Court Opinion

ID: 9480268
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:42:51.751761+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:34.560115
License: Public Domain

KING, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
The majority, relying on United States v. Fike, 449 F.2d 191 (5th Cir.1971), concludes that in light of the “minor and technical invasion” at issue,1 Sheppard’s “consent to search ... acts to sever any nexus between the alleged Fourth Amendment violation and the discovery of evidence in the second search.” Alternatively, the majority concludes that Sheppard’s flight “functioned to break any nexus between the challenged insertion of Hillin’s head into the window and the evidence seized following the apprehension of Sheppard and Tobin.” I dissent because the consent to search and subsequent flight occurred within moments of, and were the products of, Agent Hillin’s unconstitutional intrusion into Sheppard’s vehicle. If the attenuation doctrine can be used to legitimize a Fourth Amendment violation under the facts of this case— where only a few minutes separate the violation from the circumstances that the majority holds sever the causal nexus between the violation and the subsequent seizure — then the attenuation doctrine essentially obliterates the Fourth Amendment.
I.
The majority first errs in concluding that Sheppard’s consent to search, moments af*1238ter Agent Hillin’s illegal intrusion into Sheppard’s vehicle, attenuates the officer’s intrusion. In reaching its conclusion, the majority relies on outdated precedent, ignores the close temporal proximity between Agent Hillin’s illegal search and Sheppard’s consent, and underestimates the need for deterrence of Agent Hillin’s systematic Fourth Amendment violations.
The majority’s reliance on the 1971 decision of United States v. Fike is misplaced. As we explained in United States v. Robinson, 625 F.2d 1211 (5th Cir.1980), the Fike analysis was laid to rest by the Supreme Court in Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 95 S.Ct. 2254, 45 L.Ed.2d 416 (1975). See also Dunaway v. New York, 442 U.S. 200, 216-20, 99 S.Ct. 2248, 2258-60, 60 L.Ed.2d 824 (1979). In Brown, the Court held that statements made subsequent to an illegal arrest might be tainted even though those statements were voluntarily given under the Fifth Amendment. 422 U.S. at 601-02, 95 S.Ct. at 2260-61. In so holding, the Court rejected various per se approaches to attenuation analysis. Instead, a multi-factor test was to be employed. Id. at 603-04, 95 S.Ct. at 2661-62. Under that test, intervening factors such as consent to search are relevant, but “[n]o single fact is dispositive.” Id. at 603, 95 S.Ct. at 2261. Critical to Brown’s functional approach was the element of time. As the Court explained, in order for a causal chain under Wong Sun to be broken, the question is whether evidence is purged of its primary taint, and “temporal proximity” must be considered in answering that question. Id. at 603, 95 S.Ct. at 2261. However, Fike and other “pre-Brown opinions merged the tests” for voluntariness and attenuation, finding that consent severed a prior unconstitutional search and necessarily removed its taint — even if consent occurred only a short time after an illegal intrusion. Thus, Fike failed to recognize “the distinction and need for proof of both voluntariness and attenuation.” Robinson, 625 F.2d at 1220 n. 14 (citing Fike).
The majority notes that the post-Brown decision of United States v. Melendez-Gonzalez, 727 F.2d 407 (5th Cir.1984) cannot be reconciled with Fike. Mysteriously, the majority feels bound by Fike as it precedes Melendez-Gonzalez. However, since Brown effectively rejects our analysis in Fike, as we recognized in Robinson, the post-Brown decision of Melendez-Gonzalez becomes the rule of this circuit.2
In Melendez-Gonzalez, roving border patrol agents illegally stopped Melendez-Gonzalez and asked him for his identification. Upon examination, the agents noticed a small hole in the trunk of his car. The agents peered inside and detected a burlap covered object. Melendez-Gonzalez refused the officer’s request to open the trunk. Nevertheless, the officers partially sprung the lid of the trunk with a tire tool and discovered marihuana. Later, after Melendez-Gonzalez was at the station and had been given his Miranda warnings, he signed a written consent to search the car, and the officers removed the marihuana. Melendez-Gonzalez, unlike Fike, recognized that consent to search does not necessarily sever the nexus to a prior illegality. Rather, “the Government must also ... prove that the consent was sufficiently attenuated from the illegal stop.” 727 F.2d at 414. Under the facts in Melendez-Gonzalez, the court concluded that despite the time lapse between the illegal search and the consent to search at the station, the seizure was not sufficiently attenuated from the earlier illegal stop and search. Id. at 409.
In the instant case, the causal connection between the unconstitutional intrusion into Sheppard’s automobile and Sheppard’s subsequent consent to the search of his trunk is even closer than that of Melendez-Gonzalez. The majority concedes that the “time span between the challenged conduct and Sheppard’s consent was short....” Indeed, Agent Hillin immediately directed Sheppard to the secondary inspection area *1239after detecting the scent of marihuana. Yet, the majority concludes that the search at the secondary inspection area, moments after the agent’s unconstitutional intrusion, is sufficiently attenuated. The attenuation exception, however, requires greater temporal distance than seconds or minutes. Supreme Court decisions since Wong Sun have generally found that hours must elapse before evidence is purged of its taint. Brown, 422 U.S. at 604, 95 S.Ct. at 2262 (statement separated from illegal arrest by less than two hours not attenuated); Dunaway, 442 U.S. at 203, 218, 99 S.Ct. at 2251, 2259 (incriminating statements made within an hour of illegal arrest not sufficiently attenuated); Taylor v. Alabama, 457 U.S. 687, 102 S.Ct. 2664, 73 L.Ed.2d 314 (1982) (confession six hours after illegal arrest not purged of taint of illegal arrest). Moreover, the time span here was even shorter than that in Melendez-Gonzalez, where the defendant’s car was illegally searched, he was taken to the station and only then consented to a search. While there is no per se rule, I cannot join in the majority’s conclusion that the search of Sheppard’s vehicle, occurring moments after Agent Hillin’s unconstitutional intrusion and at virtually the same location, was free of taint.
The majority also suggests that the “minor and technical” character of the Fourth Amendment violation at issue supports their view that the attenuation exception applies. Brown acknowledges that “the purpose and flagrancy of the official misconduct” is a relevant factor in attenuation analysis. 422 U.S. at 604, 95 S.Ct. at 2262. This is so because the exclusionary rule’s primary function is deterrance. I do not quarrel with the majority's suggestion that the intrusion of Hillin’s head into Sheppard’s automobile was a minor violation of the Fourth Amendment. However, the in-trusión by Agent Hillin into Sheppard’s automobile was not an isolated incident. Indeed, it was Agent Hillin’s “standard practice” to invade persons’ Fourth Amendment protected space by placing his head in the interior of individuals’ automobiles.3 Agent Hillin’s systematic fourth amendment violations heighten the need for det-errance, but the majority fails to take this reality into account.
