F I L E D
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
PUBLISH
OCT 25 2001
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
PATRICK FISHER
Clerk
TENTH CIRCUIT
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellant,
vs. No. 00-1442
FRANK LAWRENCE DeLUCA,
Defendant - Appellee.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLORADO
(D.C. No. 00-CR-69-N)
Sean Connelly (James R. Boma, Thomas L. Strickland and Richard T. Spriggs, on
briefs), Office of the US Attorney, Denver, Colorado, for Plaintiff - Appellant.
Laura B. Alms (and Jody C. Reuler, on the brief), Denver, Colorado, for
Defendant - Appellee.
Before SEYMOUR, McWILLIAMS, and KELLY, Circuit Judges.
KELLY, Circuit Judge.
The government appeals from the district court’s order suppressing
methamphetamine that gave rise to a conspiracy charge against Defendant-
Appellee, Frank Lawrence DeLuca. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 18 U.S.C. §
3731, and we reverse.
Background
Mr. DeLuca was indicted on three drug-related counts: one count of
conspiracy to possess more than 50 grams of actual methamphetamine with intent
to distribute, 21 U.S.C. §§ 846, 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(A); and two counts of
distribution of methamphetamine, 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(C). App. at 9-
10. The two distribution charges arose out of events which occurred in April
1999, and are not at issue here. Id. at 10. The events that gave rise to the
conspiracy charge, however, are pertinent. In June 1999, during a New Mexico
traffic stop, a state police officer seized a quantity of methamphetamine from the
trunk of a car in which Mr. DeLuca was a passenger. On Mr. DeLuca’s motion,
id. at 12, the district court suppressed the methamphetamine as “the fruit of the
illegal detention” of the car and its occupants. Id. at 78, 85.
On June 19, 1999, a New Mexico police officer was participating in a
driver’s license and registration checkpoint on Interstate Highway 40 in New
Mexico when he stopped the car in which Mr. DeLuca was a passenger. The car
had three occupants: Tineke Meyers, the driver; William Boyer, the backseat
passenger and owner of the car; and Mr. DeLuca, the defendant and front-seat
passenger. Upon the officer’s request, Ms. Meyers produced a valid driver’s
license, and Mr. Boyer produced the vehicle registration. Id. at 73. As Mr. Boyer
handed the officer the registration, the officer “observed that his right hand was
-2-
visibly shaking and all occupants in the vehicle appeared to be nervous.” Id. at
19 (statement of probable cause).
The officer inquired about the group’s travel plans. Ms. Meyer said they
had left Colorado Springs, Colorado, the previous day to go to Phoenix, Arizona,
and that now they were on their way back to Colorado Springs. A second officer,
having arrived on the scene and overhearing the conversation, asked if their
luggage was in the trunk. Ms. Meyer replied that they had no luggage and that
there was nothing in the trunk. At this point, the first officer asked Ms. Meyer if
she would pull over on to the highway shoulder and Ms. Meyer did so. The first
officer had not returned Ms. Meyer’s license or the vehicle registration. Id. at 73-
74.
Next, the first officer asked Ms. Meyer if he could search the trunk and Ms.
Meyer consented. Upon opening the trunk, the officer “smelled an odd odor
which [he] did not recognize,” and “observed small bundles of clothing, various
tools and an open bag of ground coffee beans.” Id. at 19. The first officer
obtained Ms. Meyer’s consent to run a K-9 dog unit over the vehicle. Two dogs
independently alerted to the left side of the trunk. After searching that area of the
trunk, the first officer discovered a “green, leafy substance in a small plastic
baggy, located in the portion of the trunk designated for storage of the tire jack,”
and, directly under that, “a 12 inch long object completely covered in white
-3-
athletic type tape.” Id. All of the occupants of the car denied knowledge of
either item. The first officer arrested all three occupants of the vehicle for
possession of narcotics. When the first officer slit open the taped package, he saw
a “white substance,” which he believed to be “meth or a cocaine derivative.” Id.
Ruling on Mr. DeLuca’s motion to suppress the taped package, the district
court found that the initial stop of the car as part of a highway safety program was
“defensible.” Id. at 75. However, the court concluded that the stop became
“indefensible” after Ms. Meyer produced a valid driver’s license and Mr. Boyer
produced a valid registration. Id. at 76. The court found that Mr. Boyer’s
shaking hand and the apparent nervousness of the car’s occupants was not enough
to justify their continued detention and that the officer’s failure to return the
license and registration precluded the detention from becoming consensual. Id.
The court concluded that “[s]ince [the officer] lacked any particularized and
objective basis for attributing criminal activity to any occupant of the car, the
continued detention and his further inquiries were illegal.” Id. at 77. The court
went on to hold that there was “a direct, palpable link between the detention of
the car’s occupants and discovery of the package in the car’s trunk” and,
therefore, that the methamphetamine must be suppressed as the “fruit of the
illegal detention.” Id. at 79-80, 85.
-4-
Discussion
On appeal, the government concedes two points: (1) although the initial
traffic stop was legal, the stop became illegal after Ms. Meyer had produced a
valid driver’s license and Mr. Boyer had produced a valid vehicle registration;
and (2) the officer’s failure to return the license and vehicle registration
precluded the stop from becoming a consensual encounter. Aplt. Br. at 8.
Therefore, the only issue we are confronted with on appeal is whether the
methamphetamine found in the car’s trunk must be suppressed as “fruit” of Mr.
DeLuca’s illegal detention.
“In reviewing the district court’s grant of a suppression motion, we accept
the district court’s factual findings absent clear error and review de novo the
district court’s determination of reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment to
suppress the contraband evidence.” United States v. Olguin-Rivera, 168 F.3d
1203, 1204 (10th Cir. 1999). We also review de novo the issue of whether a
defendant has standing to challenge a search. United States v. Eylicio-Montoya,
70 F.3d 1158, 1161 (10th Cir. 1995). In this case, the government only
challenges the district court’s legal determination that the methamphetamine was
the “fruit” of Mr. DeLuca’s illegal detention. Aplt. Br. at 6; see also App. at 73
(district court order stating that both parties rested upon the state police officer’s
statement of probable cause to inform the court of the relevant facts).
-5-
Fourth Amendment rights are personal, and, therefore, “a defendant cannot
claim a violation of his Fourth Amendment rights based only on the introduction
of evidence procured through an illegal search and seizure of a third person’s
property or premises.” United States v. Erwin, 875 F.2d 268, 270 (10th Cir.
