Date______________________
Unit V: Criminal Justice Process
Block____
Name___________________________
Law & American Society: LS RHS
MAPP v. OHIO (1961)
Ms. Dollree Mapp and her daughter lived in Cleveland, Ohio. After receiving information that an
individual wanted in connection with a recent bombing was hiding in Mapp's house, the
Cleveland police knocked on her door and demanded entrance. Mapp called her attorney and
subsequently refused to let the police in when they failed to produce a search warrant. After
several hours of surveillance and the arrival of more officers, the police again sought entrance to
the house. Although Mapp did not allow them to enter, they gained access by forcibly opening at
least one door. Once the police were inside the house, Mapp confronted them and demanded to
see their warrant. One of the officers held up a piece of paper claiming it was a search warrant.
Mapp grabbed the paper but an officer recovered it and handcuffed Mapp "because she had been
belligerent". Dragging Mapp upstairs, officers proceeded to search not only her room, but also her
daughter's bedroom, the kitchen, dinette, living room, and basement.
In the course of the basement search, police found a trunk containing "lewd and lascivious"
books, pictures, and photographs. As a result, Mapp was arrested for violating Ohio's criminal
law prohibiting the possession of obscene materials. At trial, the court found her guilty of the
violation based on the evidence presented by the police. When Mapp's attorney questioned the
officers about the alleged warrant and asked for it to be produced, the police were unable or
unwilling to do so. Nonetheless, Mapp was found guilty and sentenced to 1 to 7 years in the Ohio
Women's Reformatory.
Upon her conviction, Mapp appealed her case to the Supreme Court of Ohio. Her attorney argued
that she should never have been brought to trial because the material evidence resulted from an
illegal, warrantless search. Because the search was unlawful, he maintained, the evidence was
illegally obtained and must also be excluded. In its ruling, the Supreme Court of Ohio recognized
that "a reasonable argument" could be made that the conviction should be reversed "because the
'methods' employed to obtain the [evidence]. . . were such as to 'offend' a sense of justice." But
the Court also stated that the materials were admissible evidence. The Court explained its ruling
by differentiating between evidence that was peacefully seized from an inanimate object (the
trunk) rather than forcibly seized from an individual. Based on this decision, Mapp's appeal was
denied and her conviction upheld.
Mapp appealed again to the Supreme Court of the United States. The case came down to this
fundamental question: may evidence obtained through a search in violation of the Fourth
Amendment be admissible in state criminal proceedings? The Fourth Amendment states "The
right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable
searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause
. . . and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
The Fourth Amendment, however, does not define when a search or seizure is "unreasonable" nor
does it specify how evidence obtained from an "unreasonable" search should be treated.
While never previously addressing the specific question presented by Mapp's case, the Supreme
Court of the United States had made attempts to determine what constitutes a reasonable search
and what evidence can be used in court. It first wrestled with these issues in Boyd v. United States
(1886) when the Court declared that "any forcible and compulsory extortion of a man's own . . .
private papers to be used as evidence to convict him of a crime . . . is within the condemnation of
. . . [the Fourth Amendment].” Later, in Weeks v. United States (1914), the Court ruled that the
Fourth Amendment "put the courts of the United States and federal officials . . . under limitations
. . . and forever secure[d] the people, their persons, houses, papers and effects against all
unreasonable searches and seizures. . . ." By including only United States and federal officials in
its ruling, however, the Court still left open the question of whether evidence unlawfully seized
could be used in a state criminal court proceeding. In Wolf v. Colorado (1949) the Court for the
first time discussed the effect of the Fourth Amendment on the states. It concluded that the Due
Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment incorporated, or made applicable to the states, the
Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. However, the ruling in Wolf also made clear that "in a
prosecution in a State court for a State crime the Fourteenth Amendment does not forbid the
admission of evidence obtained by an unreasonable search and seizure." In other words, the
exclusionary rule did not apply to the states.
Some states, including Ohio, felt that they should be able to make their own determination
regarding the admissibility of illegally obtained evidence. Nevertheless, in 1960 the Supreme
Court of the United States agreed to hear Mapp's case and reconsider the decision it had reached
in Wolf by determining whether the U.S. Constitution prohibited state officials from using
evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The decision in Mapp v. Ohio was
handed down in 1961.
