Routine taking of booking fingerprints held not unreasonable, even if the arrest turned out to be unlawful. The district court held that they were admissible by inevitable discovery because the officers would have found that defendant was here unlawfully. The court of appeals goes farther and holds that it was reasonable in any event and the exclusionary rule would not be applicable. United States v. Cruz-Mercedes, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 37572 (1st Cir. Dec. 18, 2019):
Under the particular factual circumstances of two cases — Hayes v. Florida, 470 U.S. 811, 105 S. Ct. 1643, 84 L. Ed. 2d 705 (1985), and Davis v. Mississippi, 394 U.S. 721, 89 S. Ct. 1394, 22 L. Ed. 2d 676 (1969) — the Supreme Court has held that the exclusionary rule required suppression of fingerprint evidence. The suppression of fingerprint evidence in both cases hinged upon the undisputed facts of police officers’ obtaining the challenged fingerprints through an “investigative detention,” without probable cause, for “investigative purposes” related to a specific crime. Hayes, 470 U.S. at 814-16; see Davis, 394 U.S. at 726-28. The Court’s focus on the criminal context and investigatory motivation behind law enforcement’s obtaining of the fingerprint evidence in both cases suggests that the exclusionary rule does not block routine booking fingerprints taken for administrative purposes. See Hayes, 470 U.S. at 814-16; Davis, 394 U.S. at 726; United States v. Oscar-Torres, 507 F.3d 224, 231 (4th Cir. 2007).
“Certain routine administrative procedures, such as fingerprinting, photographing, and getting a proper name and address from the defendant, are incidental events accompanying an arrest that are necessary for orderly law enforcement and protection of individual rights.” United States v. Olivares-Rangel, 458 F.3d 1104, 1113 (10th Cir. 2006). Routine administrative fingerprinting during booking presumptively is not implicated by the rule that “[t]he indirect fruits of an illegal search or arrest should be suppressed when they bear a sufficiently close relationship to the underlying illegality.” United States v. Delgado-Perez, 867 F.3d 244, 256 (1st Cir. 2017) (quoting New York v. Harris, 495 U.S. 14, 19, 110 S. Ct. 1640, 109 L. Ed. 2d 13 (1990)); see United States v. Dowdell, 595 F.3d 50, 72 (1st Cir. 2010) (“[B]ooking information [i]s taken in a routine, nonadversarial setting.” (second alteration in original) (quoting United States v. Haughton, 235 F. App’x 254, 255 (5th Cir. 2007))).
The “sole purpose” of the exclusionary rule, the Court has repeatedly held, “is to deter future Fourth Amendment violations.” Davis v. United States, 564 U.S. 229, 236-37, 131 S. Ct. 2419, 180 L. Ed. 2d 285 (2011) (citing Herring, 555 U.S. at 141 & n.2; Leon, 468 U.S. at 909, 921 n.22; Elkins v. United States, 364 U.S. 206, 217, 80 S. Ct. 1437, 4 L. Ed. 2d 1669 (1960)). Exclusion is “not a personal constitutional right,” nor one meant to “redress the injury” caused by a Fourth Amendment violation. Id. at 236 (quoting Stone v. Powell, 428 U.S. 465, 486, 96 S. Ct. 3037, 49 L. Ed. 2d 1067 (1976)). The exclusionary rule therefore “applies only where it ‘result[s] in appreciable deterrence.'” Herring, 555 U.S. at 141 (alteration in original) (quoting Leon, 468 U.S. at 909). The inquiry must also consider the “substantial social costs” generated by the exclusionary rule. Davis, 564 U.S. at 237 (quoting Leon, 468 U.S. at 907). The gravity of those costs requires that the rule be “applicable only … where its deterrence benefits outweigh its substantial social costs.” Strieff, 136 S. Ct. at 2061 (alteration in original) (quoting Hudson, 547 U.S. at 591).
Broad suppression of fingerprints taken for administrative purposes following unlawful arrests would be disproportionately costly. That is because the effect of fingerprinting during routine booking is to enforce the uncontroversial proposition that “[i]n every criminal case,” even those following unlawful arrests, “it is known and must be known who has been arrested and who is being tried.” Hiibel v. Sixth Jud. Dist. Ct. of Nev., 542 U.S. 177, 191, 124 S. Ct. 2451, 159 L. Ed. 2d 292 (2004).
B. There is No Basis for Suppression in this Case
Applying these principles here, on this record, we conclude that the fingerprint evidence is not subject to suppression. In reviewing a district court’s denial of a motion to suppress, “[w]e assess questions of fact . . . for clear error.” United States v. Oquendo-Rivas, 750 F.3d 12, 16 (1st Cir. 2014). Under clear error review, we “view the facts in the light most favorable to the district court’s ruling on the motion.” United States v. Candelario-Santana, 834 F.3d 8, 18 (1st Cir. 2016). Accordingly, “[s]o long as ‘any reasonable view of the evidence supports it,’ [this court] will uphold the denial of the motion to suppress.” Id. (second alteration in original) (quoting United States v. Molina-Gómez, 781 F.3d 13, 18 (1st Cir. 2015)). Further, this court may “affirm on any ground appearing in the record—including one that the judge did not rely on.” United States v. Rivera, 825 F.3d 59, 64 (1st Cir. 2016).
The record of this case shows that the defendant’s fingerprints were obtained pursuant to routine booking procedures. …