1989) (citations omitted). Based on this principle, we have held that without a
possessory or property interest in the vehicle searched, “passengers lack standing
to challenge vehicle searches.” Eylicio-Montoya, 70 F.3d at 1162 (citations
omitted). However, “[t]his court has repeatedly recognized that although a
defendant may lack the requisite possessory or ownership interest in a vehicle to
directly challenge a search of that vehicle, the defendant may nonetheless contest
the lawfulness of his own detention and seek to suppress evidence found in the
vehicle as the fruit of the [defendant’s] illegal detention.” United States v. Nava-
Ramirez, 210 F.3d 1128 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, 121 S. Ct. 206 (2000) (citations
omitted). As Mr. DeLuca concedes, he did not have a possessory or property
interest in the vehicle in which the methamphetamine was found, and therefore
lacks standing to directly challenge the search of the vehicle. Aplee. Br. at 9.
Mr. DeLuca does have standing, however, to contest the lawfulness of his own
detention and to seek to suppress the methamphetamine as the fruit or derivative
evidence of that illegal detention.
To suppress evidence as the fruit of his unlawful detention, Mr. DeLuca
-6-
must make two showings: (1) “that the detention did violate his Fourth
Amendment rights”; and (2) that there is “a factual nexus between the illegality
and the challenged evidence.” Nava-Ramirez, 210 F.3d at 1131 (internal
quotations and citation omitted). “Only if the defendant has made these two
showings must the government prove that the evidence sought to be suppressed is
not ‘fruit of the poisonous tree,’ either by demonstrating the evidence would have
been inevitably discovered, was discovered through independent means, or was so
attenuated from the illegality as to dissipate the taint of the unlawful conduct.”
Id. (citations omitted). In this case, the government concedes that Mr. DeLuca’s
continued detention was unlawful once the car’s occupants had produced a valid
driver’s license and vehicle registration. Aplt. Br. at 8. Therefore, Mr. DeLuca
must show that there is a factual nexus between his unlawful detention and the
discovery of the methamphetamine.
In order to show such a factual nexus, “[a]t a minimum, [Mr. DeLuca] must
adduce evidence at the suppression hearing showing the evidence sought to be
suppressed would not have come to light but for the government’s
unconstitutional conduct.” Nava-Ramirez, 210 F.3d at 1131 (footnote and
citation omitted). Mr. DeLuca has not met this “but for” test, as we find that this
case falls squarely within the holding of Nava-Ramirez. Mr. Nava-Ramirez was
driving a car in which the owner of the vehicle, Steven Wald, was a passenger. A
-7-
state police officer stopped the vehicle for having a cracked windshield. Mr.
Nava-Ramirez produced a valid driver’s license and Mr. Wald produced a valid
vehicle registration, but the state police officer continued to detain the men based
primarily on the smell of “burnt methamphetamine emanating from the vehicle’s
interior” and the officer’s observations that both of the car’s occupants were
nervous and that Mr. Wald’s eyes were “bloodshot and glassy.” Id. at 1130. The
officer obtained the men’s consent to search the interior of the car. Before
searching the passenger compartment, the officer conducted a pat-down search of
both men and found two pipes in Mr. Wald’s pockets. The search of the
passenger compartment of the car turned up nothing, but when the officer
searched the trunk of the vehicle, he found two packages of methamphetamine.
Both Mr. Nava-Ramirez and Mr. Wald were arrested. The district court denied
Mr. Nava-Ramirez’s motion to suppress the methamphetamine. Id.
On appeal, Mr. Nava-Ramirez argued that the methamphetamine should
have been suppressed as fruit of his own unlawful detention. We assumed,
without deciding, that the detention was unlawful, but held that Mr. Nava-
Ramirez had failed to demonstrate a factual nexus between his detention and the
methamphetamine discovered in the trunk. We stated that “Nava-Ramirez put on
no evidence to demonstrate that had he, at some point after the passenger
compartment search was completed but before the trunk search began, requested
-8-
permission or otherwise attempted to depart the scene, he would have been able to
leave in Wald’s car.” Id. at 1131. Without some proof, we could not “simply
speculate that Wald would have given Nava-Ramirez permission to take his car,”
id., and we affirmed the district court’s denial of Mr. Nava-Ramirez’s suppression
motion.
Just as in Nava-Ramirez, Mr. DeLuca has failed to show that had he
requested to leave the scene of the traffic stop, he would have been able to do so
in Mr. Boyer’s car. 1 Therefore, without any evidence to the contrary, we must
assume that regardless of Mr. DeLuca’s presence, the car and its owner would
have continued to be detained and the officer would still have found the
methamphetamine. See, e.g., United States v. Carter, 14 F.3d 1150, 1154 (6th
Cir. 1994) (“Suppose that at the time of the driver’s arrest the police had
summoned a taxi cab for [the defendant passenger] and told him he was free to
leave. The marijuana would still have been discovered, because it was located in
a van owned and controlled by [the driver] (who was not going anywhere until his
vehicle had been searched) and not in a vehicle controlled by [the defendant
1
In his brief on appeal, Mr. DeLuca “queries whether, in certain
circumstances, such as those in the present matter, certain requests for permission
or attempts to depart the scene would not lead to an independent probable cause
for detainment . . . .” Aplee. Br. at 19 n.2. We do not render advisory opinions
and, therefore, must wait until we are confronted with a case with the above facts
to address the issue.
-9-
passenger].”). The fact that in Nava-Ramirez, Mr. Nava-Ramirez was the driver
of the vehicle, while in the present case, Mr. DeLuca was simply a passenger, is
immaterial. Like Mr. DeLuca, Mr. Nava-Ramirez had no possessory or ownership
interest in the vehicle searched and could only seek to have the evidence
suppressed as fruit of his own allegedly unlawful detention.
In this case, the district court incorrectly held that the government must
prove that the methamphetamine “was not the fruit of the illegal detention of the
car and its occupants.” App. at 79 (emphasis added). The district court found
that the factual nexus requirement was satisfied because, without the illegal
detention of the car and all its occupants, the methamphetamine would never have
been found. Id. at 85 (“Nava-Ramirez . . . requires only a ‘but for’ factual nexus
between the illegal detention of the car and its occupants . . . and the evidence
subsequently discovered. I have found that nexus clearly-established here.”).
