Court Opinion

ID: 9491519
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:16:21.875976+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:47.547372
License: Public Domain

MICHAEL, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and concurring in the judgment:
While I agree with the majority’s conclusion that Seidman’s conviction should be affirmed, I cannot join its reasoning on the admissibility of the tape of the May 23 conversation between Seidman and Sehoop. In holding that tape to be admissible, the majority waters down the protections of the Fourth Amendment. Sehoop pressed his way into Seidman’s home in violation of the Fourth Amendment. In literally a minute’s time Sehoop was trying to ensnare Seidman into admissions of guilt. As a result, Seid-man did not have a sufficient chance to consider his options and exercise his free will, and the taint of Schoop’s unconstitutional entry was never purged. The majority’s conclusion — that Seidman’s nonresistanee alone attenuated the taint of Schoop’s illegal entry — in effect relies on Fifth Amendment voluntariness criteria to satisfy the stricter Fourth Amendment requirement that the government may not exploit an unconstitutional incursion to obtain even a “voluntary” statement.
Nevertheless, because the inadmissible tape was merely cumulative and Seidman’s guilt was established beyond a reasonable doubt, I would find the error to be harmless and affirm Seidman’s conviction. Accordingly, I concur in the judgment, and I concur in parts I, II, and IV of the majority opinion.
I.
The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States forbids government agents from conducting unreasonable searches and seizures. This prohibition is especially powerful when it comes to “pro-tectfing] the physical integrity of the home.” United States v. McCraw, 920 F.2d 224, 230 (4th Cir.1990) (citations omitted). The majority recognizes that Sehoop was acting as a government agent when he entered Seid-man’s home. See ante at 547 n. 7. Also, the majority assumes that by opening Seidman’s .closed front door and entering without permission or invitation, Sehoop violated the Fourth Amendment. This assumption should be a firm conclusion. Sehoop did not have a search warrant, and he had no legitimate reason to make an uninvited entry into Seidman’s home. Sehoop therefore committed a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment. See United States v. Thomas, 955 F.2d 207 (4th Cir.1992) (FBI agents violated Fourth Amendment by entering defendant’s room without permission or warrant).
*554When an agent obtains an incriminating statement on the heels of a Fourth Amendment violation, the government has a substantial burden in establishing admissibility. It is not enough for the government to show that the statement was voluntary under the Fifth Amendment. Rather, the government must also show that the statement was not obtained by exploitation of the Fourth Amendment violation. See Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 601, 95 S.Ct. 2254, 45 L.Ed.2d 416 (1975). Because the government could not meet its burden here, what Seidman said to Schoop on the May 23 tape should have been excluded at trial.
A.
Even if a confession made by a suspect following a Fourth Amendment violation is completely voluntary, the statement must be excluded unless the government can show that it was “ ‘sufficiently an act of free will to purge the primary taint.’ ” Id. at 602, 95 S.Ct. 2254 (quoting Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 486, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963)). This showing is completely separate from the Fifth Amendment requirement of voluntariness, and an otherwise voluntary statement must be excluded if the taint of the Fourth Amendment violation has not been purged. See Taylor v. Alabama, 457 U.S. 687, 690, 102 S.Ct. 2664, 73 L.Ed.2d 314 (1982) (“[T]his Court [has] firmly established that the fact that a confession may be ‘voluntary’ for purposes of the Fifth Amendment ... is not by itself sufficient to purge the taint of an illegal arrest. In this situation, a finding of ‘voluntariness’ for purposes of the Fifth Amendment is merely a threshold requirement for Fourth Amendment analysis” (citing Dunaway v. New York, 442 U.S. 200, 217, 99 S.Ct. 2248, 60 L.Ed.2d 824 (1979))). The Court has set out three factors that we must consider in determining whether the taint has been purged: “[l][t]he temporal proximity of the [illegal entry] and the confession, [2] the presence of intervening circumstances and, particularly, [3] the purpose and flagraney of the official misconduct.” Brown 422 U.S. at 603-04, 95 S.Ct. 2254 (citations and footnotes omitted). In Brown, because the suspect’s statement was separated from his illegal arrest by less than two hours, there were no significant intervening events, and the arrest was for an improper purpose (investigation and questioning), the Court held that the suspect’s statement was tainted by the illegal arrest and therefore inadmissible. See id. at 604-OS, 95 S.Ct. 2254.
B.
The majority purports to apply the Brown test to the events surrounding the May 23 conversation. As to the first Brown factor (proximity of Fourth Amendment violation to the statement), the majority recognizes that “very little time” (about a minute) elapsed between Schoop’s entry and his first question to Seidman about wrongdoing. See ante at 549. The majority would apparently concede, as it must, that the first Brown factor weighs heavily against the government. Where the majority goes astray is in its analysis of the second and third Brown factors. There, the majority has confused the Fifth Amendment voluntariness analysis with Brown’s distinct Fourth Amendment attenuation analysis.
