Court Opinion

ID: 9496452
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:27:12.563543+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:57:35.543399
License: Public Domain

MOORE, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
On May 2, 2000, police officers approached an apartment where the defendant Stephen Akridge was living together with Kevin Ellison and Tiffany Stewart. The police flatly and repeatedly lied to Akridge to persuade him to let them search the apartment, rendering the search undisputedly unconstitutional. In the illegal search, the police seized significant quantities of crack and marijuana, as well as several firearms. On June 20, 2000, Ellison, Stewart, and Akridge were arrested and charged. One week later, on June 27, 2000, Stewart entered into a plea agreement with the government. Akridge and Ellison both moved to suppress the search. While their motion was pending, however, Ellison entered into a plea agreement with the government in October of 2000, waiving the suppression issue and leaving Akridge to litigate it on his own. Eventually, on January 22, 2001, the district court ordered the physical fruits of the search suppressed. Without this physical evidence being directly admissible, the prosecution used Ellison and Stewart to establish its existence indirectly, through testimony. On the basis of their testimony, Akridge was convicted.
The majority concludes that Ellison’s and Stewart’s testimony was admissible against Akridge, in spite of the 'fact that it was the fruit of the illegal search. It argues that their testimony was sufficiently “attenuated” from the illegal search as to fall within the exception to the fruit-of-the-poisonous-tree doctrine under United States v. Ceccolini, 435 U.S. 268, 98 S.Ct. 1054, 55 L.Ed.2d 268 (1978). After analysis, I must disagree.
Any discussion of the “attenuation” doctrine must begin with an analysis of Cec-colini itself. In Ceccolini, the FBI was investigating suspected gambling operations in New York. The defendant’s flower shop was one of the places under surveillance. One year after surveillance ended, a local police officer, Ronald Biro, spent his break casually talking with his friend Lois Hennessey, who was working at the shop. During the conversation, Biro picked up an envelope lying on the drawer of the cash register and discovered that it contained money and policy slips. Without telling Hennessey what he had seen, he asked her to whom the envelope belonged. Hennessey explained that it belonged to the defendant, Ralph Ceccolini. Biro mentioned this to another local detective, who passed it along to the FBI. Four months later, the FBI interviewed Hennessey at her home and asked for information regarding Ceccolini; the FBI did not mention the earlier incident with Biro at the flower shop. Hennessey, who was studying police science in.college, was eager to help. She related to the FBI the events that had occurred during her visit with Biro. When Ceccolini denied before a grand jury that he knew anything about any gambling operations, the government had Hennessey testify in Ceccolini’s resulting trial for perjury. The question in the case was whether Hennessey’s testimony was admissible, despite the fact that it was clearly, though remotely, derived from an admittedly illegal search — Biro’s improper seizure of the envelope and discussion with Hennessey.
The Supreme Court held that Hennes-sey’s later testimony was sufficiently attenuated from the initial illegal search as to be admissible on the basis of five considerations. Most significant to the Court *634was the fact that Hennessey’s decision to talk to the police (and later to testify) was not due to any leverage the police had over her by virtue of the illegal search. The Court stressed that “the illegality which led to the discovery of the witness very often will not play any meaningful part in the witness’ willingness to testify.” Id. at 277, 98 S.Ct. 1054. This was true in Hen-nessey’s case; her testimony, the Court held, was “in no way coerced or even induced by official authority as a result of Biro’s discovery of the policy slips.” Id. at 279, 98 S.Ct. 1054. The Court also emphasized, to a lesser degree, four other factors. First, the gambling slips were not used in questioning Hennessey. Second, four months passed between the illegal search and any subsequent contact with Hennessey, and over a year passed between the latter and Ceccolini’s trial. Third, the police knew of Hennessey’s relationship with Ceccolini before the illegal search. And lastly, there was no evidence that Biro conducted this illegal search in the attempt to find incriminating evidence. See United States v. McKinnon, 92 F.3d 244, 247 (4th Cir.1996) (using these factors), cert. denied, 519 U.S. 1099, 117 S.Ct. 784, 136 L.Ed.2d 726 (1997); United States v. Ienco, 182 F.3d 517, 530 (7th Cir.1999) (same).
