Court Opinion

ID: 9549917
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:26:33.376071+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:21:03.908308
License: Public Domain

NOYES, Presiding Judge,
dissenting.
Having probable cause to believe that a phone number might be in a garbage bag is not the same as having acquired that number. The majority reverses based on the State’s “independent source” for acquiring the phone number — the search warrant. I agree that the independent source doctrine would apply if the phone number had been acquired by an untainted search. See Murray v. U.S., 487 U.S. 533, 538,108 S.Ct. 2529, 2533-34,101 L.Ed.2d 472 (1988) (stating that, as originally applied in the exclusionary rule context, the term “independent source” referred “to that particular category of evidence acquired by an untainted search which is identical to the evidence unlawfully acquired”).
The problem here is that execution of the search warrant became entwined with — and tainted by — the Massiah violation. Because the Massiah violation tainted execution of the search warrant, the “independent source” theory does not apply and the State must rely on an “inevitable discovery” theory. But the State offered no evidence to support this theory and so the trial court cannot be faulted for rejecting it. Defendant, on the other hand, proved that the officer actually acquired this evidence by committing a rather astounding Massiah violation.
On the facts presented, I would affirm the suppression order.