Questions:
1. What did the police suspect Mapp of hiding in her home? What did they find?
2. What was the immediate result for Mapp? Why did she appeal?
3. What did the Ohio State Supreme Court rule? Why?
4. On what constitutional grounds did Mapp appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court?
5. What three previous cases did the U.S. Supreme Court use to help them decide this
case? At first glance, who would these decisions favor – Mapp or Ohio?
6. Why was the decision in Wolf so important to the outcome of Mapp’s case?
7. What is your opinion on who should win and why?
opinion
Since the Fourth Amendment's right of privacy has been declared enforceable against the
States through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth, it is enforceable against them
by the same sanction of exclusion as is used against the Federal Government. Were it
otherwise . . . the freedom from state invasions of privacy would be so ephemeral and so
neatly severed from its conceptual nexus with the freedom from all brutish means of
coercing evidence as not to merit this Court's high regard as a freedom "implicit in the
concept of ordered liberty." . . . in extending the substantive protections of due process to
all constitutionally unreasonable searches—state or federal—it was logically and
constitutionally necessary that the exclusion doctrine—an essential part of the right to
privacy-be also insisted upon as an essential ingredient of the right. . . .
. . . our holding that the exclusionary rule is an essential part of both the Fourth and
Fourteenth Amendments is not only the logical dictate of prior cases, but it also makes
very good sense. There is no war between the Constitution and common sense.
The judgment of the Supreme Court of Ohio is reversed and the cause remanded for
further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
Maryland v. Garrison (1987)
Baltimore police officers obtained and executed a warrant to search the person of
Lawrence McWebb and "the premises known as 2036 Park Avenue third floor
apartment." When the police applied for the warrant and when they conducted the
search pursuant to the warrant, they reasonably believed that there was only one
apartment on the premises described in the warrant. In fact, the third floor was divided
into two apartments, one occupied by McWebb and one by respondent Garrison. Before
the officers executing the warrant became aware that they were in a separate apartment
occupied by respondent, they had discovered the contraband that provided the basis for
respondent's conviction for violating Maryland's Controlled Substances Act. The
question presented is whether the seizure of that contraband was prohibited by the
Fourth Amendment.
The trial court denied respondent's motion to suppress the evidence seized from his
apartment, App. 46, and the Maryland Court of Special Appeals affirmed. 58 Md. App.
417, 473 A. 2d 514 (1984). The Court of Appeals of Maryland reversed and remanded
with instructions to remand the case for a new trial. 303 Md. 385, 494 A. 2d 193 (1985).
There is no question that the warrant was valid and was supported by probable cause.
Id., at 392, 494 A. 2d, at 196. The trial court found, and the two appellate courts did not
dispute, that after making a reasonable investigation, including a verification of
information obtained from a reliable informant, an exterior examination of the three-story
building at 2036 Park Avenue, and an inquiry of the utility company, the officer who
obtained the warrant reasonably concluded that there was only one apartment on the
third floor and that it was occupied by McWebb. App. 41; 58 Md. App., at 433, 473 A. 2d,
at 522; 303 Md., at 387-390, 494 A. 2d, at 194-195. When six Baltimore police officers
executed the warrant, they fortuitously encountered McWebb in front of the building and
used his key to gain admittance to the first-floor hallway and to the locked door at the top
of the stairs to the third floor. As they entered the vestibule on the third floor, they
encountered respondent, who was standing in the hallway area. The police could see
into the interior of both McWebb's apartment to the left and respondent's to the right, for
the doors to both were open. Only after respondent's apartment had been entered and
heroin, cash, and drug paraphernalia had been found did any of the officers realize that
the third floor contained two apartments. App. 41-46. As soon as they became aware of
that fact, the search was discontinued. Id., at 32, 39. All of the officers reasonably
believed that they were searching McWebb's apartment] No further search of
respondent's apartment was made.