Nava-Ramirez requires a more focused inquiry. In order to meet his initial burden
under Nava-Ramirez and demonstrate the required factual nexus, Mr. DeLuca
must show that the methamphetamine would never have been found but for his,
and only his, unlawful detention. To apply Nava-Ramirez as the district court did
would effectively allow Mr. DeLuca to assert the Fourth Amendment rights of
third parties (i.e., Ms. Meyer and Mr. Boyer). The government need only show
that the methamphetamine was not the fruit of the illegal detention of Mr.
- 10 -
DeLuca. It is not required to make this showing in relation to the car and all its
occupants.
At oral argument, Mr. DeLuca argued that he has met the factual nexus
requirement because one of the reasons that the arresting officer gave in his
statement of probable cause for continuing to detain the vehicle and its occupants
was that all the occupants “appeared to be nervous.” App. at 19. In effect, Mr.
DeLuca is arguing that “but for” his apparent nervousness, the officer would not
have continued to detain the vehicle and the methamphetamine would not have
been discovered. We reject this argument as insufficient to meet the factual
nexus requirement under the facts of this case.
The dissent suggests that Nava-Ramirez (1) does not control the outcome of
this case because that case affirmed the denial of a motion to suppress and this
case involves the grant of a motion to suppress, (2) improperly imposed an
inapposite standing analysis before misapplying the “fruit of the poisonous” tree
analysis, and (3) conflicts with established precedent. The dissent also argues
that we have employed the wrong standard of review (de novo), specifically that
the district court’s findings concerning “fruit of the poisonous tree” must be
evaluated for clear error.
Beginning with the standard of review, it is entirely appropriate to apply a
de novo standard of review because the government’s argument on appeal is that
- 11 -
Mr. DeLuca lacks standing to challenge the discovery of the methamphetamine in
the trunk. Aplt. Br. at 1, 6, 7. The government correctly argues that Mr. DeLuca
had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the search of the trunk, and the
district court erred in concluding that because a passenger may challenge his own
detention incident to a traffic stop, any evidence seized thereafter is necessarily
linked to that detention without first satisfying the requirements of Nava-Ramirez.
Given the admitted facts, this is a purely legal argument and de novo review is
appropriate. The district court’s findings/conclusions are not insulated from
review merely because we are reviewing its grant of a suppression motion. First,
while we may defer to the district court’s findings of historical fact concerning a
factual nexus, it is particularly inappropriate to defer to its ultimate conclusion
given its overinclusive view of what constitutes a factual nexus and the lack of
evidence suggesting such a nexus. Second, whether under the rubric of a factual
nexus (standing), or a preliminary showing that the evidence sought to be
suppressed is tainted by the unlawful detention, this link cannot be bypassed
merely because we review a district court’s decision on derivative evidence
claims under the clearly erroneous standard.
We do not disagree that a passenger has standing to raise a Fourth
Amendment violation to a stop and detention, and may seek to have suppressed
evidence found in the vehicle that may be fruit of the violation. But that does not
- 12 -
obviate the requirement that the passenger adduce facts tending to show that the
evidence sought to be suppressed is a product of his or her unlawful detention.
Just as Fourth Amendment rights are personal and a defendant has the burden to
demonstrate that his rights have been violated, United States v. Gama-Bastidas,
142 F.3d 1233, 1238 (10th Cir. 1998) (internal quotations, citations omitted), he
must also demonstrate a causal link between the violation and the contraband.
See Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 139-40 (1978) (substantive Fourth
Amendment law incorporates standing doctrines of injury in fact and assertion of
one’s own legal rights). The Supreme Court has been reluctant to treat the
interests of all those legitimately in a vehicle alike, id. at 148, and surely the
derivative evidence doctrine is not independent of standing requirements.
Stated another way, in a derivative evidence claim, the defendant must
make a threshold showing that the challenged evidence is tainted by the earlier
Fourth Amendment violation. See Alderman v. United States, 394 U.S. 165, 183
(1969). The dissent’s suggestion that the link be abandoned in traffic stop and
detention cases where the car and its occupants are stopped and detained and a
subsequent search occurs shortly after any Fourth Amendment violation ignores
the rationale for standing–that the victim of the unlawful search or seizure assert
his own rights, even if the case involves derivative evidence. Nor does it comport
with the derivative evidence doctrine–in this case, the passenger’s unlawful
- 13 -
detention was not even a “but for” cause of the subsequent search, let alone an
exploitation of that unlawful detention. See Lewis v. Texas, 664 S.W.2d 345,
348-49 (Tx. Ct. Crim. App. 1984) (“Once the initial legal detention became an
illegal one, the [passenger’s] presence was irrelevant to the officer’s decision to
search. Put another way, [the officer] could have let [the passenger] leave
without hampering his ability to search the car. Thus, in no way was [the
passenger’s] detention necessary to perform the search.”).
The fact that some of our past cases involving multiple occupants in a
vehicle have not employed the factual nexus test does not somehow invalidate the
analysis–standing arguments are not jurisdictional and may be waived. United
States v. Dewitt, 946 F.2d 1497, 1499 (10th Cir. 1991). Moreover, Nava-Ramirez
does not stand alone–it is fully supported by United States v. Carter, 14 F.3d 1150
(11th Cir. 1994), in an analogous factual setting. 2 Finally, even were we inclined
to overrule Nava-Ramirez (which we are not), we are bound by it. See In re
2
Each case turns on its own evidence–unlike one treatise, we do not
believe that standing on a passenger’s derivative evidence claim arising from an
unlawful detention is unattainable, just that no facts were adduced in this case
demonstrating an adequate link between the detention and the challenged
evidence given the other occupants of the vehicle. See 3 Wayne R. LaFave,
Jerold H. Israel & Nancy J. King, Criminal Procedure § 9.1(d) at 333 & 333-34
n.110 (2nd ed. 1999) (suggesting that where a passenger challenges his unlawful
detention the subsequent search of the vehicle cannot be viewed as fruit of that
detention); Idaho v. Babb, 29 P.3d 406, 409-10 (Id. 2001) (case remanded for
defendant to prove that “but for” an allegedly unlawful arrest, the
methamphetamine would not have been found).
- 14 -
Smith, 10 F.3d 723, 724 (10th Cir. 1993) (citations omitted) (stating three-judge
panel is bound by opinion of prior panel “absent en banc consideration or a
superseding contrary decision by the Supreme Court”).
Therefore, we REVERSE the district court’s order granting the motion to
suppress and REMAND to the district court for further proceedings.
