{"id":22631,"date":"2016-06-20T12:33:40","date_gmt":"2016-06-20T17:33:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=22631"},"modified":"2016-06-21T07:26:25","modified_gmt":"2016-06-21T12:26:25","slug":"scotus-utah-v-streff-even-if-stop-lacked-rs-finding-arrest-warrant-on-def-justified-his-search-the-warrant-is-attenuation-from-the-stop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=22631","title":{"rendered":"SCOTUS: Utah v. Strieff: Even if stop lacked RS, finding an arrest warrant on def justified his search; the warrant is attenuated from the stop (so they can violate the 4A if there’s a warrant out)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Defendant was stopped leaving a drug house under surveillance. He gave his name, and an arrest warrant came back for him. Attenuation is found without regard to the validity of the stop. The attenuation doctrine is not limited to the defendant\u2019s independent acts. The doctrine applies here, where the intervening circumstance is the discovery of a valid, pre-existing, and untainted arrest warrant. Assuming, without deciding, that Officer Fackrell lacked reasonable suspicion to stop Strieff initially, the discovery of that arrest warrant attenuated the connection between the unlawful stop and the evidence seized from Strieff incident to his arrest. Utah v. Strieff<\/a>, 2016 U.S. LEXIS 3926 (June 20, 2016) (5-3). Syllabus:
\n<\/p>\n

Narcotics detective Douglas Fackrell conducted surveillance on a South Salt Lake City residence based on an anonymous tip about drug activity. The number of people he observed making brief visits to the house over the course of a week made him suspicious that the occupants were dealing drugs. After observing respondent Edward Strieff leave the residence, Officer Fackrell detained Strieff at a nearby parking lot, identifying himself and asking Strieff what he was doing at the house. He then requested Strieff\u2019s identification and relayed the information to a police dispatcher, who informed him that Strieff had an outstanding arrest warrant for a traffic violation. Officer Fackrell arrested Strieff, searched him, and found methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia. Strieff moved to suppress the evidence, arguing that it was derived from an unlawful investigatory stop. The trial court denied the motion, and the Utah Court of Appeals affirmed. The Utah Supreme Court reversed, however, and ordered the evidence suppressed.<\/p>\n

Held: The evidence Officer Fackrell seized incident to Strieff\u2019s arrest is admissible based on an application of the attenuation factors from Brown v. Illinois, 422 U. S. 590. In this case, there was no flagrant police misconduct. Therefore, Officer Fackrell\u2019s discovery of a valid, pre-existing, and untainted arrest warrant attenuated the connection between the unconstitutional investigatory stop and the evidence seized incident to a lawful arrest. Pp. 4-10.<\/p>\n

(a) As the primary judicial remedy for deterring Fourth Amendment violations, the exclusionary rule encompasses both the \u201cprimary evidence obtained as a direct result of an illegal search or seizure\u201d and, relevant here, \u201cevidence later discovered and found to be derivative of an illegality.\u201d Segura v. United States, 468 U. S. 796, 804. But to ensure that those deterrence benefits are not outweighed by the rule\u2019s substantial social costs, there are several exceptions to the rule. One exception is the attenuation doctrine, which provides for admissibility when the connection between unconstitutional police conduct and the evidence is sufficiently remote or has been interrupted by some intervening circumstance. See Hudson v. Michigan, 547 U. S. 586, 593. Pp. 4-5.<\/p>\n

(b) As a threshold matter, the attenuation doctrine is not limited to the defendant\u2019s independent acts. The doctrine therefore applies here, where the intervening circumstance is the discovery of a valid, pre-existing, and untainted arrest warrant. Assuming, without deciding, that Officer Fackrell lacked reasonable suspicion to stop Strieff initially, the discovery of that arrest warrant attenuated the connection between the unlawful stop and the evidence seized from Strieff incident to his arrest. Pp. 5-10.<\/p>\n

