MS: Search in forfeiture case is challenged only by motion to suppress; not a merits issue

A Fourth Amendment claim to forfeiture is made pretrial by a motion to suppress. Lack of probable cause is not a defense to forfeiture. Twenty Thousand Eight Hundred Dollars $20,800.00 in United States Currency v. State ex rel. Miss. Bureau of Narcotics, 115 So. 3d 137 (Miss. App. 2013).*

On an interlocutory government appeal from suppression, the defendant cannot seek additional suppression of evidence because that must await final appeal. There was reasonable suspicion for detention of defendants, and a drug dog validly alerted on their tractor-trailer. “Therefore, defendants’ detention did not cause the government’s discovery of the challenged evidence. Put another way, the agents did not ‘exploit[]’ defendants’ seizure to discover the evidence; it was discovered ‘by means sufficiently distinguishable’ from that seizure. See Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 487-88, 83 S. Ct. 407, 9 L. Ed. 2d 441 (1963). Defendants’ case for suppression therefore fails on the requirement of causation: ‘The exclusionary rule forbids the government from using evidence caused by an illegal seizure, not evidence found around the time of a seizure.’ Clariot, 655 F.3d at 555. It does not apply here.” United States v. Figueredo-Diaz, 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 11231, 2013 FED App. 0159P (6th Cir. June 5, 2013).

The finding of the gun in this case came from a valid plain view during a protective sweep of defendant’s place when he was arrested for armed robbery. Hutto v. State, 114 So. 3d 802 (Miss. App. 2013).*

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