The matter on which there is a difference of opinion concerns the proper interpretation of
the warrant. A literal reading of its plain language, as well as the language used in the
application for the warrant, indicates that it was intended to authorize a search of the
entire third floor.http://www.justia.us/us/480/79/case.html - F3#F3 One sentence in the
trial judge's oral opinion, however, lends support to the construction adopted by the
Court of Appeals, namely, that the warrant authorized a search of McWebb's apartment
only. Under that interpretation, the Court of Appeals concluded that the warrant did not
authorize the search of respondent's apartment and the police had no justification for
making a warrantless entry into his premises.
In our view, the case presents two separate constitutional issues, one concerning the
validity of the warrant and the other concerning the reasonableness of the manner in
which it was executed. See Dalia v. United States, 441 U.S. 238, 258 (1979). We shall
discuss the questions separately.
I
The Warrant Clause of the Fourth Amendment categorically prohibits the issuance of
any warrant except one "particularly describing the place to be searched and the
persons or things to be seized." The manifest purpose of this particularity requirement
was to prevent general searches. By limiting the authorization to search to the specific
areas and things for which there is probable cause to search, the requirement ensures
that the search will be carefully tailored to its justifications, and will not take on the
character of the wide-ranging exploratory searches the Framers intended to
prohibit.http://www.justia.us/us/480/79/case.html - F8#F8 Thus, the scope of a lawful
search is "defined by the object of the search and the places in which there is probable
cause to believe that it may be found. Just as probable cause to believe that a stolen
lawnmower may be found in a garage will not support a warrant to search an upstairs
bedroom, probable cause to believe that undocumented aliens are being transported in
a van will not justify a warrantless search of a suitcase." United States v. Ross, 456 U.S.
798, 824 (1982).
In this case there is no claim that the "persons or things to be seized" were inadequately
described or that there was no probable cause to believe that those things might be
found in "the place to be searched" as it was described in the warrant. With the benefit of
hindsight, however, we now know that the description of that place was broader than
appropriate because it was based on the mistaken belief that there was only one
apartment on the third floor of the building at 2036 Park Avenue. The question is
whether that factual mistake invalidated a warrant that undoubtedly would have been
valid if it had reflected a completely accurate understanding of the building's floor plan.
Plainly, if the officers had known, or even if they should have known, that there were two
separate dwelling units on the third floor of 2036 Park Avenue, they would have been
obligated to exclude respondent's apartment from the scope of the requested warrant.
But we must judge the constitutionality of their conduct in light of the information
available to them at the time they acted. Those items of evidence that emerge after the
warrant is issued have no bearing on whether or not a warrant was validly
issued.[Footnote 9] Just as the discovery of contraband cannot validate a warrant invalid
when issued, so is it equally clear that the discovery of facts demonstrating that a valid
warrant was unnecessarily broad does not retroactively invalidate the warrant. The
validity of the warrant must be assessed on the basis of the information that the officers
disclosed, or had a duty to discover and to disclose, to the issuing Magistrate. On the
basis of that information, we agree with the conclusion of all three Maryland courts that
the warrant, insofar as it authorized a search that turned out to be ambiguous in scope,
was valid when it issued.
The question whether the execution of the warrant violated respondent's constitutional
right to be secure in his home is somewhat less clear. We have no difficulty concluding
that the officers' entry into the third-floor common area was legal; they carried a warrant
for those premises, and they were accompanied by McWebb, who provided the key that
they used to open the door giving access to the third-floor common area. If the officers
had known, or should have known, that the third floor contained two apartments before
they entered the living quarters on the third floor, and thus had been aware of the error
in the warrant, they would have been obligated to limit their search to McWebb's
apartment.
Moreover, as the officers recognized, they were required to discontinue the search of
respondent's apartment as soon as they discovered that there were two separate units
on the third floor and therefore were put on notice of the risk that they might be in a unit
erroneously included within the terms of the warrant. The officers' conduct and the limits
of the search were based on the information available as the search proceeded. While
the purposes justifying a police search strictly limit the permissible extent of the search,
the Court has also recognized the need to allow some latitude for honest mistakes that
are made by officers in the dangerous and difficult process of making arrests and
executing search warrants.