Consideration of the Ceccolini factors in this case can lead to only one conclusion— that the testimonial evidence in this case must be suppressed. The first factor, the issue of free will, is the most fatal to the prosecution’s case. The majority argues that Ellison’s and Stewart’s testimony was not a product of any governmental coercion or inducement, but was a product of their own volition. I completely disagree. Ellison and Stewart had just been found with large quantities of drugs and several firearms; the statutory sentencing ceiling for the charges in their initial indictments was life in prison. The government offered Ellison and Stewart the following options in the form of a plea bargain: Testify against Akridge and receive a lighter sentence, or litigate the suppression issue and risk a significantly increased prison sentence. Ellison and Stewart chose the former. Although it is impossible to discern from the record just how much of a lighter sentence Ellison and Stewart received by virtue of their cooperation, it is clear that their sentences were significantly reduced.1 It therefore seems impossible to say that Ellison and Stewart were “in no way coerced or even induced by official authority as a result of [the illegal search].”2 Such a statement ignores the *635mutual consideration usually exchanged in plea agreements: the defendants receive lesser sentences and, in return, they testify for the prosecution.
Somehow, the majority refuses to acknowledge these basic facts, pointing to Ellison’s and Stewart’s affidavits. These affidavits state that Ellison’s and Stewart’s decisions to testify against Akridge were voluntary, that they wanted to turn their lives around and tell the truth. Of course, there is a gentle irony in these affidavits— namely that the government presumably required Ellison and Stewart to sign these affidavits under threat of revoking their plea agreements. But even assuming that Ellison and Stewart were cooperating in part because they wished to tell the truth, it is clear that they only wished to tell the truth to avoid the effects of the incriminating and illegal search. No one argues the implausible thesis that Ellison and Stewart would have told the truth had they never been found by the police in the illegal search.
Of course, Ellison’s and Stewart’s decision to plea bargain was “voluntary” in the sense that they did choose to plea bargain over their other alternatives. But that does not make their decision “voluntary” within the meaning of Ceccolini, under which we must differentiate between witnesses who testified of their own volition and those that testified because of inducement or coercion on the part of the government.3 Cf. United States v. Ramirez-Sandoval, 872 F.2d 1392, 1397 (9th Cir.1989) (noting that the key inquiry is whether the “witnesses would have come forward of their own volition to inform officials”). In Ceccolini the witness was a civic-minded citizen, “not a putative defendant,” Ceccolini, 435 U.S. at 275, 98 S.Ct. 1054, who studied police science and was eager to help the government. The government offered no benefit in return for her testimony, and threatened no detriment if she failed to provide it. Because her testimony was “in no way coerced or even induced by official authority as a result of [the illegal search],” id. at 279, 98 S.Ct. 1054, her subsequent testimony was considered attenuated. In contrast, the witnesses here were putative defendants, clearly induced (if not coerced) into testifying under the Damocles-like threat of additional years (or decades, in Ellison’s case) in prison. To say that these defendants acted “freely” is to strip all the meaning that the Supreme Court has attached to this phrase. Short of government agents forcing Stewart and Ellison to testify by threats of physical violence, I can think of no situation that would involve less free will than the one here. Accordingly, I find it unsurprising that other circuits have unflinchingly rejected the majority’s position.4
*636Although I believe this consideration so tilts in favor of the defendant that the “attenuation” doctrine is no longer applicable, considerations of the other Ceccolini factors also support suppression. First, in Ceccolini, “both the identity of Hennessey and her relationship with the [defendant] were well known to those investigating the case” before the illegal search. Ceccolini, 435 U.S. at 279, 98 S.Ct. 1054. Here, it was the opposite; while the police may have known about Ellison and Akridge separately, nothing even suggested that the two were linked until the police found them together in the illegal search — and the police did not even know Stewart existed at all. Second, in Ceccolini, the police never mentioned the earlier search in their subsequent interview with Hennessey and never referred to the illegally seized evidence. Id. at 272, 98 S.Ct. 1054 (noting that the investigator “did not specifically refer to the incident involving Officer Biro”). Here, Officer Cordell Malone seems to acknowledge that he brought up the initial illegal search with Ellison and Stewart, only testifying that he refrained from asking them leading questions about it. Finally, in Ceccolini, Biro entered the flower shop simply to talk with his friend and inadvertently noticed something he never should have seen. Although the search was unconstitutional, it was not done intentionally to find evidence of criminal wrongdoing; there was “not the slightest evidence to suggest that Biro entered the shop or picked up the envelope with the intent of finding tangible evidence bearing on an illicit gambling operation.” Id. at 279-80, 98 S.Ct. 1054. In this case, the search was designed to obtain evidence against the defendant — a point so obvious that the government does not bother to dispute it.
In conclusion, all of the Ceccolini factors point toward suppression of Ellison’s and Stewart’s testimony. With Akridge’s conviction, the prosecution has successfully managed to escape with the fruits of its *637poisonous search. What the government could not admit directly because of its flagrant constitutional violations, it has slipped through the back door. I respectfully dissent.

