Also known as: attenuation exceptions · attenuated exception · attenuation doctrine · fruit of the poisonous tree exception
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
An exception to the exclusionary rule that permits admission of evidence obtained after unconstitutional police conduct when the causal connection between the illegality and the evidence has become sufficiently remote. The doctrine examines temporal proximity between the misconduct and the discovery of evidence, the presence of intervening circumstances, and the purpose and flagrancy of the official misconduct.
Officer Lang stopped Devin on a pier without reasonable suspicion. Running Devin's identification revealed a preexisting valid arrest warrant from another jurisdiction. Lang arrested Devin on the warrant and found narcotics in a duffle bag during the search incident to arrest. The valid warrant served as an intervening circumstance that broke the causal chain despite the brief time between the stop and the search.
Officers arrested Brown without probable cause and took him to the station. Brown received Miranda warnings and made incriminating statements several hours later. The statements were offered at trial. The absence of any significant intervening event and the close temporal link left the taint of the unlawful arrest intact.
On May 13, 1968, Chicago police detectives William Nolan and William Lenz broke into petitioner Richard Brown's apartment without a warrant or probable cause, searched it, and waited inside. When Brown arrived around 7:45 p.m. and climbed the rear stairs, the detectives arrested him at gunpoint after one positioned himself at the rear door window and the other approached from behind. The detectives had obtained Brown's name from the brother of murder victim Roger Corpus, killed one week earlier on May 6 with a .38-caliber revolver, but had identified him only as an acquaintance and lacked probable cause for arrest. They transported Brown to the Maxwell Street police station. At the station, after obtaining the Corpus homicide file, the detectives gave Brown Miranda warnings around 8:45 p.m. and questioned him for twenty to twenty-five minutes. Brown signed a two-page statement acknowledging that he and Jimmy Claggett had visited Corpus on May 5, that Claggett ordered Brown at gunpoint to bind Corpus, and that Claggett shot Corpus three times with a revolver Brown had sold him. The detectives and Brown then searched for Claggett, arrested him around 12:15 a.m., and returned to the station. Brown remained at the station and at 2 a.m. spoke with Assistant State's Attorney Crilly, who again administered Miranda warnings. Brown gave a second statement around 3 a.m. that was substantially consistent with the first but contained inaccuracies about his employment and education; he refused to sign it. Brown made a phone call to his mother at 4 a.m. and was taken before a magistrate at 9:30 a.m., approximately fourteen hours after arrest. Brown and Claggett were indicted on June 20, 1968. The trial court denied Brown's motion to suppress the statements after a hearing. At trial the State introduced evidence of both statements through Detective Nolan's testimony and the reading of the second statement to the jury. Brown was convicted of murder and sentenced to fifteen to thirty years' imprisonment. The Illinois Supreme Court affirmed the conviction.
View caseOfficer Fackrell stopped Strieff on the street without reasonable suspicion. A records check revealed an outstanding arrest warrant unrelated to the stop. Fackrell arrested Strieff on the warrant and discovered drugs during the ensuing search. The preexisting warrant constituted an intervening circumstance that attenuated the taint of the initial stop.
In December 2006, an anonymous tipster contacted the South Salt Lake City police department's drug-tip line to report narcotics activity at a particular residence, specifying that the activity involved a white male and providing a physical description of the man and his car. Detective Douglas Fackrell was assigned to investigate the tip and conducted intermittent surveillance of the home over the course of about a week. During this period, Fackrell observed visitors who would frequently enter the residence and leave after short periods of time, a pattern consistent with drug dealing in his experience. One of the visitors was Edward Strieff. Officer Fackrell observed Strieff exit the house and walk toward a nearby convenience store. In the store's parking lot, Fackrell detained Strieff without reasonable suspicion, identified himself as a police officer, and asked what Strieff was doing at the residence. As part of the stop, Fackrell requested Strieff's identification, and Strieff produced his Utah identification card. Fackrell relayed the information to a police dispatcher, who reported that Strieff had an outstanding arrest warrant for a traffic violation. Fackrell arrested Strieff pursuant to the warrant. When Fackrell searched Strieff incident to the arrest, he discovered a baggie of methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia. The State of Utah charged Strieff with unlawful possession of a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia. Strieff moved to suppress the evidence, arguing that it was obtained by exploitation of an unlawful investigatory stop. The trial court denied the motion to suppress. The Utah Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court's denial of the suppression motion. The Utah Supreme Court reversed. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari.
View caseCourts weigh temporal proximity between the unconstitutional conduct and the discovery of evidence, the presence of intervening circumstances, and the purpose and flagrancy of the official misconduct. Purposeful or flagrant misconduct weighs strongly against attenuation.
Supporting sources
No. The warrant must be valid, preexisting, and unconnected to the stop. The officer's conduct must also be at most negligent rather than purposeful or flagrant. When those conditions are met the warrant functions as an intervening circumstance that breaks the causal chain.
Supporting sources
Close temporal proximity between the illegality and the discovery of evidence weighs against attenuation. It is only one factor, however, and can be outweighed by a strong intervening circumstance such as a valid preexisting warrant combined with non-flagrant police conduct.
Supporting sources
…of this statement could be allowed only by overruling Wong Sun rests either on an overly restrictive interpretation of the attenuation doctrine, to which I cannot subscribe, or on its view that the arrest was made for investigatory purposes, a factual determination that I think more appropriately should have been left for decision…