In Hill v. California, 401 U.S. 797 (1971), we considered the validity of the arrest of a
man named Miller based on the mistaken belief that he was Hill. The police had
probable cause to arrest Hill and they in good faith believed that Miller was Hill when
they found him in Hill's apartment. As we explained:
"The upshot was that the officers in good faith believed Miller was Hill and arrested him.
They were quite wrong as it turned out, and subjective good-faith belief would not in itself
justify either the arrest or the subsequent search. But sufficient probability, not certainty,
is the touchstone of reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment and on the record
before us the officers' mistake was understandable and the arrest a reasonable response
to the situation facing them at the time." Id., at 803-804.
While Hill involved an arrest without a warrant, its underlying rationale that an officer's
reasonable misidentification of a person does not invalidate a valid arrest is equally
applicable to an officer's reasonable failure to appreciate that a valid warrant describes
too broadly the premises to be searched. Under the reasoning in Hill, the validity of the
search of respondent's apartment pursuant to a warrant authorizing the search of the entire
third floor depends on whether the officers' failure to realize the over breadth of the
warrant was objectively understandable and reasonable. Here it unquestionably was. The
objective facts available to the officers at the time suggested no distinction between
McWebb's apartment and the third-floor premises.
For that reason, the officers properly responded to the command contained in a valid
warrant even if the warrant is interpreted as authorizing a search limited to McWebb's
apartment rather than the entire third floor. Prior to the officers' discovery of the factual
mistake, they perceived McWebb's apartment and the third-floor premises as one and
the same; therefore their execution of the warrant reasonably included the entire third
floor.[ Under either interpretation of the warrant, the officers' conduct was consistent with
a reasonable effort to ascertain and identify the place intended to be searched within the
meaning of the Fourth Amendment.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further
proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Title: United States v. Leon
US Citation:468 U.S. 897 (1984)
Docket:82-1771
Events: Argued - January 17, 1984
Decided - July 5, 1984
Subjects: Criminal Procedure: Search and Seizure
Facts: The exclusionary rule requires that evidence illegally seized must be excluded
from criminal trials. Leon was the target of police surveillance based on an anonymous
informant's tip. The police applied to a judge for a search warrant of Leon's home based
on the evidence from their surveillance. A judge issued the warrant and the police
recovered large quantities of illegal drugs. Leon was indicted for violating federal drug
laws. A judge concluded that the affidavit for the search warrant was insufficient; it did
not establish the probable cause necessary to issue the warrant. Thus, the evidence
obtained under the warrant could not be introduced at Leon's trial.
**********************************************************************
In August 1981, a confidential informant of unproven reliability informed an officer of
the Burbank Police Department that two persons known to him as "Armando" and
"Patsy" were selling large quantities of cocaine and methaqualone from their residence at
620 Price Drive in Burbank, Cal. The informant also indicated that he had witnessed a
sale of methaqualone by "Patsy" at the residence approximately five months earlier and
had observed at that time a shoebox containing a large amount of cash that belonged to
"Patsy." He further declared that "Armando" and "Patsy" generally kept only small
quantities of drugs at their residence and stored the remainder at another location in
Burbank.
On the basis of this information, the Burbank police initiated an extensive investigation
focusing first on the Price Drive residence and later on two other residences as well. Cars
parked at the Price Drive residence were determined to belong to respondents Armando
Sanchez, who had previously been arrested for possession of marihuana, and Patsy
Stewart, who had no criminal record. During the course of the investigation, officers
observed an automobile belonging to respondent Ricardo Del Castillo, who had
previously been arrested for possession of 50 pounds of marihuana, arrive at the Price
Drive residence. The driver of that car entered the house, exited shortly thereafter
carrying a small paper sack, and drove away. A check of Del Castillo's probation records
led the officers to respondent Alberto Leon, whose telephone number Del Castillo had
listed as his employer's. Leon had been arrested in 1980 on drug charges, and a
companion had informed the police at that time that Leon was heavily involved in the
importation of drugs into this country. Before the current investigation began, the
Burbank officers had [468 U.S. 897, 902] learned that an informant had told a Glendale
police officer that Leon stored a large quantity of methaqualone at his residence in
Glendale. During the course of this investigation, the Burbank officers learned that Leon
was living at 716 South Sunset Canyon in Burbank.
