Court Opinion

ID: 9546208
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:26:10.366069+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:16:08.506136
License: Public Domain

QUINN, Justice,
dissenting in part:
I dissent in People v. District Court of the Second Judicial District (No. 84SA322) from that part of the court’s opinion which directs the respondent court to make additional findings with respect to the defendant’s motion to suppress verbal evidence. The respondent court, in my view, correctly determined that the governmental acquisition of testimonial evidence from two persons, Bernardo Hernandez and Miguel Perez, was the direct fruit of the police officers’ unconstitutional entry into the defendant’s home for the purpose of effectuating the defendant’s warrantless arrest inside the home. I see no need for further findings, nor is there any reason to take additional evidence, under the circumstances disclosed by the record.
I.
The testimony at the suppression hearing established the following sequence of events. Officer Johns, acting under the direction of Detective Lopez, went with two other officers to an apartment building at 2860 West 32nd Avenue in Denver, Colorado, for the purpose of making a warrant-less arrest of the defendant, Martin Zamora, and transporting him and all other persons in the apartment to police headquarters. When the officers arrived at the apartment building they went to apartment number 301, where Zamora lived, and were admitted into the apartment. Once inside, the officers observed that there were five other persons in apartment 301. They asked each person for identification. Upon receiving identification from Zamora, they handcuffed him and transported him and the other five persons, including Bernardo Hernandez and Miguel Perez, to police headquarters. Statements incriminating Zamora were ultimately taken from Hernandez and Perez after they were subjected to custodial interrogation at the station-house.
The respondent court, after making findings of fact essentially in accord with the above sequence of events, suppressed the trial testimony of Hernandez and Perez during the prosecution’s case in chief. It ruled as follows: that the warrantless arrest of the defendant inside his home was in violation of the Fourth Amendment; that the governmental acquisition of the verbal evidence from Hernandez and Perez *300was the result of the exploitation of the defendant’s illegal arrest; that the challenged evidence did not originate in a source independent of the Fourth Amendment violation; and that the verbal evidence would not have been inevitably discovered by the police. Because the court’s findings are adequately supported by the record and because the court employed the correct legal standards in resolving the suppression issue, I am unable to discern any basis in fact or law to require further proceedings on this matter.
II.
In Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963), the Supreme Court held that, as in the case of tangible objects, visual observations and verbal evidence are no less within the scope of the exclusionary rule when acquired as the result of a Fourth Amendment violation:
The exclusionary rule has traditionally barred from trial physical, tangible materials obtained either during or as a direct result of an unlawful invasion. It follows from our holding in Silverman v. United States, 365 U.S. 505 [81 S.Ct. 679, 5 L.Ed.2d 734 (1961)], that the Fourth Amendment may protect against the overhearing of verbal statements as well as against the more traditional seizure of “papers and effects.” Similarly, testimony as to matters observed during an unlawful invasion has been excluded in order to enforce the basic constitutional policies. McGinnis v. United States, 227 F.2d 598 [ (1st Cir.1955) ]. Thus, 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.
371 U.S. at 485, 83 S.Ct. at 416. The appropriate question in such a case is whether, granting the establishment of the primary illegality, the challenged evidence has been acquired by the exploitation of the illegality or, instead, by means sufficiently distinguishable to be purged of the primary taint. E.g., Wong Sun, 371 U.S. at 488, 83 S.Ct. at 417; People v. Hogan, 649 P.2d 326, 332 (Colo.1982).
In United States v. Ceccolini, 435 U.S. 268, 276-78, 98 S.Ct. 1054, 1060-61, 55 L.Ed.2d 268 (1978), the Supreme Court, while reaffirming the basic principles of Wong Sun, noted that there is less reason to invoke the exclusionary sanction when the constitutional challenge is to live-witness testimony than there is in the case of an inanimate object. As stated by the Court:
Witnesses are not like guns or documents which remain hidden from view until one turns over a sofa or opens a filing cabinet. Witnesses can, and often do, come forward and offer evidence entirely of their own volition. And evaluated properly, the degree of free will necessary to dissipate the taint will very likely be found more often in the case of live-witness testimony than other kinds of evidence. The time, place and manner of the initial questioning of the witness may be such that any statements are truly the product of detached reflection and a desire to be cooperative on the part of the witness. And the illegality which led to the discovery of the witness very often will not play any meaningful part in the witness’ willingness to testify.
* * * * He *
Another factor which not only is relevant in determining the usefulness of the exclusionary rule in a particular context, but also seems to us to differentiate the testimony of all live witnesses — even putative defendants — from the exclusion of the typical documentary evidence, is that such exclusion would perpetually disable a witness from testifying about relevant and material facts, regardless of how unrelated such testimony might be to the purpose of the originally illegal search or the evidence discovered thereby.
