Also known as: fruit of an unlawful search · fruit of an unlawful arrest · fruit of the poisonous tree
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
An evidentiary doctrine that bars admission of evidence obtained by exploiting an initial constitutional violation. The doctrine reaches both direct products of the illegality and any later evidence causally derived from it unless the taint is purged by an independent source, inevitable discovery, or sufficient attenuation.
Cultural heritage officers planted a hidden listening device in Ortiz Gallery LLC's back office without a warrant and overheard Lena Ortiz discussing a storage facility. They used that information to obtain a warrant and recover stolen paintings. The court suppressed the paintings because the warrant and resulting seizure flowed directly from the unlawful surveillance.
Coast Guard officers unlawfully searched Captain Luis Rivera's cabin and found a log of rendezvous coordinates. Agents later obtained the same coordinates through an independent radar tip received weeks earlier and used that tip alone to locate and seize narcotics. The court admitted the contraband because the independent source severed any causal link to the initial illegality.
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An officer conducted a lawful Terry stop of Frederick Ferguson based on reasonable suspicion and discovered a weapon during a protective frisk. Using information from that weapon, officers later obtained a warrant to search Ferguson's home and recovered additional contraband. The court admitted the home evidence because the initial frisk was constitutional and supplied no poisonous taint.
Detectives questioned Freya Freeman without Miranda warnings and learned the location of a child's body. Search teams already following a grid pattern based on prior tips would have reached the same location within hours. The court admitted evidence of the body's condition under the inevitable-discovery exception even though the questioning was unlawful.
Federal agents conducted an unlawful wiretap of conversations involving Faith Fitzgerald. The recordings led to evidence used against Farid Farahani at trial. Farahani moved to suppress the evidence as fruit of the unlawful tap. The court denied the motion because Farahani lacked standing to challenge the violation of Fitzgerald's rights.
Officers interrogated Faye Fuller without warnings and obtained a statement that led them to a hidden firearm. The court suppressed both the statement and the firearm recovered through it because the unwarned interrogation violated Miranda and the gun was derivative evidence obtained by exploiting that violation.
No. The doctrine also requires suppression of evidence later obtained by exploiting the initial illegality unless an exception such as independent source, inevitable discovery, or attenuation applies.
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Courts consider the temporal proximity between the illegality and the acquisition of evidence, the presence of intervening circumstances, and the purpose and flagrancy of the official misconduct.
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No. An in-court identification is not excluded merely because the defendant's presence at a lineup resulted from an illegal arrest.
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No. When the warrant affidavit relies on information obtained through an unlawful search, the warrant and its fruits remain tainted unless an independent source supports probable cause.
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…their outer clothing and discovered a pistol on Terry. The Ohio courts rejected Terry’s motion to suppress the weapon as the fruit of an unlawful search. The Supreme Court granted certiorari. Held: The Fourth Amendment permits a reasonable search for weapons when an officer has reasonable suspicion that a person is armed and presently…