Subsequently, the officers observed several persons, at least one of whom had prior drug
involvement, arriving at the Price Drive residence and leaving with small packages;
observed a variety of other material activity at the two residences as well as at a
condominium at 7902 Via Magdalena; and witnessed a variety of relevant activity
involving respondents' automobiles. The officers also observed respondents Sanchez and
Stewart board separate flights for Miami. The pair later returned to Los Angeles together,
consented to a search of their luggage that revealed only a small amount of marihuana,
and left the airport. Based on these and other observations summarized in the affidavit,
App. 34, Officer Cyril Rombach of the Burbank Police Department, an experienced and
well-trained narcotics investigator, prepared an application for a warrant to search 620
Price Drive, 716 South Sunset Canyon, 7902 Via Magdalena, and automobiles registered
to each of the respondents for an extensive list of items believed to be related to
respondents' drug-trafficking activities. Officer Rombach's extensive application was
reviewed by several Deputy District Attorneys.
A facially valid search warrant was issued in September 1981 by a State Superior Court
Judge. The ensuing searches produced large quantities of drugs at the Via Magdalena and
Sunset Canyon addresses and a small quantity at the Price Drive residence. Other
evidence was discovered at each of the residences and in Stewart's and Del Castillo's
automobiles. Respondents were indicted by a grand jury in the District Court for the
Central District of California and charged with conspiracy to possess and distribute
cocaine and a variety of substantive counts. [468 U.S. 897, 903]
The respondents then filed motions to suppress the evidence seized pursuant to the
warrant. 1 The District Court held an evidentiary hearing and, while recognizing that the
case was a close one, see id., at 131, granted the motions to suppress in part. It concluded
that the affidavit was insufficient to establish probable cause, 2 but did not suppress all of
the evidence as to all of the respondents because none of the respondents had standing to
challenge all of the searches. 3 In [468 U.S. 897, 904] response to a request from the
Government, the court made clear that Officer Rombach had acted in good faith, but it
rejected the Government's suggestion that the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule
should not apply where evidence is seized in reasonable, good-faith reliance on a search
warrant.
Question Presented: Is there a "good faith" exception to the exclusionary rule?
NIX v. WILLIAMS
CHIEF JUSTICE BURGER delivered the opinion of the Court.
We granted certiorari to consider whether, at respondent Williams' second murder trial in state court,
evidence pertaining to the discovery and condition of the victim's body was properly admitted on the
ground that it would ultimately or inevitably have been discovered even if no violation of any constitutional
or statutory provision had taken place.
I
A
On December 24, 1968, 10-year-old Pamela Powers disappeared from a YMCA building in Des Moines,
Iowa, where she had accompanied her parents to watch an athletic contest. Shortly after she disappeared,
Williams was seen leaving the YMCA carrying a large bundle wrapped in a blanket; a 14-year-old boy who
had helped Williams open his car door reported that he had seen "two legs in it and they were skinny and
white."
Williams' car was found the next day 160 miles east of Des Moines in Davenport, Iowa. Later several items
of clothing belonging to the child, some of Williams' clothing, and an army blanket like the one used to
wrap the bundle that Williams carried out of the YMCA were found at a rest stop on Interstate 80 near
Grinnell, between Des Moines and Davenport. A warrant was issued for Williams' arrest.
Police surmised that Williams had left Pamela Powers or her body somewhere between Des Moines and the
Grinnell rest stop where some of the young girl's clothing had been found. On December 26, the Iowa
Bureau of Criminal Investigation initiated a large-scale search. Two hundred volunteers divided into teams
began the search 21 miles east of Grinnell, covering an area several miles to the north and south of
Interstate 80. They moved westward from Poweshiek County, in which Grinnell was located, into Jasper
County. Searchers were instructed to check all roads, abandoned farm buildings, ditches, culverts, and any
other place in which the body of a small child could be hidden.
