DC: Even if def was illegally arrested, his identification is not suppressed

Even if defendant was illegally arrested, his identification is not suppressed. Hood v. United States, 2022 D.C. App. LEXIS 57 (Feb. 10, 2022):

What is further at issue in this case, appellant argues, is that “the government learned and later introduced identification evidence—i.e., it was Hood who wore the incriminating clothing—by exploiting the illegal detention during which the police ascertained his identity.” Appellant asserts that “[t]he critical information that police gained from the stop was that the man who piqued Officer Butler’s attention because he was wearing the distinctive basketball shorts relatively close in time to the crime was determined to be Milton Hood through his arrest and detention.” He cites a case in which this court reasoned that if “the discovery of [a suspect’s] name itself … resulted from … illegal [police conduct,]” it should be excluded. Douglas v. United States, 386 A.2d 289, 292 (D.C. 1978).

In advancing this argument, appellant fails to deal with the Supreme Court’s post-Douglas ruling, in INS v. Lopez-Mendoza, 468 U.S. 1032 (1984), that “[t]he ‘body’ or identity of a defendant or respondent in a criminal or civil proceeding is never itself suppressible as a fruit of an unlawful arrest, even if it conceded that an unlawful arrest, search, or interrogation occurred.” Id. at 1039 (emphasis added); see also Cruz v. Barr, 926 F.3d 1128, 1136 n.3 (9th Cir. 2019) (interpreting Lopez-Mendoza to create “an evidentiary rule insulating specific pieces of identity-related evidence from suppression”); United States v. Chagoya-Morales, 859 F.3d 411, 419, 419 n.14 (7th Cir. 2017) (“[M]ost of the circuits that have addressed the problem remain convinced that a person’s identity is simply not subject to suppression.”) (collecting cases); United States v. Bowley, 435 F.3d 426, 430 (3d Cir. 2006) (applying Lopez-Mendoza in deciding that identity evidence was not suppressible in a criminal prosecution, because “we doubt that the Court lightly used such a sweeping word as ‘never’ in deciding when identity may be suppressed as the fruit of an illegal search o[r] arrest”); Navarro-Chalan v. Ashcroft, 359 F.3d 19, 22 (1st Cir. 2004) (“Navarro’s name is not information even subject to being suppressed.”); United States v. del Toro Gudino, 376 F.3d 997, 1001 (9th Cir. 2004) (“[T]he simple fact of who a defendant is cannot be excluded, regardless of the nature of the violation leading to his identity.”). We agree with the government that appellant’s identity was not a suppressible fruit of the Fourth Amendment violation.