If you’re familiar with the criminal justice system, you know the police and prosecutors have several bases they use when they want to present evidence that they obtained in a warrantless search. When that sort of circumstance faces you, you have rights and you need to fight back tenaciously. That includes retaining a skilled Santa Barbara criminal defense lawyer and seeking suppression of that evidence.
The law contains numerous reasons why law enforcement potentially can search you even without a warrant. What happens too often, though, is they stretch these exceptions beyond what the law allows and people get convicted using illegally obtained evidence.
A case in point comes to us from San Jose. In that circumstance, D.M. was presumably minding his own business, stretched out in the passenger seat of his vehicle. Unbeknownst to D.M., San Jose police were in the area, having arrived at a nearby parking lot to look for suspects in a possible vehicle burglary.
Having come up empty, the police moved to the adjacent parking lot, whereupon they found D.M. An officer ordered the man out of his car and demanded identification. A records check revealed that D.M. was on active parole, so the officer searched D.M. and his vehicle. As a result of that search, the police found a gun, drugs, and “drug paraphernalia.” The prosecution brought multiple drug and weapons charges based on the evidence seized.
Earlier this year, the California Supreme Court said that the trial judge in D.M.’s case should have suppressed all the evidence obtained in the vehicle search.
As a person on active parole, D.M. was subject to mandatory searches that could be warrantless and suspicionless. The question that the Supreme Court sought to resolve was: what happens when the police initially acquire their knowledge of your parole status as a result of an unlawful detainer?
Why the ‘Attenuation Doctrine’ Didn’t Save the Prosecution’s Case
The prosecution sought to get the evidence in through something the law calls the “attenuation doctrine.” This says that evidence “is admissible when the connection between unconstitutional police conduct and the evidence is remote or has been interrupted by some intervening circumstance, so that the interest protected by the constitutional guarantee that has been violated would not be served by suppression of the evidence obtained.”
In D.M.’s case, the prosecution argued that the officer’s discovery of the man’s parole status was an intervening circumstance that made the evidence admissible. The Supreme Court disagreed, pointing out that D.M.’s situation was different from those of other past defendants in which the courts admitted evidence obtained after an unlawful detention. In those earlier cases, the records searches revealed outstanding arrest warrants, not probation or parole. The courts said that the discovery of those warrants was adequate to trigger the attenuation doctrine and allow the courts to consider the evidence seized, but that arrest warrants carry more weight in terms of the attenuation doctrine than does a suspect’s parole status.
In this case, the facts were not enough to trigger that doctrine. The officer who detained D.M. and searched his vehicle provided the courts with “no basis — rooted in experience or otherwise — for believing” D.M. was engaged in suspicious activity; he interacted with D.M. merely because the latter had the misfortune of being “in the broad vicinity of reported suspicious activity.” On those facts, the attenuation doctrine wasn’t activated and the suspect was entitled to an order excluding from evidence the products of the search.
The Law Offices of Tristan Verburgt is dedicated to helping people accused of crimes — both felonies and misdemeanors — defend themselves and vindicate their rights. Whether it’s engaging in effective pretrial practice (like motions to suppress illegally obtained evidence) or putting on a powerful defense at trial, Attorney Verburgt is a knowledgeable Santa Barbara criminal defense attorney with the extensive experience you need to maximize your chances for a successful outcome. To get our team started working on your behalf, contact us online or call (805) 220-3923.
by Ohava