Meanwhile, Williams surrendered to local police in Davenport, where he was promptly arraigned. Williams
contacted a Des Moines attorney who arranged for an attorney in Davenport to meet Williams at the
Davenport police station. Des Moines police informed counsel they would pick Williams up in Davenport
and return him to Des Moines without questioning him. Two Des Moines detectives then drove to
Davenport, took Williams into custody, and proceeded to drive him back to Des Moines.
During the return trip, one of the policemen, Detective Leaming, began a conversation with Williams,
saying:
"I want to give you something to think about while we're traveling down the road. … They are predicting
several inches of snow for tonight, and I feel that you yourself are the only person that knows where this
little girl's body is … and if you get a snow on top of it you yourself may be unable to find it. And since we
will be going right past the area [where the body is] on the way into Des Moines, I feel that we could stop
and locate the body, that the parents of this little girl should be entitled to a Christian burial for the little girl
who was snatched away from them on Christmas [E]ve and murdered… . [A]fter a snow storm [we may
not be] able to find it at all."
Leaming told Williams he knew the body was in the area of Mitchellville - a town they would be passing
on the way to Des Moines. He concluded the conversation by saying: "I do not want you to answer me. …
Just think about it …"
Later, as the police car approached Grinnell, Williams asked Leaming whether the police had found the
young girl's shoes. After Leaming replied that he was unsure, Williams directed the police to a point near a
service station where he said he had left the shoes; they were not found. As they continued the drive to Des
Moines, Williams asked whether the blanket had been found and then directed the officers to a rest area in
Grinnell where he said he had disposed of the blanket; they did not find the blanket. At this point Leaming
and his party were joined by the officers in charge of the search. As they approached Mitchellville,
Williams, without any further conversation, agreed to direct the officers to the child's body.
The officers directing the search had called off the search at 3 p. m., when they left the Grinnell Police
Department to join Leaming at the rest area. At that time, one search team near the Jasper County-Polk
County line was only two and one-half miles from where Williams soon guided Leaming and his party to
the body. The child's body was found next to a culvert in a ditch beside a gravel road in Polk County, about
two miles south of Interstate 80, and essentially within the area to be searched.
B
First Trial
In February 1969 Williams was indicted for first-degree murder. Before trial in the Iowa court, his counsel
moved to suppress evidence of the body and all related evidence including the condition of the body as
shown by the autopsy. The ground for the motion was that such evidence was the "fruit" or product of
Williams' statement made during the automobile ride from Davenport to Des Moines and prompted by
Leaming's statements. The motion to suppress was denied.
The jury found Williams guilty of first-degree murder; the judgment of conviction was affirmed by the
Iowa Supreme Court. Williams then sought release on habeas corpus in the United States District Court for
the Southern District of Iowa. That court concluded that the evidence in question had been wrongly
admitted at Williams' trial; a divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit agreed.
We granted certiorari, and a divided Court affirmed, holding that Detective Leaming had obtained
incriminating statements from Williams by what was viewed as interrogation in violation of his right to
counsel. This Court's opinion noted, however, that although Williams' incriminating statements could not
be introduced into evidence at a second trial, evidence of the body's location and condition "might well be
admissible on the theory that the body would have been discovered in any event, even had incriminating
statements not been elicited from Williams."
C
Second Trial
At Williams' second trial in 1977 in the Iowa court, the prosecution did not offer Williams' statements into
evidence, nor did it seek to show that Williams had directed the police to the child's body. However,
evidence of the condition of her body as it was found, articles and photographs of her clothing, and the
results of post-mortem medical and chemical tests on the body were admitted. The trial court concluded
that the State had proved by a preponderance of the evidence that, if the search had not been suspended and
Williams had not led the police to the victim, her body would have been discovered "within a short time" in
essentially the same condition as it was actually found. The trial court also ruled that if the police had not
located the body, "the search would clearly have been taken up again where it left off, given the extreme
circumstances of this case and the body would [have] been found in short order."
In finding that the body would have been discovered in essentially the same condition as it was actually
found, the court noted that freezing temperatures had prevailed and tissue deterioration would have been
suspended. The challenged evidence was admitted and the jury again found Williams guilty of first-degree
murder; he was sentenced to life in prison.