. Under their plea agreements, Stewart received a 12-month sentence while Ellison (who had a more extensive criminal history and was convicted of several additional charges) received a 115-month sentence. In contrast, Akridge received a 660-month sentence. Given the fact that Akridge had roughly the same role in the alleged offenses as Ellison and Stewart, and received a sentence fifty times more severe than Stewart (and five times more severe than Ellison, who had roughly the same criminal history as Akridge), it seems beyond dispute that Ellison and Stewart both received a significant reduction in prison time by entering into a plea arrangement with the government.

. Because Stewart was unknown as a suspected criminal to the police until the illegal search, all of the charges against her were based on evidence discovered in the illegal search. And although the police had found firearms and marijuana in another of Ellison’s residences over a year earlier, Ellison was also charged with several additional crimes as a result of the illegal search. As is explained below, it is therefore clear that the illegal search itself induced (if not coerced) both Ellison and Stewart into entering a plea agreement with the government.
While the majority emphasizes that the bare identities of Stewart and Ellison became known to the police before the unlawful *635search took place, the difference between knowing the identity of Akridge’s roommates and being able to charge them with crimes resulting in years in prison is, to say the least, significant.

. The majority claims that the position advocated here would lead to a per se rule that was rejected by Ceccolini and its progeny. This assertion fails to take account of the particular circumstances that make this case so clearly one in which the taint of illegality has not been attenuated. In no case cited by the majority where the taint has been held to be attenuated has the government's case against a testifying potential codefendant been so wholly and entirely a product of the illegal behavior. The position advocated here does not amount to a per se rule, but instead a recognition that when the free will of a witness has been so obviously affected by the discovery of adverse evidence in an illegal search, it will take an extremely strong showing in the other factors to shift the balance towards attenuation.

. In a case similar to the case at bar, the Seventh Circuit held that a putative defendant's decision to enter into a plea agreement *636that required him to testify against his code-fendant was not "free” because his only options were "testifying against [his codefendant] for a lighter sentence or going to trial where tainted and incriminating evidence would be used against him.” United States v. Ienco, 182 F.3d 517, 530 (7th Cir.1999). This could not be a free choice, the court stressed, as "his actions appear dictated by his own precarious legal situation a circumstance forged by the illegal arrest and search.” Id.
Similarly, in United States v. Padilla, 960 F.2d 854 (9th Cir.1992), rev'd on other grounds, 508 U.S. 77, 113 S.Ct. 1936, 123 L.Ed.2d 635 (1993), Luis Arciniega had been illegally stopped and found with hundreds of pounds of cocaine in his car. Arciniega confessed that he was a drug mule and led the police to the heads of the criminal enterprise, including Xavier Padilla. At Padilla's trial, the government argued that Arciniega’s testimony was sufficiently attenuated from the illegal stop. The Ninth Circuit flatly rejected the government's argument that Arciniega was testifying of his own free will, recognizing "the heavy weight upon a man’s shoulders who has just been arrested with hundreds of pounds of drugs in the car he was driving.” Id. at 862.
While the majority attempts to distinguish Padilla and lenco by asserting that the timing of the witnesses’ cooperation is key in determining their free will, it cannot point to any similar case where the testimony of cocon-spirators under threat of prosecution based primarily or exclusively on evidence seized in an illegal search has been held to be sufficiently attenuated. That Stewart and Ellison surrendered more quickly to prosecutorial pressure than their cognates in Padilla and lenco does not serve to demonstrate their free will, but perhaps even more clearly their lack of it.
One commentator, noting the practice of the federal courts generally, remarked that when it "appear[s] that the witness has been pressured and that the pressure is a consequence of the prior Fourth Amendment violation ... a finding of attenuation is unlikely to be justified.” Wayne R. LaFave, 5 Search And Seizure: A Treatise On The Fourth Amendment § 11.4 (3d ed.1996).