fruit of the poisonous tree rule

On December 24, 1968, ten-year-old Pamela Powers disappeared from a YMCA building in Des Moines, Iowa, where she had accompanied her parents to watch an athletic contest. Williams was seen leaving the YMCA carrying a large bundle wrapped in a blanket. A fourteen-year-old boy who helped open his car door reported seeing two skinny white legs inside it. Williams' car was found the next day 160 miles east in Davenport, Iowa. Items of the child's clothing along with an army blanket were recovered at a rest stop on Interstate 80 near Grinnell between Des Moines and Davenport. A warrant issued for Williams' arrest. On December 26 the Iowa Bureau of Criminal Investigation organized a search with two hundred volunteers divided into teams that began twenty-one miles east of Grinnell and moved westward through Poweshiek County into Jasper County. Searchers checked all roads, ditches, culverts, abandoned farm buildings, and other places where a small child's body could be hidden. The search area was marked off in grids on highway maps. Williams surrendered to police in Davenport and was arraigned. After his attorneys arranged for no questioning during transport, two Des Moines detectives took him into custody for the return drive. During the trip Detective Leaming spoke to Williams about predicted snow and the parents' right to a Christian burial. Williams then directed the officers to the child's shoes, the blanket, and ultimately the body itself. The body lay next to a culvert in a ditch beside a gravel road in Polk County. It was roughly two and one-half miles from where one search team had stopped when the search was suspended at 3 p.m. Williams was indicted for first-degree murder. At his first trial the evidence of the body was admitted over objection. He was convicted. The Iowa Supreme Court affirmed. The United States Supreme Court reversed in Brewer v. Williams on the ground that the statements were obtained in violation of the Sixth Amendment right to counsel. At the second trial in 1977 the prosecution introduced evidence of the condition of the body, articles and photographs of clothing, and autopsy results without offering Williams' statements or showing that he had directed police to the body. The trial court found by a preponderance of the evidence that the body would have been discovered within a short time in essentially the same condition by the continuing search. The Iowa Supreme Court affirmed. On federal habeas corpus the District Court denied relief after an independent review. The Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit reversed. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.

Police officers obtained a search warrant authorizing a search for drugs and firearms at the home of petitioner Booker T. Hudson in Michigan. Upon arriving to execute the warrant, the officers knocked on the door and announced their presence. They waited only three to five seconds before turning the knob of the unlocked front door and entering Hudson's home. Inside the residence, officers discovered large quantities of drugs, including cocaine rocks in Hudson's pocket, and a loaded gun lodged between the cushion and armrest of the chair in which he was sitting. Hudson was charged under Michigan law with unlawful drug and firearm possession. He moved to suppress all the inculpatory evidence, arguing that the officers' premature entry violated his rights. The Michigan trial court granted the motion to suppress. On interlocutory review, the Michigan Court of Appeals reversed that ruling, and the Michigan Supreme Court denied leave to appeal. Hudson was subsequently convicted of the possession charges. He renewed his suppression claim on appeal, but the Michigan Court of Appeals rejected it and affirmed the conviction. The Michigan Supreme Court again declined review. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari to consider the case.

In 2008 defendant William White, leader of the American National Socialist Workers Party, operated the website Overthrow.com. On September 11, 2008, White posted an article titled "Hale Seeks To Have Sentence Overturned" with the sub-headline "Gay Jewish Anti-Racist Led Jury." The post included a photograph of Mark Hoffman, who had served as foreperson on the jury that convicted Matthew Hale in 2004, along with Hoffman's date of birth, address at 6915 Hamilton #A Chicago IL 60645, cell phone number, home phone number, and office number, and described Hoffman as living with his "gay black lover" and cat "homeboy." The posts appeared the same day a Chicago Sun-Times article discussed Hale's post-conviction motion challenging Hoffman's jury service on grounds including Hoffman's sexual orientation and race of his partner. White posted a virtually identical version on the blog section of the site and, after Northwestern University removed Hoffman's photo, posted an update the next day noting the block and repeating the same personal information. The site at the time also displayed links to other articles including one titled "Kill Richard Warman" and a magazine cover image showing crosshairs over Barack Obama's head titled "Kill This Nigger?" Hoffman received a harassing phone call from a Virginia number on September 11, 2008, asking about his jury service, followed by text messages containing offensive content. Hoffman contacted Northwestern security and FBI Agent Sara Lopez. FBI agents later executed search warrants at properties associated with White in Roanoke, Virginia, seizing the server used to run Overthrow.com and confirming through forensic analysis that White created the Hoffman posts. The government charged White with one count of violating 18 U.S.C. § 373 by soliciting or endeavoring to persuade another person to injure Hoffman based on his jury service in the Hale case. A prior district judge dismissed the superseding indictment, the Seventh Circuit reversed and remanded for trial, and an anonymous jury returned a guilty verdict. White moved for judgment of acquittal under Fed. R. Crim. P. 29. At trial the evidence revealed that all of the information in the posts was in the public domain. Former ANSWP members Philip Anderson and Michael Burks testified about the organization's structure, conference calls, and their interactions with White, including White's post-arrest instructions to Anderson to contact other white supremacists to determine whether anyone planned to harm Hoffman. The government introduced dozens of prior Overthrow.com posts in which White had published addresses and expressed violent wishes toward other individuals.

Petitioners Alderman and Alderisio, along with Ruby Kolod (now deceased), were convicted in federal court of conspiring to transmit murderous threats in interstate commerce under 18 U.S.C. §§ 371 and 875(c). Their convictions were affirmed by the Tenth Circuit in 1967, and the Supreme Court initially denied certiorari. After denial, the petitioners alleged in a rehearing petition that Alderisio's Chicago business premises had been subjected to government electronic surveillance. The government responded by acknowledging that Alderisio's conversations had been overheard through unlawful eavesdropping. Petitioners Ivanov and Butenko were convicted in separate proceedings of conspiring to transmit national defense information to the Soviet Union under 18 U.S.C. §§ 794(a) and (c) and related charges under 18 U.S.C. § 951. The Third Circuit affirmed most convictions. Following the Alderman rehearing developments, certiorari was granted in Ivanov and Butenko on parallel questions concerning surveillance. After the convictions were affirmed and while the cases were pending, it was revealed that the United States had engaged in electronic surveillance that might have violated Fourth Amendment rights and tainted the convictions. The Supreme Court vacated the judgments and remanded each case to the District Court for adjudication of whether any government evidence supporting the convictions was the product of illegal surveillance. The government moved for modification of the remand order, proposing that surveillance records first undergo in camera inspection by the trial judge, who would disclose to petitioners and counsel only those materials found arguably relevant to the prosecution. Petitioners opposed the in camera procedure and sought full disclosure of all surveillance records to which they claimed standing. The government maintained that none of the overheard conversations were arguably relevant to the prosecutions and that disclosure of irrelevant conversations would endanger third parties or national security. The Supreme Court restored the cases for reargument specifically on the disclosure issue and the question of standing to object to the fruits of illegal surveillance.