MN: Illegal arrest, Mirandizing, being nice doesn’t purge the taint of arrest

Defendant confessed after an illegal arrest. Miranda warnings and not being treated confrontationally during the illegal arrest by the police did not purge the taint. Suppressing here serves the purposes of the exclusionary rule. Not suppressing evidence on these facts would reward illegal police and likely cause future violations. State v. McDonald-Richards, 2012 Minn. LEXIS 724 (January 23, 2012):

The district court improperly admitted McDonald-Richards’ statement because the court did not consider the statement’s admissibility “in light of the policies served by the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule.” Weekes I, 312 Minn. at 7, 250 N.W.2d at 594. One of the purposes the exclusionary rule serves is to deter police violations of the Fourth Amendment. Brown, 422 U.S. at 599. There is no dispute in this case that McDonald-Richards’ Fourth Amendment rights were violated when the police seized her without probable cause. Indeed, police witnesses at the pre-trial suppression hearing conceded that they had no information regarding McDonald-Richards’ participation in the robbery and murder at Avi’s and considered her merely a person of interest when they arrested her. Based on the information known to the arresting officers at the time of McDonald-Richards’ arrest, there was no objective basis for a reasonable officer to conclude there was probable cause for her arrest. See State v. Munson, 594 N.W.2d 128, 136 (Minn. 1999) (noting that probable cause is measured objectively). When police arrest someone without probable cause and fail to articulate any other lawful basis for their conduct, the police violation of the Fourth Amendment is flagrant. See Weekes II, 268 N.W.2d at 710 (noting that “[t]he most important factor in the determination that the confession was illegally obtained was the flagrant nature of the police action.”); see also Weekes I, 312 Minn. at 7, 250 N.W.2d at 594 (noting that police action is considered flagrant when it is “clear that [the] defendant was taken into custody and confined without a warrant and without probable cause” because “absent probable cause there is not and never has been any lawful basis for holding a person for investigation or on suspicion.”) (citation omitted) (internal quotation marks omitted). Such unlawful seizures will not be deterred if, as the district court held, the giving of a Miranda warning, two hours of confinement, and a non-confrontational police interrogation are sufficient to purge the taint from the constitutional violation.