(1) Three factors articulated in Brown v. Illinois, 422 U. S. 590, lead to this conclusion. The first, \u201ctemporal proximity\u201d between the initially unlawful stop and the search, id., at 603, favors suppressing the evidence. Officer Fackrell discovered drug contraband on Strieff only minutes after the illegal stop. In contrast, the second factor, \u201cthe presence of intervening circumstances, id., at 603-604, strongly favors the State. The existence of a valid warrant, predating the investigation and entirely unconnected with the stop, favors finding sufficient attenuation between the unlawful conduct and the discovery of evidence. That warrant authorized Officer Fackrell to arrest Strieff, and once the arrest was authorized, his search of Strieff incident to that arrest was undisputedly lawful. The third factor, \u201cthe purpose and flagrancy of the official misconduct,\u201d id., at 604, also strongly favors the State. Officer Fackrell was at most negligent, but his errors in judgment hardly rise to a purposeful or flagrant violation of Strieff\u2019s Fourth Amendment rights. After the unlawful stop, his conduct was lawful, and there is no indication that the stop was part of any systemic or recurrent police misconduct. Pp. 6-9.<\/p>\n

(2) Strieff\u2019s counterarguments are unpersuasive. First, neither Officer Fackrell\u2019s purpose nor the flagrancy of the violation rises to a level of misconduct warranting suppression. Officer Fackrell\u2019s purpose was not to conduct a suspicionless fishing expedition but was to gather information about activity inside a house whose occupants were legitimately suspected of dealing drugs. Strieff conflates the standard for an illegal stop with the standard for flagrancy, which requires more than the mere absence of proper cause. Second, it is unlikely that the prevalence of outstanding warrants will lead to dragnet searches by police. Such misconduct would expose police to civil liability and, in any event, is already accounted for by Brown\u2019s \u201cpurpose and flagrancy\u201d factor. Pp. 9-10.<\/p>\n

THOMAS, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and KENNEDY, BREYER, and ALITO, JJ., joined. SOTOMAYOR, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which GINSBURG, J., joined as to Parts I, II, and III. KAGAN, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which GINSBURG, J., joined.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sotomayor, dissenting:<\/p>\n

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR, with whom JUSTICE GINSBURG joins as to Parts I, II, and III, dissenting.<\/p>\n

The Court today holds that the discovery of a warrant for an unpaid parking ticket will forgive a police officer\u2019s violation of your Fourth Amendment rights. Do not be soothed by the opinion\u2019s technical language: This case allows the police to stop you on the street, demand your identification, and check it for outstanding traffic warrants\u2014even if you are doing nothing wrong. If the officer discovers a warrant for a fine you forgot to pay, courts will now excuse his illegal stop and will admit into evidence anything he happens to find by searching you after arresting you on the warrant. Because the Fourth Amendment should prohibit, not permit, such misconduct, I dissent.<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

Most striking about the Court\u2019s opinion is its insistence that the event here was \u201cisolated,\u201d with \u201cno indication that this unlawful stop was part of any systemic or recurrent police misconduct.\u201d Ante, at 8-9. Respectfully, nothing about this case is isolated.<\/p>\n

Outstanding warrants are surprisingly common. When a person with a traffic ticket misses a fine payment or court appearance, a court will issue a warrant. See, e.g., Brennan Center for Justice, Criminal Justice Debt 23 (2010), online at https:\/\/www.brennancenter.org\/sites\/default\/ files\/legacy\/Fees%20and%20Fines%20FINAL.pdf. When a person on probation drinks alcohol or breaks curfew, a court will issue a warrant. See, e.g., Human Rights Watch, Profiting from Probation 1, 51 (2014), online at https:\/\/www.hrw.org\/report\/2014\/02\/05\/profiting-probation\/americas-offender-funded-probation-industry. The States and Federal Government maintain databases with over 7.8 million outstanding warrants, the vast majority of which appear to be for minor offenses. See Systems Survey (Table 5a). Even these sources may not track the \u201cstaggering\u201d numbers of warrants, \u201c\u2018drawers and drawers\u2019\u201d full, that many cities issue for traffic violations and ordinance infractions. Dept. of Justice, Civil Rights Div., Investigation of the Ferguson Police Department 47, 55 (2015) (Ferguson Report), online at https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/opa\/press-releases\/attachments\/2015\/03\/04\/ferguson_police_department_report.pdf. The county in this case has had a \u201cbacklog\u201d of such warrants. See supra, at 4. The Department of Justice recently reported that in the town of Ferguson, Missouri, with a population of 21,000, 16,000 people had outstanding warrants against them. Ferguson Report, at 6, 55.<\/p>\n