- 15 -
No. 00-1442, United States v. DeLuca
SEYMOUR, Circuit Judge, dissenting
I am unable to join the majority’s opinion in this case. I am not persuaded
that United States v. Nava-Ramirez, 210 F.3d 1128 (10th Cir. 2000), directly
controls the outcome here. Furthermore, I have serious doubts about the accuracy
of the “fruit of the poisonous tree” analysis conducted by the court in Nava-
Ramirez. To the extent Nava-Ramirez modifies the “factual nexus” that must be
established by the defendant in a motion to suppress evidence, the opinion departs
from our established precedent. Finally, the majority applies the wrong standard
of review to the district court’s opinion. With all due respect, I dissent.
I.
On the evening of June 19, 1999, Frank Lawrence DeLuca was a passenger
in a car driven by Tineke Meyer. The owner of the car, William Boyer, was also
a passenger in the car. As the car proceeded down Interstate Highway 40 in New
Mexico, it was stopped by New Mexico police officer Paul Mendoza, pursuant to
a “drivers [sic] license and registration checkpoint.” App. at 73. Officer
Mendoza asked Ms. Meyer to produce a driver’s license and vehicle registration.
Ms. Meyer gave the officer a valid driver’s license and Mr. Boyer presented the
officer with a valid registration certificate. Officer Mendoza stated that he
-1-
“observed that [Mr. Boyer’s] right hand was visibly shaking and all occupants of
the vehicle appeared to be nervous.” Id.
Without returning the driver’s license and registration, Officer Mendoza
asked the car’s occupants where they were traveling to and from. Ms. Meyer
stated they had been in Colorado Springs, Colorado, had traveled to Phoenix,
Arizona, and were now returning to Colorado Springs. Another officer asked Ms.
Meyer if there was luggage in the trunk. She responded that they had no luggage
in the trunk. Officer Mendoza instructed Ms. Meyer to “pull over onto the
shoulder area of the roadway,” which she did. Id. at 74. Officer Mendoza then
asked Ms. Meyer for permission to search the trunk of the car, which she gave.
“The officer ‘smelled an odd odor which I did not recognize’ and observed small
bundles of clothing, tools, and an open bag of ground coffee beans.” Id. Officer
Mendoza obtained Ms. Meyer’s permission to allow a drug-sniffing dog to inspect
the car. The dog alerted to the left side of the trunk. A second dog independently
alerted to the same area. Officer Mendoza searched that area of the trunk, finding
“a small plastic baggy containing a green leafy substance” and “a foot-long object
wrapped in white athletic tape.” Id. Upon slitting open the object, Officer
Mendoza discovered “a white material suspected to be methamphetamine or
cocaine.” Id.
Mr. DeLuca sought to have the evidence suppressed in the government’s
-2-
case against him, and the district court granted his motion. The government has
appealed this pre-trial determination.
The majority correctly observes that “in reviewing the district court’s grant
of a suppression motion, we accept the district court’s factual findings absent
clear error and review de novo the district court’s determination of reasonableness
under the Fourth Amendment to suppress the contraband evidence.” Maj. op. at
5, citing United States v. Olguin-Rivera, 168 F.3d 1203, 1204 (10th Cir. 1999).
This court reviews “de novo the issue of whether a defendant has standing to
challenge a search.” Id., citing United States v. Eylicio-Montoya, 70 F.3d 1158,
1161 (10th Cir. 1995).
The majority errs, however, in concluding that “in this case, the
government only challenges the district court’s legal determination that the
methamphetamine was the ‘fruit’ of Mr. DeLuca’s illegal detention.” Id.
(emphasis added). While the only issue presented to us is indeed whether the
drugs seized were “fruit” of the officer’s illegal conduct, the district court’s
determination of that matter is not a legal one. As this court has previously
recognized, because taint analysis is “fact-intensive, we review the district court’s
finding under a clearly erroneous standard.” United States v. King, 990 F.2d
1552, 1563 (10th Cir. 1993) (citations omitted); see also Brown v. Illinois, 422
U.S. 590, 603-04 (1975) (holding that whether illegally seized evidence is
-3-
sufficiently purged of its taint to be admissible “must be answered on the facts of
each case” and listing factors to be considered). Thus, whether Mr. DeLuca met
his burden of establishing a “factual nexus” between his illegal detention and the
seized evidence is an inherently factual determination on which the district court
made specific findings. The majority ignores those findings, as I will discuss
more fully below.
II.
In order to place the majority’s opinion and the district court’s factual
findings in the context of our prior precedent, I have re-examined the first
principles of Fourth Amendment fruits analysis. The seminal case in this area is
Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471 (1963). Wong Sun provides the basic
framework analyzing the admissibility of evidence illegally seized by the police.
As the Court there noted:
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.
Id. at 487-488 (emphasis added) (internal quotations and citations omitted).
Wong Sun makes clear that once a defendant has established the primary illegality
-4-
in the case, here the illegal detention of the vehicle and its occupants, the next
question is what evidence would not have been discovered “but for the illegal
actions of the police.” Id. A court must then examine whether the evidence is so
tainted by that illegality that it must be suppressed. The taint analysis first set
forth in Wong Sun remains the essential analysis for determining whether
evidence obtained by unconstitutional police action is admissible.
Pursuant to the analytical framework of Wong Sun, we have held in vehicle
stop cases that once the occupants of the vehicle have established that their
detention, arrest or stop was illegal, “as a general rule any evidence obtained as a
result of their detention must be excluded as fruit of the poisonous tree.” United
States v. Santana-Garcia, 264 F.3d 1188 (10th Cir. 2001) (referring to both driver
and passenger) (citing United States v. Villa-Chaparro, 115 F.3d 797, 800 n.1
(10th Cir. 1997)). This result obtains unless the government can convince the
factfinder that the evidence is sufficiently purged of its primary taint on the basis
of one of three grounds. Nava-Ramirez, 210 F.3d at 1131. It may do so by
“demonstrating the evidence would have been inevitably discovered, was
discovered through independent means, or was so attenuated from the illegality as
to dissipate the taint of the unlawful conduct.” Id. If the government can
establish any of these three grounds, the evidence is deemed to be purged of its
primary taint and may be admitted.