On appeal, the Supreme Court of Iowa again affirmed. That court held that there was in fact a "hypothetical
independent source" exception to the exclusionary rule:
"After the defendant has shown unlawful conduct on the part of the police, the State has the burden to show
by a preponderance of the evidence that (1) the police did not act in bad faith for the purpose of hastening
discovery of the evidence in question, and (2) that the evidence in question would have been discovered by
lawful means."
***
The Iowa court then reviewed the evidence de novo and concluded that the State had shown by a
preponderance of the evidence that, even if Williams had not guided police to the child's body, it would
inevitably have been found by lawful activity of the search party before its condition had materially
changed.
***
[Ultimately, however, Williams's conviction was overturned by the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in
Habeas Corpus proceedings. The Supreme Court then agreed to hear the case.]
II
A
***
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 contends that admitting the challenged
evidence violated the Sixth Amendment whether it would have been inevitably discovered or not. Williams
also contends that, if the inevitable discovery doctrine is constitutionally permissible, it must include a
threshold showing of police good faith.
B
The doctrine requiring courts to suppress evidence as the tainted "fruit" of unlawful governmental conduct
had its genesis in Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States (1920); there, the Court held that the
exclusionary rule applies not only to the illegally obtained evidence itself, but also to other incriminating
evidence derived from the primary evidence. The holding of Silverthorne was carefully limited, however,
for the Court emphasized that such information does not automatically become "sacred and inaccessible."
"If knowledge of [such facts] is gained from an independent source, they may be proved like any others …"
Wong Sun v. United States (1963) extended the exclusionary rule to evidence that was the indirect product
or "fruit" of unlawful police conduct, but there again the Court emphasized that evidence that has been
illegally obtained need not always be suppressed, stating:
"We need not hold that all evidence is `fruit of the poisonous tree' simply because it would not have come
to light but for the illegal actions of the police. Rather, the more apt question in such a case is `whether,
granting establishment of the primary illegality, the evidence to which instant objection is made has been
come at by exploitation of that illegality or instead by means sufficiently distinguishable to be purged of the
primary taint.'"
Although Silverthorne and Wong Sun involved violations of the Fourth Amendment, the "fruit of the
poisonous tree" doctrine has not been limited to cases in which there has been a Fourth Amendment
violation. The Court has applied the doctrine where the violations were of the Sixth, as well as of the Fifth
Amendment.
The core rationale consistently advanced by this Court for extending the exclusionary rule to evidence that
is the fruit of unlawful police conduct has been that this admittedly drastic and socially costly course is
needed to deter police from violations of constitutional and statutory protections. This Court has accepted
the argument that the way to ensure such protections is to exclude evidence seized as a result of such
violations notwithstanding the high social cost of letting persons obviously guilty go unpunished for their
crimes. On this rationale, the prosecution is not to be put in a better position than it would have been in if
no illegality had transpired.
By contrast, the derivative evidence analysis ensures that the prosecution is not put in a worse position
simply because of some earlier police error or misconduct. The independent source doctrine allows
admission of evidence that has been discovered by means wholly independent of any constitutional
violation. That doctrine, although closely related to the inevitable discovery doctrine, does not apply here;
Williams' statements to Leaming indeed led police to the child's body, but that is not the whole story. The
independent source doctrine teaches us that the interest of society in deterring unlawful police conduct and
the public interest in having juries receive all probative evidence of a crime are properly balanced by
putting the police in the same, not a worse, position that they would have been in if no police error or
misconduct had occurred. When the challenged evidence has an independent source, exclusion of such
evidence would put the police in a worse position than they would have been in absent any error or
violation. There is a functional similarity between these two doctrines in that exclusion of evidence that
would inevitably have been discovered would also put the government in a worse position, because the
police would have obtained that evidence if no misconduct had taken place. Thus, while the independent
source exception would not justify admission of evidence in this case, its rationale is wholly consistent with
and justifies our adoption of the ultimate or inevitable discovery exception to the exclusionary rule.
It is clear that the cases implementing the exclusionary rule "begin with the premise that the challenged
evidence is in some sense the product of illegal governmental activity." Of course, this does not end the
inquiry. If the prosecution can establish by a preponderance of the evidence that the information ultimately
or inevitably would have been discovered by lawful means - here the volunteers' search - then the
deterrence rationale has so little basis that the evidence should be received. Anything less would reject
logic, experience, and common sense.