1.
The second Brown factor focuses on the presence of intervening circumstances. I cannot accept the majority’s position that Seidman’s apparent consent to talk with Schoop, as manifested by his acts of closing an open front door and motioning Schoop into the kitchen, is an intervening circumstance that assists in purging Sehoop’s blatant Fourth Amendment violation. The majority takes Seidman’s acts of apparent consent, which would be relevant to a Fifth Amendment voluntariness inquiry, and attempts to transform them into a Fourth Amendment “intervening circumstance.” See ante at 549 (“[A]ny taint arising from Schoop’s entry was attenuated by Seidman’s consent to the conversation”). This goes completely against the Supreme Court’s consistent teaching that voluntary consent by itself is insufficient to purge the taint of a Fourth Amendment violation. It is also *555contrary to the Court’s interpretation of what constitutes an intervening circumstance in a taint attenuation context.
The inquiry to determine intervening circumstances under the Fourth Amendment is different from the one to determine volun-tariness under the Fifth Amendment. An intervening circumstance (for Fourth Amendment purposes) is one that “eontrib-ute[s] to [the suspect’s] ability to consider carefully and objectively his options and to exercise his free will.” Taylor, 457 U.S. at 691,102 S.Ct. 2664. In Taylor the defendant had been illegally arrested without a warrant. In the short period that followed, the police gave Miranda warnings to Taylor three times, obtained a written Miranda waiver from him, fingerprinted him, placed him in a lineup, and permitted him to speak briefly with his girlfriend and a male companion. The Court weighed all of these events, and held that not one of them, not even the Miranda waiver, was an intervening circumstance sufficient to “purge the taint of the illegal arrest.” Id. at 690, 102 S.Ct. 2664; see also Dunaway, 442 U.S. at 218-19, 99 S.Ct. 2248 (finding no intervening circumstance between defendant’s illegal arrest and subsequent confession, even though he was given Miranda warnings and waived his right to counsel).
By comparison, the Supreme Court has found intervening circumstances only when the events were sufficient to break the “causal chain[ ] between the [Fourth Amendment violation] and the statements made subsequent thereto.” Broum, 422 U.S. at 602, 95 S.Ct. 2254. Examples of intervening circumstance sufficient to break that chain include a hearing before a magistrate judge at which the defendant was advised of his rights, see Johnson v. Louisiana, 406 U.S. 356, 365, 92 S.Ct. 1620, 32 L.Ed.2d 152 (1972); an arraignment plus a six-day release from custody, see Wong Sun, 371 U.S. at 491, 83 S.Ct. 407; and the issuance of a valid search warrant that resulted in the independent discovery of drugs and a spontaneous admission, see Rawlings v. Kentucky, 448 U.S. 98, 108-09, 100 S.Ct. 2556, 65 L.Ed.2d 633 (1980). See also United States v. Wellins, 654 F.2d 550, 555 (9th Cir.1981) (finding intervening circumstance when defendant was allowed to consult with his lawyer). When measured against these examples, Seidman’s rather innocuous acts of closing a door and nodding to Schoop are not sufficient to break the causal chain.
Like the Supreme Court, our court has refused to find that the taint of a Fourth' Amendment violation was purged when a suspect did not have the chance to consider his options rationally and make a free choice; In United States v. Gooding, 695 F.2d 78 (4th Cir.1982), the defendant (Gooding) was stopped illegally by police officers at a bus stop because they suspected he was carrying drugs. Within minutes of the illegal stop, the officers askéd Gooding for permission to search his briefcase and flight bag. Gooding assented, opened his briefcase and bag, and actively handed items to the police officers to facilitate their search.' There is no question that Gooding’s actions manifested a willingness to cooperate with the search. Yet we held that Gooding’s actions were not “intervening circumstances” sufficient to purge the taint of the Fourth Amendment violation. See id. at 84 (citing Taylor, Dunaway, and Brown). If Gooding’s positive signs of assent and cooperation were not sufficient, then Seidman’s benign acts of shutting a door and nodding to Schoop could not be either.
In McCraw, another of our cases, a suspect consented to a search of his room and made statements that were voluntary manifestations of consent after the police had entered his room without his permission or a warrant. Nevertheless, we found the fruits of that search and the suspect’s statements to be' táinted by the Fourth Amendment violation:
Assuming that the consent to search and hotel room statements were voluntary by fifth amendment standards, the proximity in time and place between the arrest and the search and statements and the absence of intervening circumstances nevertheless require suppression of this evidence to protect the physical integrity of the home and to vindicate the purpose of the fourth amendment.