In sum, the majority commits three errors when concluding that Sheppard’s consent to search purged the taint of Agent Hillin’s illegal intrusion. First, the majority breathes life into Fike, an opinion and analysis laid to rest by Brown. Second, the majority underestimates the weight of the Fourth Amendment violation at issue and the attendant need for the deterrent force of the exclusionary rule. Finally, and perhaps most significantly, the majority belittles the import of the time element to the attenuation issue. Sheppard consented to a search of his automobile only moments after, and at the same location as, the illegal intrusion by Agent Hillin. In light of the temporal (and spatial) proximity between the consent and illegal search, and considering all the factors relevant to the attenuation issue, I cannot say that the consent to search attenuated the seized evidence from its taint.
II.
The majority’s alternative holding, that the seizure was attenuated from the illegal search because Sheppard fled the scene, rests upon a per se approach rejected by Brown and improperly applies our attenuation jurisprudence. Under Brown, numerous factors are to be considered when assessing whether the taint of illegal police conduct is purged; including temporal proximity, intervening circumstances and *1240the flagrancy of police misconduct. 422 U.S. at 603-04, 95 S.Ct. at 2261-62. “No single fact is dispositive.” Id. at 603, 95 S.Ct. at 2261. Despite Brown’s teachings, the majority would adopt a per se rule that flight rids seized evidence of the taint of any prior unconstitutional police conduct— even where, as here, flight and the subsequent seizure of the evidence flowed directly from the initial intrusion.
In Wong Sun itself, the flight of James Wah Toy did not purge the taint of agents’ illegal entry into his home. Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963). The officers in Wong Sun were investigating a drug conspiracy. Pursuant to that investigation, the officers arrived at “Oye’s Laundry” and were met at the door by Toy. Toy told the agents that the laundry was not open. In response, Agent Wong removed his badge and informed Toy that he was a narcotics agent. Toy immediately slammed the door and ran from the laundry to his living quarters. The officers broke open the door and tracked down Toy. Toy was then arrested and subsequently made incriminating statements. Later that day, in response to disclosures by Toy, the officers went to the house of Johnny Yee and seized a small amount of heroin.
The Court determined that even though Toy fled from the agents, there was neither reasonable grounds nor probable cause for Toy’s arrest. 371 U.S. at 479-84, 83 S.Ct. at 412-15. The Court then turned to whether Toy’s declarations were fruits of the agents’ unlawful actions. The Court determined that “verbal evidence which derives so immediately from an unlawful entry and an unauthorized arrest as the officers’ action in the present case is no less the ‘fruit’ of official illegality than the more common tangible fruits of the unwarranted intrusion.” Id. at 485, 83 S.Ct. at 416. In finding that Toy’s statements were tainted, the Court specifically rejected the Government’s contention that Toy’s disclosures were purged of their taint because of an “intervening independent act of free will.” The Court concluded that under the circumstances, where Toy was “almost immediately handcuffed and arrested,” it was “unreasonable to infer that Toy’s response was sufficiently an act of free will to purge the taint of the unlawful invasion.” Id. at 486, 83 S.Ct. at 416. The Court also held that the subsequent seizure of heroin, later in the day and at a different location, was also tainted by the agents’ illegal entry because “the narcotics were ‘come at by the exploitation of that illegality.’ ” Id. at 487-88, 83 S.Ct. at 417-18.
Similarly, Sheppard’s flight was a direct result of, and flowed from, Agent Hillin’s illegal intrusion. Agent Hillin stopped Sheppard and discovered, based upon an unconstitutional intrusion, that Sheppard might possess narcotics. The agent then directed Sheppard to the secondary inspection area, and obtained his consent to search the trunk of Sheppard’s automobile. Within moments of the initial illegal search, Sheppard and Tobin broke away from the agents and fled in Sheppard’s car — only to be captured and have the drugs seized. Like Toy in Wong Sun, Sheppard’s flight within a few moments of the initial illegal intrusion was a product of the agent’s fourth amendment violation.4
The majority cites United States v. Nooks, 446 F.2d 1283 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 404 U.S. 945, 92 S.Ct. 299, 30 L.Ed.2d 261 (1971), for the proposition that flight necessarily attenuates a prior unconstitutional search. “Much, however, intervened between [the earlier event] and the [subsequent] search of the automobile” in Nooks. Id. at 1287. In the time frame between the two searches, the Sheriff obtained independent evidence of the suspects’ identification over the car radio, the suspects fired shots at the Sheriff, and it became necessary to open the trunk of the vehicle to rescue two persons trapped inside. Id. at 1287-88; see also United States v. Cherry, 794 F.2d 201, 206 (5th Cir.1986), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 1056, 107 S.Ct. 932, 93 L.Ed.2d 983 (1987) (Cherry III) (noting that Nooks in*1241volved the “development of independently procured probable cause following an illegal arrest”).5
Unlike Nooks, the agents in the instant case (like those in Wong Sun) had no independent and untainted evidence upon which to conduct a search. We have held that where probable cause for a subsequent search or arrest is itself based upon tainted evidence, the attenuation exception is not satisfied:
The acquiring of probable cause by the police ... neither logically breaks the causal chain ... nor in view of the purposes of the exclusionary rule necessarily attenuates that relation to the point that the evidence need not be excluded. As we have seen, the theory underlying the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine is that, when there is a close causal connection between the prior police misconduct and the availability of challenged evidence, the evidence should be suppressed since the deterrent value of exclusion outweighs the competing interest in having all probative evidence put before the factfinder_ The intervening discovery of probable cause to support a suspect’s detention, by itself, ‘cannot assure in every case that the Fourth Amendment violation has not been unduly exploited.’
United States v. Cherry, 759 F.2d 1196, 1211-12 (5th Cir.1985) (Cherry II) (citing Brown, 422 U.S. at 603, 95 S.Ct. at 2261); United States v. Walker, 535 F.2d 896, 899 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 982, 97 S.Ct. 498, 50 L.Ed.2d 592 (1976) (“[W]e do not here hold that an illegal arrest can always be cured by a subsequent arrest based upon probable cause.”). Here, there is a very tight nexus between the seizure of the narcotics and Agent Hillin’s unconstitutional search. Indeed, Sheppard’s flight flowed directly from Agent Hillin’s search, and there was no untainted evidence upon which to base the subsequent search and seizure. Therefore, I would conclude that the seizure was not sufficiently attenuated.6
Under Wong Sun, Brown and their progeny, the seizure of narcotics from Sheppard’s vehicle was not sufficiently attenuated from Agent Hillin’s illegal search. Both intervening circumstances, the consent to search and flight, occurred within moments of the unconstitutional intrusion. Moreover, under all the facts and circumstances, the seizure was a product of Agent Hillin’s search. Thus, I respectfully dissent.