Justice Department investigations across the country have illustrated how these astounding numbers of warrants can be used by police to stop people without cause. In a single year in New Orleans, officers \u201cmade nearly 60,000 arrests, of which about 20,000 were of people with outstanding traffic or misdemeanor warrants from neighboring parishes for such infractions as unpaid tickets.\u201d Dept. of Justice, Civil Rights Div., Investigation of the New Orleans Police Department 29 (2011), online at https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/crt\/legacy\/2011\/03\/17\/nopd_report.pdf. In the St. Louis metropolitan area, officers \u201croutinely\u201d stop people\u2014on the street, at bus stops, or even in court\u2014for no reason other than \u201can officer\u2019s desire to check whether the subject had a municipal arrest warrant pending.\u201d Ferguson Report, at 49, 57. In Newark, New Jersey, officers stopped 52,235 pedestrians within a 4-year period and ran warrant checks on 39,308 of them. Dept. of Justice, Civil Rights Div., Investigation of the Newark Police Department 8, 19, n. 15 (2014), online at https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/crt\/legacy\/2014\/07\/22\/newark_findings_7-22-14.pdf. The Justice Department analyzed these warrant-checked stops and reported that \u201capproximately 93% of the stops would have been considered unsupported by articulated reasonable suspicion.\u201d Id., at 9, n. 7.<\/p>\n

I do not doubt that most officers act in \u201cgood faith\u201d and do not set out to break the law. That does not mean these stops are \u201cisolated instance[s] of negligence,\u201d however. Ante, at 8. Many are the product of institutionalized training procedures. The New York City Police Department long trained officers to, in the words of a District Judge, \u201cstop and question first, develop reasonable suspicion later.\u201d Ligon v. New York, 925 F. Supp. 2d 478, 537-538 (SDNY), stay granted on other grounds, 736 F. 3d 118 (CA2 2013). The Utah Supreme Court described as \u201c\u2018routine procedure\u2019 or \u2018common practice\u2019\u201d the decision of Salt Lake City police officers to run warrant checks on pedestrians they detained without reasonable suspicion. State v. Topanotes, 2003 UT 30, \u00b62, 76 P. 3d 1159, 1160. In the related context of traffic stops, one widely followed police manual instructs officers looking for drugs to \u201crun at least a warrants check on all drivers you stop. Statistically, narcotics offenders are … more likely to fail to appear on simple citations, such as traffic or trespass violations, leading to the issuance of bench warrants. Discovery of an outstanding warrant gives you cause for an immediate custodial arrest and search of the suspect.\u201d C. Remsberg, Tactics for Criminal Patrol 205-206 (1995); C. Epp et al., Pulled Over 23, 33-36 (2014).<\/p>\n

The majority does not suggest what makes this case \u201cisolated\u201d from these and countless other examples. Nor does it offer guidance for how a defendant can prove that his arrest was the result of \u201cwidespread\u201d misconduct. Surely it should not take a federal investigation of Salt Lake County before the Court would protect someone in Strieff\u2019s position.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

While you are reeling from this, consider Meadows v. State<\/a>, 269 Ark. 380, 602 S.W.2d 636 (1980), in my own backwater state where similar facts led to suppression purely on the state rules of criminal procedure. Never forget state law.<\/p>\n

Who said Breyer was a liberal?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Defendant was stopped leaving a drug house under surveillance. He gave his name, and an arrest warrant came back for him. Attenuation is found without regard to the validity of the stop. The attenuation doctrine is not limited to the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75,83],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-attenuation","category-scotus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22631"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22631\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22641,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22631\/revisions\/22641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}