McCraw, 920 F.2d at 230 (citations omitted).
The case law is clear. The majority is therefore wrong to conclude that Seidman’s *556consent to talk with Schoop should be double counted as consent under the Fifth Amendment and as an intervening circumstance under the Fourth. Seidman’s actions are not the kind of intervening circumstances that either the Supreme Court or we have considered sufficient to attenuate the taint of a Fourth Amendment violation. Moreover, within a minute of pushing his way into Seidman’s house, Schoop launched into a question aimed at getting Seidman to admit to illegal .activity. Seidman simply did not have the opportunity “to consider carefully and objectively his .options and to exercise his free will.” Taylor, 457 U.S. at 691, 102 S.Ct. 2664. There was no intervening circumstance that attenuated or purged Schoop’s violation of Seidman’s Fourth Amendment rights. The “intervening circumstances” factor thus weighs heavily against the admission of the May 28 tape.1
2.
The last Brown factor looks at the “purpose and flagrancy” of the Fourth Amendment violation. Here, I disagree with the majority’s suggestion that a government agent’s conduct will be flagrant and purposeful only if it involves the degree of coercion present in Brown and Wong Sun. After setting the bar unjustifiably high, the majority compounds its mistake by again erroneously applying Fifth Amendment standards of vol-untariness to conclude that the taint was attenuated. See ante at 550-551 (“Seidman acted voluntarily, without coercion or threat of force from Schoop”).
It is true that the government’s actions in Brown and Wong Sun were particularly flagrant. In Brown, for instance, a policeman held the defendant at gunpoint before getting his consent to search. “However, the fla-graney of police misconduct is not measured by how polite the police are to the defendant.” People v. Gonzalez, 64 Cal.App.4th 432, 75 Cal.Rptr.2d 272, 280 (1998). The Supreme Court has made clear that the “purpose and flagrancy” inquiry looks for more than evidence of intimidation that would render a confession involuntary under the Fifth Amendment. Rather, it is the “quality of purposefulness” of the Fourth Amendment violation that determines whether the taint of that violation is attenuated. Brown, 422 U.S. at 605, 95 S.Ct. 2254.
In Taylor, even though the police did not threaten or intimidate the defendant to get his confession after an illegal investigatory arrest, the Fourth Amendment violation was still found to be flagrant and purposeful misconduct. “The fact that the police did not physically abuse petitioner, or that the confession they obtained may have been ‘voluntary’ for purposes of the Fifth Amendment, does not cure the illegality of the initial arrest.” Taylor, 457 U.S. at 693, 102 S.Ct. 2664. Similarly, the police misconduct in Dunaway (arresting the defendant without probable cause “in the hope something might turn up”) did not involve threats or abuse against the defendant. Nevertheless, the Court identified Dunaway as “virtually a replica of the situation in Brown ” and found that purposefulness of the Fourth Amendment violation required exclusion of the confession. Dunaway, 442 U.S. at 218, 99 S.Ct. 2248; see also id. at 220, 99 S.Ct. 2248 (Stevens, J., concurring):
The flagrancy of the official misconduct is relevant, in my judgment, only insofar as it has a tendency to motivate the defendant. A midnight arrest with drawn guns will be equally frightening whether the police acted recklessly or in good faith. Conversely, a courteous command has the same effect on the arrestee whether the officer thinks he has probable cause or knows that he does not. In either event, if the Fourth Amendment is violated, the admissibility question will turn on the causal relationship between that violation and the defendant’s subsequent confession.
In this case Schoop, who seemed desperate to engage Seidman in incriminating conversation, deliberately entered Seidman’s home *557without permission. In addition, the federal agents directing Sehoop had a cavalier attitude about Seidman’s constitutional rights. This was confirmed during Sehoop’s second (agent-directed) attempt to gain entrance into Seidman’s home on June 19, 1995, about three weeks after the first (wired) visit. Schoop’s repeated knocks at the front door went unanswered, as did his call to Seidman from his (Schoop’s) car phone. When Sehoop returned to where the agents were parked, one agent asked, “Is his door locked this time?,” and Sehoop answered, “Yeah.” This confirms that the agents condoned Schoop’s violation of Seidman’s Fourth Amendment rights on May 23 and that they were ready to encourage the very same violation on June 19. I can only conclude that Schoop’s unconstitutional entry, and his handlers’ complicity in it, was flagrant and purposeful. The third factor also weighs against the, government.
C.
