Also known as: purge the taint · purging the taint · purges the taint · taint purged
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
An independent-source rule under which an in-court identification is admissible despite an earlier unconstitutional pretrial identification when the witness's observations at the time of the crime supply a basis independent of the illegality. Courts examine the witness's opportunity to view the perpetrator, degree of attention, accuracy of any prior description, level of certainty at the confrontation, and time elapsed between the crime and the confrontation. When these factors demonstrate that the in-court identification rests on the witness's independent recollection rather than the tainted lineup, the taint is purged and the testimony is received.
Preston Pratt was shown to a witness in a suggestive stationhouse lineup without counsel. At trial the witness identified Pratt in court. The court applied the five-factor test and found the identification admissible because the witness had a clear view during the robbery, paid close attention, gave an accurate description beforehand, showed high certainty at the lineup, and only two hours had passed since the crime.
Pedro Pacheco made statements during an unlawful detention at a factory. Two days later he returned voluntarily with counsel, received Miranda warnings, and signed a detailed confession. The court held the confession admissible because the passage of time, his release, and his counseled voluntary appearance constituted intervening circumstances that purged the taint of the initial detention.
In December 1981, the home of Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert Gross in Salem, Oregon, was burglarized, with art objects and furnishings valued at $150,000 missing. A witness implicated 18-year-old Michael James Elstad, a neighbor and friend of the Grosses' teenage son. Officers Burke and McAllister arrived at Elstad's home with an arrest warrant. Elstad's mother led them to his bedroom where he lay on his bed. The officers asked him to get dressed and accompany them to the living room. Officer Burke asked Elstad if he knew why they were there and if he knew the Gross family. Burke then stated he felt Elstad was involved in the burglary, and Elstad responded, "Yes, I was there." The officers arrested Elstad and transported him to the Polk County Sheriff's office. Approximately one hour later, the officers joined Elstad in an interrogation room. Detective McAllister advised Elstad of his Miranda rights from a printed card. Elstad indicated he understood his rights and wished to speak with the officers. He then provided a full statement explaining that he had known the Gross family was out of town, had been paid to lead acquaintances to the residence, and showed them how to enter through a defective sliding glass door. The statement was typed, reviewed, corrected, initialed, and signed by Elstad and the officers. Elstad added a sentence about receiving a bag of grass. Elstad was charged with first-degree burglary. He waived his right to a jury trial. Before trial, he moved to suppress both his oral statement at home and his signed confession at the station. The trial court suppressed the initial statement but admitted the written confession, finding it was given freely, voluntarily, and knowingly after a valid waiver. Elstad was convicted and sentenced to five years imprisonment plus $18,000 in restitution. The Oregon Court of Appeals reversed the conviction. The court held that the second statement was inadmissible as the fruit of the poisonous tree because the connection between the inadmissible first statement and the written confession was not sufficiently attenuated. The Oregon Supreme Court declined review. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari to consider the question whether the Self-Incrimination Clause requires suppression of a confession made after proper Miranda warnings and a valid waiver solely because the police had obtained an earlier voluntary but unwarned admission.
View casePatricia Patel was stopped without reasonable suspicion while waiting in a loading zone. Officers discovered a preexisting valid warrant for unpaid tickets, arrested her, and found illegal firearms during an inventory search. The court admitted the firearms because the valid warrant was an intervening circumstance that broke the causal chain from the unlawful stop.
On March 26, 1971, the proprietor of a pizza parlor in Rochester, New York, was killed during an attempted robbery. On August 10, 1971, Detective Anthony Fantigrossi learned of a possible lead implicating petitioner Irving Dunaway in the crime from an informant. Fantigrossi questioned a jail inmate but obtained no information sufficient to secure a warrant for Dunaway's arrest. Nevertheless, on the morning of August 11, 1971, three detectives located Dunaway at a neighbor's house and took him into custody. Although not told he was under arrest, Dunaway would have been physically restrained if he had attempted to leave. He was driven to police headquarters in a police car and placed in an interrogation room. After receiving Miranda warnings, Dunaway waived his right to counsel and made statements and drew sketches that incriminated him in the crime. He was then formally arrested and charged with murder and attempted robbery. Dunaway's motion to suppress the statements and sketches was denied at trial, and he was convicted by a jury. Following initial affirmances and a remand from the Supreme Court in light of Brown v. Illinois, the County Court found the detention illegal and granted the suppression motion, but the Appellate Division reversed that determination. The New York Court of Appeals dismissed Dunaway's application for leave to appeal.
View casePierre Poulin was arrested without probable cause and made incriminating statements less than two hours later. No significant intervening event occurred between the arrest and the statements. The court suppressed the statements because the close temporal proximity and absence of any break in the causal chain left the taint un-purged.
