Also known as: intervening circumstances · intervening cause
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
A subsequent event that dissipates the taint of prior unconstitutional police action under the attenuation doctrine. Courts assess whether the event sufficiently severs the causal link between the illegality and later discovered evidence so that suppression is unwarranted.
Officer Jones unlawfully detained Israel Irving on a hunch near a suspected drug house. A routine warrant check immediately revealed an outstanding arrest warrant for an unrelated traffic matter. The officer arrested Irving on the warrant and found drugs during the search incident to arrest. The preexisting warrant operated as an intervening circumstance that attenuated the taint of the illegal stop.
After an unlawful detention of nurse Lynne at Coastal Therapeutics, two days passed without further police contact. Lynne then appeared at the station with counsel and voluntarily surrendered records and passwords. Her independent, counseled decision constituted an intervening circumstance that dissipated any taint from the earlier detention.
Police stopped Igor Ito without reasonable suspicion outside an apartment building. Moments later a warrant check disclosed a valid preexisting arrest warrant for a minor offense. The officer arrested Ito on the warrant and recovered methamphetamine during the ensuing search. The warrant discovery served as the intervening circumstance that rendered the evidence admissible.
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 caseIsaiah Ishikawa rejected a favorable plea offer on counsel's deficient advice. Before trial the prosecution uncovered new DNA evidence linking Ishikawa to the crime. The emergence of that evidence functioned as an intervening circumstance that would have caused the prosecutor to withdraw the original offer.
On the evening of March 25, 2003, Anthony Cooper pointed a gun at Kali Mundy's head and fired. Mundy fled and Cooper pursued, firing repeatedly. Mundy was shot in the buttock, hip, and abdomen but survived. Cooper was charged in Michigan state court with assault with intent to murder, possession of a firearm by a felon, possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony, misdemeanor possession of marijuana, and habitual-offender status. The prosecution twice offered to dismiss two charges and recommend a sentence of 51 to 85 months on the remaining counts in exchange for a guilty plea. Cooper communicated to the court that he was guilty and willing to accept the offer. He rejected it on both occasions after his attorney advised that the prosecution could not prove intent to murder because the shots struck below the waist. On the first day of trial the prosecution extended a significantly less favorable plea offer that Cooper also rejected. After a jury trial Cooper was convicted on all counts and received a mandatory minimum sentence of 185 to 360 months. At a Ginther hearing the state trial court rejected Cooper's claim that his attorney's advice to reject the plea constituted ineffective assistance. The Michigan Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that Cooper knowingly and intelligently rejected the offers and chose to go to trial. The Michigan Supreme Court denied leave to appeal. Cooper filed a federal habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. The district court found that the Michigan Court of Appeals had unreasonably applied Strickland and Hill, granted a conditional writ, and ordered specific performance of the original plea agreement. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.
View caseImani Idowu received ineffective assistance when counsel failed to communicate a plea offer. Before any acceptance could occur, the victim recanted key testimony. That recantation counted as an intervening circumstance that would have led the court to reject the original plea agreement.
In August 2007, the State of Missouri charged Galin Frye with driving with a revoked license as a class D felony based on his three prior convictions for the same offense. On November 15, 2007, the prosecutor sent Frye’s counsel a letter containing two plea offers that would expire on December 28. One offer recommended a three-year sentence on the felony charge with ten days of shock time in jail. The other offered to reduce the charge to a misdemeanor and recommend a ninety-day sentence. Frye’s attorney did not inform him of either offer, and both expired without response. On December 30, 2007, Frye was arrested again for driving with a revoked license. At a January 4, 2008 preliminary hearing, Frye waived his right to a hearing on the original charge and later entered a guilty plea to the felony without any plea agreement. The trial court sentenced him to three years in prison. Frye sought postconviction relief in state court, claiming his counsel provided ineffective assistance by failing to communicate the plea offers. At an evidentiary hearing, Frye testified that he would have pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor if he had known of the offer. A state court denied relief, but the Missouri Court of Appeals reversed that decision. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the case.
View caseOfficers arrested Isabella Ingram without probable cause and transported her to the station. Several hours later they administered Miranda warnings and obtained a confession. The passage of time combined with the warnings operated as intervening circumstances that attenuated the taint of the unlawful arrest.
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 caseCourts weigh temporal proximity between the illegality and the evidence, the presence of intervening circumstances, and the purpose and flagrancy of the official misconduct. A valid preexisting arrest warrant discovered during an unlawful stop strongly favors admissibility when the officer's conduct was merely negligent.
Supporting sources
Yes. When a suspect independently appears at the station with counsel days after an unlawful detention and voluntarily produces records, that counseled choice severs the causal chain and renders the evidence admissible.
Supporting sources
Purposeful or flagrant misconduct weighs heavily in favor of exclusion even when an intervening event occurs. Negligent errors, by contrast, are more readily attenuated by a later lawful event such as the discovery of a valid warrant.
Supporting sources
…So in most instances it should not be difficult to make an objective assessment as to whether or not a particular fact or intervening circumstance would suffice, in the normal course, to cause prosecutorial withdrawal or judicial nonapproval of a plea bargain. The determination that there is or is not a reasonable probability that the…