Defendant was stopped coming out of an apartment building because he was the same race as a man wanted in an arrest warrant who was thought to be there. Defendant refused to give his name. Parole officers came to the scene and recognized defendant, not as the man wanted, but as a PV. He was searched and drugs were found. The stop of the defendant for merely being the same race as a wanted man, with no other sign of criminality. Under the Brown v. Illinois attenuation factors, this was not attenuated. Applying the exclusionary rule is necessary to protect privacy of the people. The search incident to the PV warrant is suppressed. State v. Shaw, 2012 N.J. LEXIS 1263 (December 13, 2012):
Although the exclusionary rule "may vindicate the Fourth Amendment rights of a particular defendant, and more generally the privacy rights of all persons," it also may "depriv[e] the jury or judge of reliable evidence that may point the way to the truth." Id. [State v. Williams, 192 N.J. 1, 16, 926 A.2d 340 (2007)] at 14-15, 926 A.2d 340 (citations omitted). Because of the high price exacted by suppressing evidence, "the exclusionary rule is applied to those circumstances where its remedial objectives can best be achieved." Id. at 15, 926 A.2d 340 (citing Calandra, supra, 414 U.S. at 348, 94 S. Ct. at 620, 38 L. Ed. 2d at 571). Thus, when law enforcement officials secure evidence that is sufficiently independent of the illegal conduct -- evidence that is not tainted by the misdeed -- then withholding evidence from the trier of fact is a cost that may not be justified by the exclusionary rule. Badessa, supra, 185 N.J. at 311, 885 A.2d 430.
. . .
Significantly, two of the courts cited above suggested that the random stopping of people in the hope of picking up some on outstanding warrants is the type of flagrant or purposeful conduct that would weigh against a warrant serving as a determinative intervening circumstance. See Brendlin, supra, 195 P.3d at 1082; McBath, supra, 108 P.3d at 249. In Brendlin, supra, the California Supreme Court indicated that where a seizure is "undertaken as a fishing expedition, the third Brown factor will make it unlikely that the [State] would be able to demonstrate an attenuation of the taint of the initial unlawful seizure." 195 P.3d at 1082. The Brendlin court contrasted the "fishing expedition" scenario with "a chance discovery of an outstanding arrest warrant in the course of a seizure that is later determined to be invalid." Ibid. (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).
Similarly, the Alaska appellate court in McBath, supra, observed that an arrest warrant may not constitute a determinative intervening circumstance "where the police conducted an unjustifiable 'dragnet' investigative stop of many people, hoping to find some for whom there were outstanding arrest warrants." 108 P.3d at 249. In such a case, "the flagrance of the police misconduct may still require suppression of the evidence." Ibid.
There is a difference between an unlawful motor vehicle or investigatory stop in which, incidental to the stop, the police learn about an outstanding warrant and, as here, an unlawful stop executed for the specific purpose of ascertaining whether a suspect is the subject of an arrest warrant. That is a point clearly made in People v. Mitchell, 355 Ill. App. 3d 1030, 824 N.E.2d 642, 291 Ill. Dec. 786 (Ill. App. 2005) (cited with approval in Brendlin, supra, 195 P.3d at 1082).
People v. Brendlin, 45 Cal. 4th 262, 85 Cal. Rptr. 3d 496, 195 P.3d 1074 (2008)
McBath v. State, 108 P.3d 241, 242, 248 (Alaska App. 2005)
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