On May 13, 1968, Chicago police detectives William Nolan and William Lenz broke into petitioner Richard Brown's apartment without a warrant or probable cause, searched it, and waited inside. When Brown arrived around 7:45 p.m. and climbed the rear stairs, the detectives arrested him at gunpoint after one positioned himself at the rear door window and the other approached from behind. The detectives had obtained Brown's name from the brother of murder victim Roger Corpus, killed one week earlier on May 6 with a .38-caliber revolver, but had identified him only as an acquaintance and lacked probable cause for arrest. They transported Brown to the Maxwell Street police station. At the station, after obtaining the Corpus homicide file, the detectives gave Brown Miranda warnings around 8:45 p.m. and questioned him for twenty to twenty-five minutes. Brown signed a two-page statement acknowledging that he and Jimmy Claggett had visited Corpus on May 5, that Claggett ordered Brown at gunpoint to bind Corpus, and that Claggett shot Corpus three times with a revolver Brown had sold him. The detectives and Brown then searched for Claggett, arrested him around 12:15 a.m., and returned to the station. Brown remained at the station and at 2 a.m. spoke with Assistant State's Attorney Crilly, who again administered Miranda warnings. Brown gave a second statement around 3 a.m. that was substantially consistent with the first but contained inaccuracies about his employment and education; he refused to sign it. Brown made a phone call to his mother at 4 a.m. and was taken before a magistrate at 9:30 a.m., approximately fourteen hours after arrest. Brown and Claggett were indicted on June 20, 1968. The trial court denied Brown's motion to suppress the statements after a hearing. At trial the State introduced evidence of both statements through Detective Nolan's testimony and the reading of the second statement to the jury. Brown was convicted of murder and sentenced to fifteen to thirty years' imprisonment. The Illinois Supreme Court affirmed the conviction.
View casePiper Patel was in custody and gave a statement after police failed to inform her that her attorney had called. The court admitted the statement because events unknown to the suspect and occurring outside her presence had no bearing on whether her waiver was knowing and voluntary, so the taint from any prior violation was purged.
On the evening of June 29, 1977, Brian Burbine was arrested by Cranston, Rhode Island, police officers in connection with a local burglary after Detective Ferranti received information from a confidential informant linking a man known as "Butch" living at a specific address to an earlier murder. Burbine, who lived at that address and was known by that name, was taken to the Cranston police station where Cranston detectives advised him of his Miranda rights; he initially refused to sign a written waiver form. At approximately 7:45 p.m. that same evening, Burbine's sister telephoned the Public Defender's Office in Providence to request legal assistance for her brother on the breaking-and-entering charge. Attorney Allegra Munson from that office telephoned the Cranston police station at 8:15 p.m., identified herself as Burbine's counsel, and was told by an officer that the police would not be questioning Burbine or placing him in a lineup and that they were through with him for the night. Munson was not informed that Providence police were present or that Burbine was a suspect in the murder of Mary Jo Hickey. Less than an hour later, three Providence detectives arrived at the Cranston station and began questioning Burbine about the murder. Prior to each of three interview sessions, Burbine was advised of his Miranda rights, and on three separate occasions he signed written forms acknowledging that he understood his rights and expressly waiving them; he then provided three written statements admitting responsibility for the murder. At no time during the questioning was Burbine informed that his sister had retained an attorney for him or that Attorney Munson had telephoned the station. Prior to trial in Rhode Island Superior Court, Burbine moved to suppress the statements. The trial court denied the motion, finding that Burbine had been fully advised of his Miranda rights, had knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily waived them, and that the statements were voluntary. Burbine was convicted of first-degree murder. The Rhode Island Supreme Court reversed the conviction, and the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari.
View casePilar Pena's home was entered without knocking and announcing despite officers holding a valid search warrant. The court admitted the evidence found inside because the violation of the knock-and-announce rule did not require suppression when the warrant itself supplied an independent and lawful basis for the search.
Police officers obtained a search warrant authorizing a search for drugs and firearms at the home of petitioner Booker T. Hudson in Michigan. Upon arriving to execute the warrant, the officers knocked on the door and announced their presence. They waited only three to five seconds before turning the knob of the unlocked front door and entering Hudson's home. Inside the residence, officers discovered large quantities of drugs, including cocaine rocks in Hudson's pocket, and a loaded gun lodged between the cushion and armrest of the chair in which he was sitting. Hudson was charged under Michigan law with unlawful drug and firearm possession. He moved to suppress all the inculpatory evidence, arguing that the officers' premature entry violated his rights. The Michigan trial court granted the motion to suppress. On interlocutory review, the Michigan Court of Appeals reversed that ruling, and the Michigan Supreme Court denied leave to appeal. Hudson was subsequently convicted of the possession charges. He renewed his suppression claim on appeal, but the Michigan Court of Appeals rejected it and affirmed the conviction. The Michigan Supreme Court again declined review. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari to consider the case.
View caseCourts examine temporal proximity between the illegality and the evidence, the presence of intervening circumstances such as voluntary returns with counsel or valid preexisting warrants, and the purpose and flagrancy of the police misconduct. When these factors show that later evidence resulted from an independent act of free will, the taint is purged and the evidence is admissible.
Supporting sources
A valid preexisting warrant is a strong intervening circumstance that often supports attenuation, but courts still weigh it against temporal proximity and the flagrancy of the misconduct. When the officer's conduct is merely negligent and the warrant is unrelated to the stop, the taint is usually purged and evidence found during the subsequent arrest is admissible.
Supporting sources
Yes, when sufficient time has passed, the suspect has been released, and the suspect returns voluntarily with counsel or after proper warnings, the confession is treated as an act of free will that breaks the causal chain. Evidence discovered through that attenuated confession is then admissible.
Supporting sources