Court Opinion

ID: 9517153
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 00:06:05.235456+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:43:37.154108
License: Public Domain

LARSON, Justice
(concurring specially).
I concur in the result reached by the plurality opinion. However, I write separately to express my view that both the plurality and dissent rely too much on their analyses of Wong Sun and the fruit-of-the-poisonous-tree doctrine. Even if it is conceded that the initial search of Lane in the garage was illegal, this is not a case in which the police used the fruits of that search to obtain evidence from Lane’s apartment.
*394A-search based on consent by Lane’s cotenant was a large step removed from the garage search. In fact, they were unrelated. It is no doubt true that the officers’ interest in Lane was aroused by what they had seen in the garage and the independent information they had received the same day about Lane’s involvement as a large drug dealer. The officers pursued the matter, but not with Lane; they did not attempt to use the information obtained in the garage search to obtain a search warrant. That clearly would constitute fruit of the earlier illegal search. They pursued their investigation by going to a totally independent source — a search based on consent. The significant point is that consent was not obtained from' Lane — a scenario that might raise fruit-of-the-poisonous-tree concerns — but consent of a third party, Lane’s cotenant.
Our cases have clearly established that consent validly obtained — even consent from the defendant himself — may cure any Fourth Amendment pi’oblem inherent in an earlier search. In State v. Howard, 509 N.W.2d 764 (Iowa 1993), an initial search was held to be invalid on the basis the officer had improperly promised leniency. Nevertheless, a later search based on consent by the defendant and his girlfriend vitiated any Fourth Amendment problems. Id. at 767 (“Even if an initial search is invalid, a later search based on written consent is valid.”); State v. Garcia, 461 N.W.2d 460, 464 (Iowa 1990), cert. denied, 499 U.S. 909, 111 S.Ct. 1115, 113 L.Ed.2d 223 (1991) (“Even if it were assumed that the initial stop was invalid and the search therefore improper, the later search based on the written consent by Garcia was valid.”).
Here, a stronger case is made for admission of the evidence than in either Howard or Garcia. In those cases, the consent was obtained from the defendants themselves, and an argument might be made that they felt compelled to later consent to the search. Here, it is not a question of attenuation by passage of time or change of circumstances that might validate a later search. Here, the search was independently based on consent of another person, a person Lane does not even argue lacked standing to give consent.
I agree with the plurality’s conclusion that Hogan’s consent was validly obtained. I would affirm the judgment of the district court on that narrow ground alone.