holding that the related independent source rule could potentially apply on remand despite illegal police entry into a warehouse containing marijuana where police had legitimately gained probable cause prior to entry and separately obtained a warrant for entry if “the search pursuant to warrant was in fact a genuinely independent source of the information and tangible evidence”
How later courts described this case
- holding that the related independent source rule could potentially apply on remand despite illegal police entry into a warehouse containing marijuana where police had legitimately gained probable cause prior to entry and separately obtained a warrant for entry if “the search pursuant to warrant was in fact a genuinely independent source of the information and tangible evidence”
- holding that the independent source doctrine applies not “only to evidence obtained for the first time during an independent lawful search,” but “also to evidence initially discovered during, or as a consequence of, an unlawful search, but later obtained independently from activities untainted by the initial illegality.”
- concluding a search pursuant to a warrant was not an independent search if the agents’ decision to seek the warrant was prompted by what they had seen during the initial entry, or if information obtained during that entry was presented to the Magistrate and affected his decision to issue the warrant
- concluding that while the district court found that one could “perhaps infer from [the facts] that the agents who made the entry already planned to obtain the ‘critical evidence through a warrant-authorized search’ it was not strong enough for the court of appeals to find the fact on its own
Written by the judges who cited it.
Later courts went against this
Criticized by State v. Rogers, 18 Conn. App. 104 (1989)
Segura’s most recent progeny, Murray v. United States, 487 U.S. 533, 108 S. Ct. 2529, 101 L. Ed. 2d 472 (1988); a 4-3 decision, also has been criticized by Professor LaFave. 4 W. LaFave, Search and Seizure (1989 Sup.)§ 11.4 (f), pp. 27-32.
Distinguished
Distinguished by Commonwealth v. Fuller, 88 Va. Cir. 305 (2014)
Cf. Murray, 487 U.S. at 542, 108 S. Ct. at 2536 (noting the independent source doctrine is inapplicable “if the agents’ decision to seek the warrant was prompted by what they had seen during the initial [unlawful] entry”).
The opinion
Justice Stevens,
dissenting.
While I join Justice Marshall’s opinion explaining why the majority’s extension of the Court’s holding in Segura v. United States, 468 U. S. 796 (1984), “emasculates the Warrant Clause and provides an intolerable incentive for war-rantless searches,” ante this page, I remain convinced that the Segura decision itself was unacceptable because, even then, it was obvious that it would “provide government agents with an affirmative incentive to engage in unconstitutional violations of the privacy of the home,” 468 U. S., at 817 (dissenting opinion). I fear that the Court has taken another unfortunate step down the path to a system of “law enforcement unfettered by process concerns.” Patterson v. Illinois, ante, at 305 (Stevens, J., dissenting). In due course, I trust it will pause long enough to remember that “the efforts of the courts and their officials to bring the guilty to punishment, praiseworthy as they are, are not to be aided by the sacrifice of those great principles established by years of endeavor and suffering which have resulted in their embodiment in the fundamental law of the land.” Weeks v. United States, 232 U. S. 383, 393-394 (1914).