. The majority assumes, without deciding, that Agent Hillin’s insertion of his head within Sheppard’s vehicle constituted a Fourth Amendment violation. Because I would find no attenuation, I briefly address this issue.
It is undisputed that vehicle searches at permanent checkpoints, such as Sierra Blanca, must be based upon probable cause. United States v. Jackson, 825 F.2d 853, 860-61 (5th Cir.1987) (en banc), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 1011, 108 S.Ct. 711, 98 L.Ed.2d 661 (1988). In the instant case, the majority correctly notes that Agent Hillin had neither probable cause nor articulable suspicion. Thus, the question boils down to whether Agent Hillin’s placing his head within Sheppard’s vehicle (and detecting the scent of marihuana) was a search. I have no trouble concluding it was.
Under our jurisprudence, agents may peer into a vehicle from the outside without violating the Fourth Amendment. Texas v. Brown, 460 U.S. 730, 103 S.Ct. 1535, 75 L.Ed.2d 502 (1983) (“There is no legitimate expectation of privacy ... shielding that portion of the interior of an automobile which may be viewed from outside the vehicle by either inquisitive passerby or diligent police officer.”). Agents may employ their olfactory faculties as well. United States v. Martinez-Miramontes, 494 F.2d 808 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 419 U.S. 897, 95 S.Ct. 176, 42 L.Ed.2d 141 (1974); United States v. Marshall, 878 F.2d 161 (5th Cir.1989). However, the Supreme Court has held that “a car’s interior as a whole is nonetheless subject to Fourth Amendment protection” and even a minor "intrusion in that space constitute^] a ‘search.’ ” New York v. Class, 475 U.S. 106, 114-15, 106 S.Ct. 960, 965-66, 89 L.Ed.2d 81 (1986). Thus, where an officer "could obtain the view only by leaning into the car," a search has occurred. W. LaFave, Search and Seizure: A Treatise on the Fourth Amendment § 2.5(c) (1987 & Supp.1990) (emphasis in original). Here, Agent Hillin detected the scent of marihuana only after intruding within the interior of Sheppard’s vehicle. Under Class, a search occurred.