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In short, since the cost of excluding live-witness testimony often will be greater, *301a closer, more direct link between the illegality and that kind of testimony is required.
In holding that there was sufficient attenuation between an alleged search of an envelope belonging to Ceccolini and the governmental acquisition of the trial testimony of a witness, the Supreme Court focused on the following factors: (1) the degree of free will exercised by the witness in providing information to the law enforcement officers; (2) the proximity or remoteness between the illegal search and the initial contact with the witness and the acquisition of testimonial evidence; (3) prior knowledge on the part of law enforcement officers of the identity of the witness and the witness’ relationship to the accused; (4) the culpability and wrongful intent, if any, of the officers in conducting the illegal search; and (5) the deterrent effect which the exclusionary rule would have on the behavior of law enforcement officers in similar circumstances. 435 U.S. at 279-80, 98 S.Ct. at 1061-62.
III.
The record in this case fully supports the conclusion that the government’s acquisition of the challenged evidence was the fruit of the unconstitutional entry into the defendant’s home and did not originate in some untainted and independent source. The officers’ entry into the apartment was not based on exigent circumstances, was for the specific purpose of making a war-rantless arrest of the defendant inside his home, and, as the majority concedes, was an obvious violation of the defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights. In terms of intrusiveness, the entry was different only in degree, but not in kind, from a warrant-less entry into a home in order to search. Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 589, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 1381, 63 L.Ed.2d 639 (1980). It was this unlawful entry that led directly to the officers’ observation of the five other persons inside the apartment, which observation in turn resulted in the immediate confinement and interrogation of the occupants and eventually in the governmental acquisition of verbal statements and prospective testimony from Hernandez and Perez.
That the officers may also have illegally arrested the five occupants inside the apartment does not undo the fact that the source of that illegality was the entry into the defendant’s apartment in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The concomitant violation of the constitutional rights of all the occupants of the apartment serves only to highlight the scope and breadth of the unlawful police conduct. Irrespective of whether the officers would have arrested the five other occupants in the event the defendant had not been present in the apartment, the irrefutable facts are that the defendant was present in the apartment, that his Fourth Amendment rights were violated by the officers’ entry into the apartment, that'the officers observed the five other occupants inside the apartment as the direct and immediate result of the illegal entry, that the five occupants were taken into police custody, and that statements incriminating the defendant were obtained from Hernandez and Perez during custodial interrogation.
The record further supports the conclusion that the verbal evidence obtained from Hernandez and Perez would not have been inevitably discovered by the police. Once a Fourth Amendment violation is established, the burden is on the prosecution to establish by a preponderance of the evidence that the challenged evidence would have inevitably been discovered by lawful means. Nix v. Williams, — U.S. -, 104 S.Ct. 2501, 2509-10, 81 L.Ed.2d 377 (1984). It would be utter speculation to infer that, had not the unlawful entry been made into the defendant’s apartment, Officer Johns and the two other officers would somehow have come upon Hernandez and Perez by lawful means and obtained the very same evidence which the trial court suppressed as the product of their illegal actions. The respondent court declined to engage in such speculation in its ruling and properly so.
The only remaining question is whether the respondent court properly resolved the *302issue of attenuation in accordance with controlling constitutional precedent. Given the short and straight line between the officers’ violation of the defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights and the acquisition of verbal evidence from Hernandez and Perez, I am satisfied that the respondent court properly concluded that there were no intervening events sufficient to purge the verbal evidence of initial illegali-* ty. Both Hernandez and Perez were interrogated at the stationhouse under somewhat coercive circumstances, with little opportunity for the exercise of their free will in divulging information to the police. See Ceccolini, 435 U.S. at 276, 98 S.Ct. at 1060; Wong Sun, 371 U.S. at 486, 83 S.Ct. at 416. Moreover, there is nothing of record indicating that the identity of these witnesses was known to law enforcement officers prior to the illegal arrest. See Ceccolini, 435 U.S. at 279, 98 S.Ct. at 1061; Wong Sun, 371 U.S. at 487-88, 83 S.Ct. at 417-18. Finally, the trial court expressly found that the mass arrest of both the defendant and the five other persons originated in Detective Lopez’ “hunch” that he could thereby obtain more information about the case. Where, as here, an illegal entry and arrest were effectuated for the specific purpose of discovering potential witnesses and under circumstances manifesting an extreme indifference to basic constitutional rights, application of a broader exclusionary sanction to live-witness testimony than might otherwise be the case is warranted. See Ceccolini, 435 U.S. at 276 n. 4, 98 S.Ct. at 1060 n. 4. In short, the respondent court’s resolution of the suppression issue was in accord with recognized attenuation analysis.
I would simply discharge the rule to show cause in People v. District Court of the Second Judicial District and would not require additional findings on the suppression issue.
I am authorized to say that DUBOFSKY and NEIGHBORS, JJ., join me in this dissent.