Also known as: fruits of an unlawful search and seizure · fruit of the poisonous tree
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
Derivative evidence obtained directly or indirectly through exploitation of an unconstitutional search or seizure.
Environmental officer Dana Cruz entered ChemTech's fenced property without a warrant and installed a hidden sampling device in a locked outfall pipe. Using only the data from that device, the agency secured warrants and seized corporate servers and records. ChemTech moved to suppress the seized materials. The court suppressed the records because they were obtained by exploiting the initial unlawful intrusion.
Agent Perez hacked Malik's home server without a warrant and viewed private IP logs. Perez then used those logs to obtain warrants for NimbusCloud records and emails. Malik moved to suppress the emails. The court excluded both the logs and the emails because the warrants rested on information derived from the unlawful hack.
Select any source to read its text and confirm it supports the definition.
Detective Leaming elicited a statement from Williams that led officers to the child's body. The state later showed that a separate search team following lawful procedures would have reached the same location. Williams moved to suppress evidence of the body's condition. The court admitted the evidence because it would have been discovered through independent lawful means.
Federal agents conducted an unlawful wiretap of a suspected gambling operation. The government later introduced conversations involving Alderman that were captured on the tap. Alderman moved to suppress the evidence. The court held that only those whose own rights were violated could invoke the exclusionary rule to bar the derivative evidence.
Officers arrested Elstad at his home without giving Miranda warnings and obtained an initial statement. Two hours later at the station, after proper warnings, Elstad gave a second detailed confession. Elstad moved to suppress the second statement. The court admitted it because the later warnings and time gap sufficiently attenuated any taint from the first statement.
Federal agents obtained a confession from Dickerson without fresh Miranda warnings after he had invoked counsel. Congress had enacted a statute purporting to make voluntary statements admissible regardless of Miranda compliance. Dickerson moved to suppress the statement. The court excluded it because the constitutional rule requiring warnings could not be superseded by statute.
Evidence obtained under a later warrant is suppressed when the warrant affidavit relies solely or primarily on information from the prior constitutional violation. The taint is not automatically purged by the issuance of the warrant itself. Courts examine whether an independent source or sufficient attenuation exists to break the causal chain.
Supporting sources
A voluntary statement may attenuate the taint when sufficient time passes and intervening circumstances such as proper warnings or release from custody demonstrate an independent act of free will. Short temporal proximity and flagrant misconduct weigh against attenuation. Courts weigh factors including time, intervening events, and the flagrancy of the violation.
Supporting sources
The independent source doctrine permits admission of evidence when police can show it was obtained through a lawful channel wholly separate from the initial illegality. Preexisting untainted information that would have supported a warrant on its own severs the causal link. The doctrine prevents the government from being placed in a worse position than if no misconduct had occurred.
Supporting sources
…discovery exception to the exclusionary rule. Williams contends that evidence of the body's location and condition is "fruit of the poisonous tree," i. e. , the "fruit" or product of Detective Leaming's plea to help the child's parents give her "a Christian burial," which this Court had already held equated to interrogation. He…