-5-
In King, 990 F.2d 1552, we discussed the factors a court must consider in
determining whether illegally seized evidence has been purged of the primary
taint in a vehicular stop case. We stated there that “several factors guide our
inquiry including the temporal proximity of the Fourth Amendment violation and
[the discovery] of the evidence, any intervening circumstances, and the purpose
and flagrancy of the official misconduct.” Id. at 1563-64 (internal quotations and
citations omitted.) The burden of proof remains squarely with the government to
demonstrate that the evidence is purged of its taint such that it should be
admitted. Nava-Ramirez, 210 F.3d at 1131.
In addition to the fruits analysis, other principles provide the legal
background for disposition of the case at hand. This court has consistently held
“it is beyond dispute that a vehicle’s driver may challenge his traffic stop.”
United States v. Gonzalez-Lerma, 14 F.3d 1479, 1483 (10th Cir. 1994), citing
United States v. Erwin, 875 F.2d 268, 270 (10th Cir. 1989). In Erwin, we were
faced with whether a passenger riding in a vehicle that is illegally stopped by the
police has standing to challenge the illegal stop. Erwin, 875 F.2d at 270. We
concluded that the Fourth Amendment is implicated when a passenger is stopped
as surely as it is when a driver is stopped because the passenger has a right to
object to the seizure of his person. In so holding, we said:
[W]e see no reason why a person’s Fourth Amendment interests in
challenging his own seizure should be diminished merely because he was a
-6-
passenger, and not the driver, when the stop occurred. Drivers and
passengers have similar interests in seeing that their persons remain free
from unreasonable seizure. Furthermore, we reject any notion that a
vehicular stop detains for Fourth Amendment purposes only the driver
simply because the passenger may be free to depart.
Id. (internal citations and quotations omitted). We relied on Berkemer v.
McCarty, 468 U.S. 420, 436 (1984), where the Court said:
It must be acknowledged at the outset that a traffic stop significantly
curtails the “freedom of action” of the driver and the passengers, if any, of
the detained vehicle . . . Certainly few motorists would feel free either to
disobey a directive to pull over or to leave the scene of a traffic stop
without being told they might do so.
See Erwin, 875 F.2d at 270. We recognized in Erwin that a passenger cannot
directly challenge an illegal search of a car he does not own because he has no
legitimate expectation of privacy in the vehicle. Id. at 270-71 (citing Rakas v.
Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 134 (1978)). Nevertheless, the law is clear that a
passenger has the same interest as the driver in challenging the illegal seizure of
his person when that seizure is effected by a vehicular stop.
In United States v. Eylicio-Montoya, 70 F.3d 1158, 1164 (10th Cir. 1995),
we held that just as a passenger may challenge the illegal stop of a car in which
he is riding as a seizure of his person, so may he challenge an illegal arrest
stemming from a vehicular stop. We stated there that “stops, detentions, and
arrests all constitute seizures under the Fourth Amendment and differ primarily in
the degree to which they restrict the individual’s freedom of movement.” Id. We
-7-
further noted that:
A passenger’s personal interest in challenging an arrest on Fourth
Amendment grounds is just as significant as her interest in challenging a
stop or an investigative detention. Accordingly, we conclude that a
passenger has standing to challenge a constitutionally improper traffic stop,
detention, or arrest on Fourth Amendment grounds even though, when the
seizure occurs, she has no possessory or ownership interest in either the
vehicle in which she is riding or in its contents. A passenger does not
relinquish her Fourth Amendment interest in protecting herself from
unlawful seizures merely because she chooses to ride in a vehicle in which
she has no possessory or proprietary interest.
Id. (emphasis added) (citations omitted). In addition, a passenger may succeed in
suppressing all evidence discovered in the vehicle which would not have been
discovered but for the primary illegality, i.e., the illegal detention of the vehicle
and its passengers, unless the government can establish the taint has been purged.
See, e.g., King, 990 F.2d 1552 (evidence found in car suppressed in favor of
driver and passenger).
III.
The precedent undergirding our Fourth Amendment vehicular stop cases
must be applied to the district court’s opinion in this case. The district court
began by finding that the detention of Mr. DeLuca was illegal. The court cited
our prior precedent which has consistently held that “[a]n officer conducting a
routine traffic stop may request a driver’s license and vehicle registration, run a
computer check, and issue a citation.” United States v. Gonzalez-Lerma, 14 F.3d
-8-
1479, 1483 (10th Cir. 1994), citing United States v. Guzman, 864 F.2d 1512, 1519
(10th Cir. 1988) (citations omitted). However, once the driver has produced valid
documentation, “he must be allowed to proceed on his way, without being subject
to further delay by police for additional questioning.” Id. The district court
concluded on the facts of this case that “the detention of the car’s three occupants
became indefensible after Ms. Meyer, the driver, produced a valid driver’s license
and Mr. Boyer, the owner, produced a valid registration.” App. at 76. The court
dismissed the government’s argument that the officer had reasonable suspicion to
further detain the vehicle because of “Mr. Boyer’s shaking hand and the apparent
nervousness of all three occupants,” noting “[t]here can be numerous physical and
mental causes of a shaking hand, including the stress of an encounter with an
officer of the law, and such quivering is entirely consistent with innocence and
lack of knowledge of a crime.” Id. at 76-77.
Concluding Mr. DeLuca had established the primary illegality, wrongful
detention of the vehicle and its occupants, the court turned to examining whether
the alleged methamphetamine found in the trunk of the car should be suppressed
as the fruit of Mr. DeLuca’s unlawful detention. Citing our holdings in Erwin
and Eylicio-Montoya, the district court rejected the government’s argument that
Mr. DeLuca did not have standing to challenge the search. The court concluded
that “the illegal detention of the automobile and its three passengers requires
-9-
suppression of evidence seized in the subsequent search if the evidence can be
characterized as the fruit of the illegal detention.” Id. at 78. After correctly
noting that “[t]he Government bears the ultimate burden of proving that the
evidence seized here was not the fruit of the illegal detention of the car and its
occupants,” the court determined that “the Government has wholly failed to
discharge that burden here.” Id. at 79. The court found:
To the contrary, Officer Mendoza’s “Statement of Probable Cause”
accepted by both parties adequately demonstrates a direct, palpable link
between the detention of the car’s occupants and discovery of the package
in the car’s trunk. The questions concerning itinerary and luggage, the
“request” to pull the car to the side of the roadway, the request to search
the trunk, the ensuing request to do a canine sniff, the canine alert and
consequent intensified, narrowed search, and the discovery of the alleged
methamphetamine all followed in a direct, unbroken, and natural sequence
from the illegal decision to retain the license and registration and continue
interrogation. But for that decision, I infer, the car and all occupants
would have proceeded on their way, and the drugs would never have been
discovered. The Government has not articulated or proved any
circumstance which would suggest that the package of suspected drugs was
not the fruit of the illegal detention. It has not, for example, pointed to an
independent source which would have led to discovery of the package, and
it has not shown that the package would inevitably have been discovered
notwithstanding the illegality.
