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Utah v. Strieff

Supreme Court of the United States · 2016 · Criminal Procedure

Criminal ProcedureFourth Amendmentexclusionary ruleattenuation doctrineoutstanding warrantFourth Amendmentexclusionary rulefruit of the poisonous tree

Facts

After an anonymous tip reporting narcotics activity at a residence, Officer Fackrell conducted intermittent surveillance for about a week and became suspicious based on frequent short visits. He saw Edward Strieff leave the house, detained him in a nearby parking lot, requested identification, and learned through dispatch that Strieff had an outstanding arrest warrant for a traffic violation. Fackrell then arrested Strieff on the warrant and, during a search incident to arrest, found methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia. At the suppression hearing, the State conceded the initial stop lacked reasonable suspicion but argued that the valid warrant attenuated the connection between the unlawful stop and the seized evidence.

Issue

Whether evidence seized during a search incident to arrest is admissible when an officer unlawfully stops a suspect, discovers during the stop that the suspect is subject to a valid pre-existing arrest warrant, and then arrests and searches the suspect pursuant to that warrant. More specifically, the question is whether the attenuation doctrine applies in that circumstance.

Rule

Under the attenuation doctrine, evidence discovered after unconstitutional police conduct is admissible when the connection between the unconstitutional conduct and the discovery of the evidence is sufficiently attenuated. Courts evaluate attenuation using the Brown v. Illinois factors: (1) temporal proximity between the illegality and the discovery of evidence, (2) the presence of intervening circumstances, and (3) particularly, the purpose and flagrancy of the official misconduct. The discovery of a valid, pre-existing, and untainted arrest warrant can be a critical intervening circumstance that breaks the causal chain between an unlawful investigatory stop and evidence later seized incident to arrest.

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One of 10 multiple-choice questions for this case. Pick an answer to see why.

In Tulsa, Officer Dana Mercer stopped Luis Ortega outside an apartment complex without reasonable suspicion and asked for identification. Dispatch reported a valid arrest warrant issued three months earlier for Ortega's failure to appear on an unrelated municipal charge, and Mercer arrested him and found cocaine in a search incident to arrest.

If Ortega moves to suppress the cocaine as fruit of the unlawful stop, how should the court rule?

Explanation. The majority held that when police unlawfully stop a person, then discover a valid, pre-existing, and untainted arrest warrant, the warrant can break the causal chain between the stop and evidence later seized in a search incident to arrest. Temporal proximity favors suppression when only minutes pass, but that factor can be outweighed by the warrant as an intervening circumstance and by the absence of purposeful or flagrant misconduct. The Court also rejected the idea that attenuation is limited to a defendant's free-will act, and it did not decide that an unknown warrant retroactively makes the initial stop constitutional. (Derived from Utah v. Strieff (2016).)