. In choosing between conflicting precedents, the older rule is presumptively correct. That presumption is rebutted where an intervening decision of the Supreme Court casts doubt on the earlier opinion. Alcorn County v. U.S. Interstate Supplies, 731 F.2d 1160, 1166 (5th Cir.1984).

. Agent Hillin’s testimony at the suppression hearing revealed the frequency of his fourth amendment violations:
Q. What is the purpose of sticking your head in the window to determine citizenship, sir?
A. Establishing eye contact with who I am talking to. I like to look at who I am talking to and be looked at by that person.
Q. Would that help you to determine citizenship, by sticking your head in the window of an automobile?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Do you do that to all automobiles?
A. Yes, sir.

. Moreover, in Wong Sun, the subsequent seizure of narcotics, later in the day at the home of Yee, was even more attenuated than the statements of Toy. Yet, the Court concluded that narcotics were not "purged of the primary taint.” Id. 371 U.S. at 488, 83 S.Ct. at 417.

. Similarly, in United States v. Garcia, 516 F.2d 318, 320 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 423 U.S. 934, 96 S.Ct. 290, 46 L.Ed.2d 265 (1975), the flight, "[t]ogether with the other untainted evidence known to the officer," provided sufficient attenuation.

. The remaining cases cited by the majority are easily distinguishable. United States v. Walker, 535 F.2d 896 (5th Cir.1976) and United States v. Garcia-Jordan, 860 F.2d 159 (5th Cir.1988), are not even cases involving flight. United States v. Bailey, 691 F.2d 1009, 1019 n. 12 (11th Cir.1982), cert. denied, 461 U.S. 933, 103 S.Ct. 2098, 77 L.Ed.2d 306 (1983), specifically limits its holding to cases where the defendant's subsequent conduct constitutes a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 111. Here, unlike Bailey, the Government does not contend that Sheppard forcibly resisted arrest in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 111.