App. at 79-80 (citations omitted) (emphasis added). I can find no clear error in
the district court’s factual findings in this regard, as they are all tied to the
Statement of Probable Cause, which was the only evidence introduced by either
Mr. DeLuca or the government. See id. at 19.
The district court went on to “reject any suggestion that co-defendant’s
- 10 -
consent to search the vehicle somehow dissipated the illegal detention of all
occupants,” and correctly applied an attenuation analysis. App. at 81. The court
recognized that “the purpose and flagrancy of the officer’s unlawful conduct is
pertinent to determining whether the trunk search was tainted by the illegal
detention.” Id. (quotations and citations omitted). The court observed that the
three passengers and the vehicle in which they rode were illegally detained after
they passed through a fixed checkpoint. Noting that “the officer manning the
checkpoint apparently had two drug-sniffing dogs readily available,” the court
stated
it is certainly a reasonable inference from this record, which the
Government has chosen to leave somewhat incomplete, that these officers
were conducting standardless and unconstrained stops of every passing car
to see whether they could uncover evidence of illegal drug activity. This is
a flagrant misuse of such checkpoints.
Id. at 82. See also United States v. Galindo-Gonzales, 142 F.3d 1217, 1221 (10th
Cir. 1998) (quoting Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 661 (1979) (“requiring an
individualized, reasonable suspicion as a prerequisite to expanding the scope of
detentions at fixed checkpoints protects motorists and passengers from random
stops involving the ‘kind of standardless and unconstrained discretion [that] is the
evil the Court has discerned when in previous cases it has insisted that the
discretion of the official in the field be circumscribed, at least to some extent.’”))
The district court rejected the government’s attempts to delay the case,
- 11 -
believing that its efforts were “symptomatic of the Government’s continued
lackadaisical approach to the case and its failure to exhibit adequate diligence or
preparation . . . . Its declination to call witnesses, while perhaps motivated by a
desire to save resources, resulted in an incomplete factual record.” App. at 83.
The court dealt with the government’s final argument: “suppression is
unjustified, according to the Government, because defendant failed to meet ‘his
affirmative factual burden of showing that he was not free to go at the time of
the stop.’ (Emphasis in Government’s motion.)” Id. at 85. Noting the
government’s reliance on Nava-Ramirez for its contention, the district court
concluded:
I do not read Nava-Ramirez as imposing such an affirmative burden. If it
did so, it would appear to be inconsistent with Erwin, 875 F.2d at 270
(“[W]e reject any notion that a vehicular stop detains for Fourth
Amendment purposes only the driver because the passenger may be free to
depart.”). Nava-Ramirez, rather requires only a “but for” factual nexus
between the illegal detention of the car and its occupants (which Erwin
treats as the same thing) and the evidence subsequently discovered. I have
found that nexus clearly-established here. The illegal detention extended to
the car and each occupant and tainted everything that followed.
Id. (emphasis added). Based on the facts it found, the court granted the motion to
suppress. Id.
IV.
In its analysis, the majority holds that “this case falls squarely within the
- 12 -
holding of Nava-Ramirez.” Maj. op. at 7. I disagree with this conclusion and I
further question the legitimacy of the Nava-Ramirez opinion when considered in
light of the precedent of this circuit. To the extent the majority relies on Nava-
Ramirez for its legal analysis, I disagree with the majority’s conclusions in that
regard as well.
First, it is significant that Nava-Ramirez was a case in which this court
affirmed the denial of a suppression motion by the district court, thereby
upholding the court’s factual findings. In the instant case, to the contrary, we are
asked to overturn the district court’s grant of the suppression motion. This
difference in the procedural posture of Nava-Ramirez and the case at hand is an
important one. To overturn the district court’s suppression of the evidence here,
we must hold its explicit factual findings to be “clearly erroneous” in light of the
record. Manning v. United States, 146 F.3d 808, 812 (10th Cir. 1998); Eylicio-
Montoya, 70 F.3d at 1161. Even our belief that we, as the trier of fact, would
have come out differently based on the evidentiary record before us is not enough
to disturb the district court’s findings of fact. Anderson v. City of Bessemer City,
470 U.S. 564, 573-574 (1985). As long as the “district court’s account of the
evidence is plausible in light of the record viewed in its entirety,” we may not
reverse. Id. at 574. Likewise, “where there are two permissible views of the
evidence, the factfinder’s choice between them cannot be clearly erroneous.” Id.
- 13 -
In Nava-Ramirez, this court simply affirmed a district court’s denial of a motion
to suppress, concluding that the court’s findings of fact were not clearly
erroneous. I would come to the same conclusion based on the evidence here.
I agree with much of the analysis contained in the Nava-Ramirez opinion
and with the analysis of the majority here up to its reliance on Nava-Ramirez. I
am convinced that Nava-Ramirez failed to follow our precedent governing the
fruits analysis as applied to vehicular stops. The point at which I begin to
disagree with Nava-Ramirez starts at page 1131 of that opinion. The opinion first
correctly states that “[t]o successfully suppress evidence as the fruit of an
unlawful detention, a defendant must first establish that the detention did violate
his Fourth Amendment rights,” citing to our opinion in United States v. Shareef,
100 F.3d 1491, 1500 (10th Cir. 1996). Nava-Ramirez, 210 F.3d at 1131. Nava-
Ramirez next states that “[t]he defendant then bears the burden of demonstrating
‘a factual nexus between the illegality and the challenged evidence.’” Id.
(quoting United States v. Kandik, 633 F.2d 1334, 1335 (9th Cir. 1980)). While I
agree with this statement as a general principle, I disagree with the
characterization in Nava-Ramirez of this “second showing” and the application of
it to the defendant there, as I will discuss in a moment. The opinion then points
out that “only if the defendant has made these two showings must the government
prove that the evidence sought to be suppressed is not ‘fruit of the poisonous
- 14 -
tree.’” Id.
