N.D.Ind.: Excessive force in arrest didn’t justify suppression of search with no causal connection

Allegations of excessive force used during defendant’s arrest did not justify suppression of the search where there was no causal connection. United States v. Collins, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 63214 (N.D. Ind. May 4, 2012):

The Defendant’s primary objection to the admission of the evidence against him is his claim that Officers Ealing and Johnson used unreasonable force to effectuate his arrest. The Defendant cites a Ninth Circuit case, United States v. Ankeny, for the proposition that a Fourth Amendment excessive force violation requires suppression of the evidence seized. 502 F.3d at 836. However, the Defendant also cites to United States v. Watson, where the Seventh Circuit disagreed with the Ankeny court. Specifically, the Seventh Circuit declined to apply the Ankeny court’s reasoning, holding: “We thus disagree with the dictum in United States v. Ankeny … that the use of excessive force in the course of a search can require suppression of the evidence seized.” 558 F.3d at 705. Rather, if a defendant proves excessive force, “his remedy would be a suit for damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (or state law) rather than the exclusion from his criminal trial of evidence that had been seized in an otherwise lawful search.” Id. at 704. Therefore, under a plain reading of Watson, suppression would not be appropriate even if the Defendant could establish that Officers Ealing and Johnson used excessive force against him. Rather, the Defendant’s appropriate remedy would be a § 1983 civil suit against the Officers for use of excessive force.

The Court notes that even under Ankeny, suppression would not be appropriate in this case. The Ankeny court held that it did not need to determine whether unreasonable force had been used because there was no “causal nexus” between the allegedly unreasonable force and discovery of the evidence. Ankeny, 502 F.3d at 837; see also Watson, 558 F.3d at 702 (“There was no causal connection … between the alleged police misconduct and the obtaining of the evidence.”). The bag containing cocaine was obtained not because of any allegedly unreasonable force used by the Officers, but because the Defendant threw it away from his person before Officer Ealing used any force. As the Government urges, “[a]n arrest does not occur until a police officer lays hands on a subject or the subject voluntarily submits to a show of authority.” United States v. Britton, 335 Fed. Appx. 571, 575 (6th Cir. 2009); California v. Hodari D., 499 U.S. 621, 626 (1991) (“An arrest requires either physical force … or, where that is absent, submission to the assertion of authority.”). The exclusionary rule is only triggered where evidence is obtained “following an unlawful arrest.” United States v. Howard, 621 F.3d 433, 451 (6th Cir. 2010). Because the facts indicate that the Defendant threw the bag away from his person before Officer Ealing touched him, the bag was not obtained “following” an arrest at all, and so there can be no nexus between the alleged unreasonable force and finding the bag. For that matter, it appears that the Defendant placed the bag in a publicly exposed place, suggesting that the Government’s retrieval of the bag did not constitute a search at all within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. See United States v. Eubanks, 876 F.2d 1514, 1516 (11th Cir. 1989) (“[U]nder the fourth amendment no governmental ‘search’ occurs if the place or object examined is publicly exposed such that no person can reasonably have an expectation of privacy.”).