt that the proper procedure would be for petitioners to fully develop this issue in the trial court as they alleged that they had not been allowed to present evidence to substantiate their claim at the transfer hearing; however, after considering their argument in the petition to rehear, we will dispose of the issue before remand.
Assuming, without deciding, that the arrests and confessions of all the petitioners were obtained in violation of their constitutional rights, and that the confession of Jessie Sales was a “fruit of the poisonous tree,” Nardone v. United States, 308 U.S. 338, 60 S.Ct. 266, 84 L.Ed. 307 (1939), we think the testimony of Jessie Sales was constitutionally admissible.
Sales’ testimony was an independent act of his own free will sufficient to “purge the primary taint” of the unlawful arrest and subsequent confession. A period of several weeks intervened between the date the confession was obtained and the testimony of Sales in open court, during which time he was represented by counsel. We feel this situation is analogous to Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 490, 83 S.Ct. 407, 419, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963). There the defendant was unlawfully arrested and released the next day, after his arraignment. Several days later, during a lawful questioning session, the defendant gave a voluntary confession. The Court held “. . . that the connection between the arrest and the statement had ‘become so attenuated as to dissipate the taint.’ ” 371 U.S. at 490, 83 S.Ct. at 419, quoting from Nardone v. United States, supra, 308 U.S. at 341, 60 S.Ct. 266. In view of Wong Sun v. United States, supra, we find that any illegality in the police investigation was cured by the open court testimony of Jessie Sales, and petitioners cannot complain that his testimony was an unlawful fruit of the illegally obtained confessions. Also in response to petitioners’ Davis argument, it should be noted that an unlawful arrest does not vitiate the entire prosecution against the accused. Albrecht v. United States, 273 U.S. 1, 47 S.Ct. 250, 71 L.Ed. 505 (1927).
Separate and apart from the “fruit of the poisonous tree” issue, petitioners maintain the Sales’ confession and testimony were illegally obtained, and that the testimony should not be used against them. Petitioners have no standing to complain that Sales’ confession and subsequent testimony were unlawfully obtained. Illegally obtained evidence may be used against one whose rights were not violated in the seizure of that evidente. Wong Sun v. United States, supra, 371 U.S. at 492, 83 S.Ct. 407; Simmons v. United States, 390 U.S. 377, 88 S.Ct. 967,19 L.Ed.2d 1247 (1968); Alderman v. United States, 394 U.S. 165, 89 S.Ct. 961, 22 L.Ed.2d 176 (1969); United States v. Calandra, 414 U.S. 338, 94 S.Ct. 613, 38 L.Ed.2d 561 (1974). Thus, petitioners may not seek to assert a right which is personal to Jessie Sales.
The remainder of the points raised in the petition to rehear were fully discussed in the Opinion.
The petition to rehear is denied.
COOPER, HENRY and HARBISON, JJ., and INMAN, Special Justice, concur.