Applying its version of the “factual nexus” portion of the fruits analysis,
the court declared:
Nava-Ramirez . . . argues that at the moment [the officer] concluded his
search of the passenger compartment without finding any evidence
indicating Nava-Ramirez was involved in illegal activity, his continued
detention became unlawful. Even assuming this argument is correct,
however, Nava-Ramirez has failed to satisfy his burden of proving a factual
nexus between his detention and the evidence ultimately discovered in the
trunk. At a minimum, a defendant must adduce evidence at the suppression
hearing showing the evidence sought to be suppressed would not have come
to light but for the government’s unconstitutional conduct. See Shareef,
100 F.3d at 1508. At the suppression hearing, Nava-Ramirez put on no
evidence to demonstrate that had he, at some point after the passenger
compartment search was completed but before the trunk search began,
requested permission or otherwise attempted to depart the scene, he would
have been able to leave in Wald’s car. In the absence of some supportive
proof, this court cannot simply speculate that Wald would have given Nava-
Ramirez permission to take his car. Because Nava-Ramirez has failed to
meet his burden of proving a factual nexus between his detention and the
evidence found in the trunk, this court cannot suppress that evidence as the
fruit of the purportedly unlawful detention.
Id. (emphasis added). This analysis is incorrect under Supreme Court and Tenth
Circuit precedent for four reasons. First, it applied a heightened “factual nexus”
test, derived from Ninth Circuit and Supreme Court precedent in factually
complicated cases that is inapposite to simple vehicular stop cases in this circuit.
Second, its analysis of the evidence as fruit of the illegal detention distinguishes
between the driver and the owner of the car, thus confusing standing analysis with
“fruit of the poisonous tree” analysis. Third, it considered the “primary
- 15 -
illegality,” see supra at 5, to be the search of the car, whereas the primary
illegality was in fact the detention of the car and its occupants. Fourth, it forced
the defendant to prove that he attempted to prevent the police from illegally
searching the car by seeking to remove it from the site, which flies in the face of
both our precedent and the policy reasons underlying the exclusionary rule. I will
explain each of these points in turn.
First, the case which Nava-Ramirez cited for its “factual nexus” test,
Kandik, is one of a series of Ninth Circuit cases dealing with the “factual nexus”
concept and its application in cases with complicated factual circumstances in
which the connection between the wrongful conduct of the police and the
evidence sought to be suppressed was not readily apparent. In Nava-Ramirez, to
the contrary, there was a direct and obvious link between the illegal detention of
the car and the discovery of contraband in the trunk.
For example, Kandik, 633 F.2d 1334, involved a complex conspiracy
between three men to print counterfeit money. One of the men was arrested by
federal investigators and cooperated with them in exchange for leniency. He
implicated Kandik as one of the counterfeiters and told the investigators that
Kandik had said he took the counterfeiting equipment to Mount Lemon and
burned it. Kandik and his attorney subsequently met with a prosecutor to discuss
a plea agreement. While maintaining his innocence, Kandik told prosecutors that
- 16 -
he might be able to procure the counterfeiting plates. Plea negotiations broke
down and the prosecutor then used the information gained from Kandik and the
other conspirator to obtain a warrant to search Kandik’s parents’ cabin on Mount
Lemon. Various evidence was seized. The district court refused to admit the
evidence, viewing it as fruit of the poisonous tree since the warrant was based on
information obtained during the plea negotiations. At trial, the government
offered no evidence from the search. Instead, it put witnesses on the stand whose
testimony, put together, led to the conclusion that Kandik had the plates at a cabin
and that Kandik had access to a cabin in Mount Lemon. Kandik filed various
motions seeking to force the government to prove that the testimony of these
witnesses was not tainted by the illegal search, all of which motions were denied
by the district court. This issue was appealed to the Ninth Circuit.
The Ninth Circuit held it was proper for Kandik to be required to establish
a “factual nexus” between the illegal search and the evidence presented by the
government at trial. Id. at 1335. The court concluded that Mr. Kandik did not
meet his burden in this regard. Id. at 1336. In its analysis, the court noted that
“[t]he Government must prove that particular evidence or testimony is not fruit of
the poisonous tree, but a defendant has the initial burden of establishing a factual
nexus between the illegality and the challenged evidence.” Id. at 1335. In
support of this statement, which is the statement cited in Nava-Ramirez, the court
- 17 -
cited United States v. Allard, 600 F.2d 1301, 1305 (9th Cir. 1979), and United
States v. Cella, 568 F.2d 1266, 1284-85 (9th Cir. 1977).
In Allard, the Ninth Circuit held that the defendant was required to prove a
factual nexus when seeking to suppress evidence seized in an illegal search of a
hotel room. The search of the room was warrantless, without probable cause, and
without exigent circumstance. Allard, 600 F.2d at 1302-03. The district court
therefore granted a motion to suppress the evidence. The Ninth Circuit remanded
the case for further proceedings to determine whether the defendant had
established “the requisite factual nexus between the illegality and the challenged
evidence.” Id. at 1305-06 (citations omitted). In Cella, the Ninth Circuit held it
appropriate to require a defendant to establish a factual nexus between the initial
illegal action of the police and the evidence sought to be suppressed. Cella, 568
F.2d at 1270-77. The case involved a complex scheme to misappropriate funds
from hospitals. Id. at 1269. The defendants argued that if any information
illegally obtained “causes the government to intensify its investigation or if it
gives an impetus or direction toward what is to be focused on by the government,
then all evidence thereafter produced must be suppressed.” Id. at 1285. The
court rejected this argument. Id. at 1285-86.
These Ninth Circuit cases are significantly different factually from both
Nava-Ramirez and the instant case. Allard and Cella involved ongoing
- 18 -
investigations by police. Defendants and co-conspirators were detained and
arrested at different times. In Cella, in particular, the issue was whether, given
the mounds of evidence obtained by the government, the defendants were entitled
to suppress all of that evidence because of one illegal act by the government early
in the investigation. Given these factual scenarios, the Ninth Circuit held it was
proper to require the defendants in these cases to demonstrate exactly what
evidence they believed was tainted and why.
Cases involving complicated factual scenarios in which it is difficult to link
particular illegal government conduct to the evidence sought to be suppressed are
markedly different from a traffic stop and detention where the car and its
occupants are stopped at the same time, detained at the same time, and the search
of the car which results in the illegal evidence is conducted shortly after the
primary illegality. To impose a heightened factual nexus test like the one
imposed by the Ninth Circuit in Kandik, Allard, and Cella on a vehicular stop
case is ludicrous. No case in our circuit has ever done so and the Ninth Circuit
does not impose this kind of factual nexus test in its own vehicular stop cases.