***
Exclusion of physical evidence that would inevitably have been discovered adds nothing to either the
integrity or fairness of a criminal trial. The Sixth Amendment right to counsel protects against unfairness
by preserving the adversary process in which the reliability of proffered evidence may be tested in crossexamination. Here, however, Detective Leaming's conduct did nothing to impugn the reliability of the
evidence in question - the body of the child and its condition as it was found, articles of clothing found on
the body, and the autopsy. No one would seriously contend that the presence of counsel in the police car
when Leaming appealed to Williams' decent human instincts would have had any bearing on the reliability
of the body as evidence. Suppression, in these circumstances, would do nothing whatever to promote the
integrity of the trial process, but would inflict a wholly unacceptable burden on the administration of
criminal justice.
Nor would suppression ensure fairness on the theory that it tends to safeguard the adversary system of
justice. To assure the fairness of trial proceedings, this Court has held that assistance of counsel must be
available at pretrial confrontations where "the subsequent trial [cannot] cure a[n otherwise] one-sided
confrontation between prosecuting authorities and the uncounseled defendant." Fairness can be assured by
placing the State and the accused in the same positions they would have been in had the impermissible
conduct not taken place. However, if the government can prove that the evidence would have been obtained
inevitably and, therefore, would have been admitted regardless of any overreaching by the police, there is
no rational basis to keep that evidence from the jury in order to ensure the fairness of the trial proceedings.
In that situation, the State has gained no advantage at trial and the defendant has suffered no prejudice.
Indeed, suppression of the evidence would operate to undermine the adversary system by putting the State
in a worse position than it would have occupied without any police misconduct. Williams' argument that
inevitable discovery constitutes impermissible balancing of values is without merit.
* * * The judgment of the Court of Appeals [overturning Williams's conviction] is reversed, and the case is
remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
***
JUSTICE BRENNAN, with whom JUSTICE MARSHALL joins, dissenting.
* * * To the extent that today's decision adopts this "inevitable discovery" exception to the exclusionary
rule, it simply acknowledges a doctrine that is akin to the "independent source" exception first recognized
by the Court in Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States (1920). * * * In particular, the Court concludes
that unconstitutionally obtained evidence may be admitted at trial if it inevitably would have been
discovered in the same condition by an independent line of investigation that was already being pursued
when the constitutional violation occurred. As has every Federal Court of Appeals previously addressing
this issue, I agree that in these circumstances the "inevitable discovery" exception to the exclusionary rule
is consistent with the requirements of the Constitution.
In its zealous efforts to emasculate the exclusionary rule, however, the Court loses sight of the crucial
difference between the "inevitable discovery" doctrine and the "independent source" exception from which
it is derived. When properly applied, the "independent source" exception allows the prosecution to use
evidence only if it was, in fact, obtained by fully lawful means. It therefore does no violence to the
constitutional protections that the exclusionary rule is meant to enforce. The "inevitable discovery"
exception is likewise compatible with the Constitution, though it differs in one key respect from its next of
kin: specifically, the evidence sought to be introduced at trial has not actually been obtained from an
independent source, but rather would have been discovered as a matter of course if independent
investigations were allowed to proceed.
In my view, this distinction should require that the government satisfy a heightened burden of proof before
it is allowed to use such evidence. The inevitable discovery exception necessarily implicates a hypothetical
finding that differs in kind from the factual finding that precedes application of the independent source rule.
To ensure that this hypothetical finding is narrowly confined to circumstances that are functionally
equivalent to an independent source, and to protect fully the fundamental rights served by the exclusionary
rule, I would require clear and convincing evidence before concluding that the government had met its
burden of proof on this issue. Increasing the burden of proof serves to impress the factfinder with the
importance of the decision and thereby reduces the risk that illegally obtained evidence will be admitted.
Because the lower courts did not impose such a requirement, I would remand this case for application of
this heightened burden of proof by the lower courts in the first instance. I am therefore unable to join either
the Court's opinion or its judgment.