UNLAWFUL STOP, DISCOVERY OF A WARRANT, THEN A SEARCH. ILLEGAL? NAW!
UNLAWFUL STOP, DISCOVERY OF A WARRANT, THEN A SEARCH. ILLEGAL?
Hold your horses. It's gonna be a tough ride. Here we go and buckle of for this piece of dribble.
FACTS: The police unlawfully stop the defendant. So this is an unlawful traffic stop. It is. There is no question. It's wrong and it's illegal. Get it?
During the stop, before any search, the police find that the defendant has a warrant. They arrest the defendant, search, and find drugs. Result? You're probably going to say that the unlawful stop invalidates the search. You would be wrong.
The Cal. Supremes say that the discovery of the warrant is an intervening circumstance that attenuates the taint of the antecedent unlawful traffic stop. Say that three times fast. Um, is this tort law or something. This seems incredible to me. They note that evidence of purposeful or flagrant police misconduct would require suppression, as would a stop undertaken as a fishing expedition.
They distinguish Sanders (31 Cal.4th 318), which held that an unlawful search can't be justified by later discovery that the defendant is on probation or parole with search conditions, saying that no search occurred here until after the police found the warrant.
People v. Brendlin; 2008 DJ DAR 17352; DJ, 11/25/08; Cal. Supremes
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