All of the Brown factors cut against the government. No significant time elapsed between Schoop’s illegal entry on May 23 and his conversation with Seidman. There were no intervening circumstances that broke the causal link between Schoop’s entry and his efforts to draw Seidman into admissions of guilt. Finally, Sehoop and his controllers flagrantly and purposefully disregarded Seid-man’s Fourth Amendment rights in order to position themselves to get a confession. As a result, the government has not met its burden of establishing that the taint of Schoop's Fourth Amendment violation has been purged, even if Seidman’s statements were voluntary under the Fifth Amendment. The tape of the May 23 conversation should have been suppressed.2
II.
Although I do not agree with the majority’s Fourth Amendment analysis, I do agree with the government that the error in admitting the May 23 tape was harmless. If the guilt of a defendant was established beyond a reasonable doubt without the evidence admitted in error, the error is harmless and we must affirm the conviction. See United States v. Melgar, 139 F.3d 1005, 1016 (4th Cir.1998).
Here, the evidence of guilt, even absent the taped conversation of May 23, was strong. See ante at 544-545, 546-547. Moreover, the government’s main point about the May 23 tape, that Seidman was transparent in his failure to deny Schoop’s suggestions of wrongdoing, is equally supported by an admissible tape that was also played to the jury. That was the tape of a telephone conversation on March 21 between Sehoop and Seidman, in which Seidman also failed to deny Schoop’s suggestions that they were in the middle of an illegal scheme.3
*558The prosecutor devoted a considerable amount of time in his closing argument to the uncontested March 21 conversation, while he mentioned the inadmissible May 23 conversation only briefly to bolster his point. The May 23 conversation was merely cumulative of the admissible March 21 conversation. “Improper admission of evidence which is cumulative of matters shown by admissible evidence is harmless error.” Smith v. Firestone Tire & Rubber Co., 755 F.2d 129, 132 (8th Cir.1985). Because the May 23 tape was cumulative of admissible evidence, I would hold that the error in admitting the tape was harmless.
III.
Because the May 23 tape was cumulative and because I concur in the majority opinion on the remaining issues, I vote to affirm Seidman’s conviction.

. The majority simply goes against precedent when it says, "We see no reason why [consent] could not also sever the connection between an unlawful act and the acquisition of additional evidence.” Ante at 549-550 n. 10. Again, volun-taiy consent by itself does not cure a Fourth Amendment violation. The Brown factors must still be applied. See Taylor, 457 U.S. at 690-93, 102 S.Ct. 2664; Dunaway, 442 U.S. at 218, 99 S.Ct. 2248; McCraw, 920 F.2d at 230.

. The maj ority’s assertion notwithstanding, see ante at 549, I do not contend that lack of an intervening time period alone required suppression. Rather, my conclusion is based on a consideration of all three Brown factors.

. The March 21 conversation included the following exchange:
Sehoop: Well, look, Bub, why don't we meet for lunch, alright? Because, uh, they, they, they hit me with a lot of stuff and I, you know, there’s only so much you can get away with and, you know, or that they buy.
Seidman: Well they’re Department of Labor. Uh, what are they uh looking, ah, for the Department of Labor?
Sehoop: Harry, the only thing I can do is just tell you what the hell they said, you know, to me. And what they said to me was that, they, they are very curious as to why a Controller of the Union would uh want to be, uh, you know, wou . ■.. wou ... would okay the payments to me for typesetting that they claim I never did. And apparently ...
Seidman: But you did do it, you were ...
Sehoop: Well, I’m saying I did too, bub, ha ha, but the only damn thing is that I’m, you know, very concerned.
Sehoop: Alright, now how the hell do I answer the direct payment? You know what I’m saying? And I don’t want to get into all this shit on the phone.
Seidman: The direct payments ... exactly what the letter says ... you gave the money, remember you all did me, you gave me the money because, exactly what you said, save the money for David because, again, you are known to gamble. [or][or] I mean, exactly what happened.
Sehoop: No, it's not going to fly. It’s not that easy, babes, it isn't.
Seidman: Well if it happens babe, you own your business ...
Sehoop: Huh?
Seidman: I mean everything was out in the open. I mean it, Always everything was reported, all the figures were reported to, *558uh, here I don’t know if they actually report what the newspaper cost, they're a separate thing, there was the Finance Committee, this is what you charged.
Schoop: Yeah, okay, hut what happens if they put a paper trace on this damn thing and they find out it never went into my account?
Seidman: Well, again, what you did, the reason you didn’t put it in, as far as I know ... I mean I’m not sure if you put it in the account, but if you didn't, what you did was you gave it to me because that's what you wanted to do. You told me to put it in a trust for David because you don’t want to gamble it away and you were afraid that you were drinking and you wanted to save it for David.
Schoop: Harry, that story isn't gonna fly, babe. It isn't. It just isn’t. Can you come up and meet me for lunch?
Seidman: At your place?
Schoop: Yeah.