Criminal Procedure Outline - Professor Fields - Campbell Law - Part 5

• Factors from Brown v. Illinois (Totality of the Circumstances; Don’t need all four): (1) The length of time that has elapsed between the initial illegality and the seizure of the fruit in question; (2) the flagrancy of the initial misconduct (bad faith violations take longer to dissipate than good faith violations); the existence or absence of intervening causes of the seizure of the fruit; and (4) the presence or absence of an act of free will by the defendant resulting in the seizure of the fruit.
  • But See U.S. v. Ceccolini: Witness testimony is less likely to be suppressed so taint will disappear faster in these situations.
• See Utah v. Strieff: The Court held that “the officer’s discovery of the valid arrest warrant attenuated the connection between the unlawful stop and the evidence seized incident to the arrest.”

United States v. Leon: The exclusionary rule does not apply when an officer obtains evidence in objective reasonable reliance on a search warrant that later turns out to be invalid.

• Sources of Invalidity: (1) No probable cause (determined on appeal, or if there is false info in affidavits), or (2) not sufficiently particular.
• Limits to Exclusionary Rule: Reliance must be objectively reasonable; knowing or reckless falsity of affidavit; magistrate abandons neutrality (Lo-ji Sales); facially deficient warrants (officer can tell there is not enough for probable cause, or prosecutor tells officer no probable cause but officer intentionally seeks a sympathetic judge).
• The Test for Whether the Exception Applies: “It must be resolved by weighing the costs and benefits of preventing the use in the prosecution’s case in chief of inherently trustworthy tangible evidence obtained in reliance on a search warrant issued by a detached and neutral magistrate that ultimately is found to be defective.”
• Reasoning Behind Rule: While the neutral and detached magistrate does not have unfettered discretion in finding probable cause, when the call is a close one, great deference is given to his decision. The 4th Amendment is meant to deter officers, not magistrates. Judges and magistrates are not adjuncts to the law enforcement team; as neutral judicial officers, they have no stake in the outcome of particular criminal prosecutions. The threat of exclusion thus cannot be expected significantly to deter them. Imposition of the exclusionary sanction is not necessary meaningfully to inform judicial officers of their errors. It is the magistrate’s job to determine whether probable cause exists for a warrant, and we should not sanction the officer for the magistrate’s error.

Massachusetts v. Sheppard; Reliance on the Magistrate: “The officers in this case took every step that could reasonably expected of them. Detective O’Malley prepared an affidavit which was reviewed and approved by the District Attorney. He presented the affidavit to a neutral judge. The judge concluded that the affidavit established probable cause. He was told by the judge that the necessary changes would be made. He then observed the judge make some changes and received the warrant and affidavit. At this point, a reasonable officer would have concluded, as O’Malley did, that the warrant authorized search for the materials outlined in the affidavit.”

Hudson v. Michigan: The exclusionary rule does not apply to knock and announce violations.

• Reasoning: “Indeed, the exclusionary rule only applies ‘where its remedial objectives are thought most efficaciously served’—that is, ‘where its deterrence benefits outweigh its substantial social costs.’ Allowing the exclusionary rule to apply for violations of the knock-and-announce rule would ‘generate a constant flood of alleged failures to observe the rule, and claims that any asserted justification for a no-knock entry had inadequate support.”

Herring v. U.S.: A negligent error on behalf of police activity is not enough by itself to require the extreme sanction of exclusion.

• Reasoning: The purpose of the exclusionary rule is to discourage intentional police misconduct. Here, only an accident was committed that led to a violation. Absent a history of repetitive misconduct of the same kind, this is not enough to trigger the exclusionary rule.

Davis v. United States: “Evidence obtained during a search conducted in reasonable reliance on binding precedent is not subject to the exclusionary rule.”

5th Amendment: No person shall . . . be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.

• Text: The plain words clearly protect an individual from, at a minimum, being forced to testify against himself in his own criminal trial.

Span v. New York; The Test: The totality of the circumstances here seems incredibly relevant to the court in finding a lack of mental freedom.

• Holding: “We conclude that petitioner’s will was overborne by official pressure, fatigue and sympathy falsely aroused, after considering all the facts in their post-indictment setting.”
• Involuntariness Factors: (1) youth, (2) mental incapacity, and (3) police methods.
  • Reasoning: The use of involuntary confessions not only turns on concerns of inherent untrustworthiness, but on deep-rooted feeling that the police must obey the law while enforcing the law. Spano was 25, and only had a 9th grade education. Records show that he had a history of emotional instability. He didn’t make a narrative confession, but was subject to the leading questions of a skillful prosecutor in a question and answer confession. Several men played a role in this procedure. The interrogation lasted 8 hours, overnight. The police persisted in the face of his repeated refusals to answer on the advice of his attorney, and they ignored his reasonable requests to contact the local attorney whom he had already retained. Finally, the officers forced the only individual whom Spano could trust to falsely mislead him into confessing.

Hector (A Slave) v. State: Whether a confession is sufficiently free and voluntary to be competent testimony is a matter of law to be decided by the court and not by the jury.

Colorado v. Connelly; God’s Coercion: Focusing on the lack of state action, the Court held that the confession was, for purposes of the due process clause, voluntary.

But See Kastigar v. U.S.: “Witnesses called to testify before grand juries can be compelled to testify if they are given what is known as ‘use-and-derivative-use immunity. This doctrine forbids use of the compelled testimony, and everything derived from it, in a criminal case against the person providing the testimony.

5th Am.: No person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.

Due Process Clause: Under the Due Process Clause, individuals have the constitutional right to be free from giving any involuntary statements, either through threat, fear, or physical or psychological stress.

THESE ARE TWO SEPEARTE THINGS. ONE REQUIRES COERCION, THE OTHER ONE DOESN’T