This Ninth Circuit line of cases is derived from two Supreme Court cases
which have mentioned a “factual nexus.” Significantly, both cases were wiretap
cases. In Nardone v. United States, 308 U.S. 338 (1939), the Court stated that:
the burden is, of course, on the accused in the first instance to prove to the
trial court’s satisfaction [the primary illegality] . . . Once that is established
- 19 -
. . . the trial judge must give opportunity, however closely confined, to the
accused to prove that a substantial portion of the case against him was a
fruit of the poisonous tree. This leaves ample opportunity to the
Government to convince the trial court that its proof had an independent
origin.
Nardone, 308 U.S. at 341. Like the Ninth Circuit cases, the Supreme Court was
faced with a case where 72 of some 500 intercepted telephone messages in an
ongoing investigation by the government into alcohol smuggling by organized
crime constituted much of the proof against the defendant and the police had
committed an illegal wiretap early into the investigation. See United States v.
Nardone, 90 F.2d 630, 630-31 (2d Cir. 1937). Additionally, the Court was
concerned that “claims that taint attaches to any portion of the Government’s case
must satisfy the trial court with their solidity and not be merely a means of
eliciting what is in the Government’s possession before its submission to the
jury.” Nardone, 308 U.S. at 342. Alderman v. United States, 394 U.S. 165
(1969), was another wiretap case. There the Court noted “[t]he United States
concedes that when an illegal search has come to light, it has the ultimate burden
of persuasion to show that its evidence is untainted. But at the same time
petitioners acknowledge that they must go forward with specific evidence
demonstrating taint.” Id. at 183. In both of these wiretap cases, the Court was
concerned with the ability of the defendants to have much of the evidence against
them suppressed because of the government’s initial illegal action. In order to
- 20 -
keep the defendants from automatically excluding such evidence, the Court held
the defendants had to specifically allege taint and demonstrate which pieces of
evidence were tainted. Significantly, the Court allowed the defendants access to
the government’s records in order to meet this burden. Id.
Again, as is true in the Ninth Circuit cases, this type of “factual nexus” test
has never been applied outside of the narrow context of wiretap cases or other
cases in which copious amounts of evidence gained through long, complex
investigations have been jeopardized by the government’s initial illegality. We
have found no Supreme Court case applying such a test to a vehicular stop case.
Most importantly, our court has simply assumed, as has the Ninth Circuit, that the
factual nexus between the illegal conduct and discovery of evidence in the car in
such cases is crystal clear given the proximity in time and in location of the
events, and the unbroken links between them. See, e.g., Eylicio-Montoya, 70 F.3d
1158 (reversing suppression of seized evidence under inevitable discovery
analysis); King, 990 F.2d at 1563 (affirming suppression of evidence seized
illegally in car stop); United States v. Arvizu, 232 F.3d 1241, 1252 (9th Cir. 2000)
(reversing district court’s denial of motion to suppress and stating that
“ordinarily, when a car is illegally stopped, the search that follows will be a
product of that stop”); United States v. Millan, 36 F.3d 886 (9th Cir. 1994)
(reversing district court’s denial of motion to suppress and stating that “because
- 21 -
the interrogation and search were a direct result of the illegal stop, we hold that
all of the evidence must be suppressed”). None of these cases discusses the
defendant’s burden to show a factual nexus between the illegal detention and the
discovery of the contraband in the car because the nexus is readily apparent, as
the district court found in the present case. 1
My second objection to the Nava-Ramirez opinion is that it separates the
passenger from the driver in analyzing whether the evidence seized from the
illegal search of the trunk is fruit of the poisonous tree. In our precedent, we
have not distinguished between driver, owner, and passenger in our analysis of
whether the evidence is fruit of the illegality. Although the owner must be
distinguished from the passenger and driver for purposes of determining standing,
since only the owner has standing to directly challenge the illegal search of the
vehicle, once the issue of standing has been resolved we have conducted the fruits
analysis in the exact same manner with respect to each type of occupant. 2 We
1
Moreover, the analysis in Nava-Ramirez seems to essentially import
“inevitable discovery” analysis into the defendant’s initial “factual nexus” burden.
This forces the defendant to disprove inevitable discovery and does an end run
around the government’s burden of proof on inevitable discovery. To the extent
that Nava-Ramirez suggests such a shift in the burdens of proof, that shift is
improper. Nardone, 308 U.S. at 338.
2
Obviously, a passenger has no standing to directly challenge a search.
Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 148-49 (1978) (non-owner driver, when owner is
driving in car, has no possessory interest in vehicle and no attendant legitimate
expectation of privacy); see also United States v. Lewis, 24 F.3d 79, 81 (10th Cir.
(continued...)
- 22 -
have focused on the stop of the vehicle and the unlawful detention or arrest of its
occupants as constituting part of the same factual occurrence, and we have not
analyzed the detention of the passenger differently from the detention of the
driver or the owner. Instead, we have emphasized, as we stated in Erwin, that
“drivers and passengers have similar interests in seeing that their persons remain
free from unreasonable seizure.” Erwin, 875 F.2d at 270. For example, United
States v. Shareef, 100 F.3d 1491 (10th Cir. 1996), involved three vehicles, three
drivers, and three passengers, all traveling together in a caravan which was
stopped by police. In conducting its fruits analysis after finding that the
continued detention of five of the six people involved was illegal, the Shareef
opinion considered the five passengers and drivers the same way. Shareef did not
separate out passenger, owner, and driver and analyze their connections to the
illegally seized evidence individually as does Nava-Ramirez. Although the
majority in the instant case would require Mr. DeLuca to prove that the evidence
2
(...continued)
1994). However, both drivers and passengers have the right to challenge illegally
seized evidence as fruit of their detention. Erwin, 875 F.2d at 270. Both Nava-
Ramirez, 210 F.3d at 1131, and the majority recognize this fact, maj. op. at 6.
Perhaps it is confusion about the different standing requirements for owners
of cars as opposed to non-owner drivers and passengers which led to the
confusing fruits analysis put forth in Nava-Ramirez. However, they are two
entirely separate and distinct analyses. The fruits analysis should not change
simply because of the different standing required, so long as the evidence is being
viewed as fruit of the detention, not the search.
- 23 -
was seized as a result “of his and only his” detention, maj. op. at 10, there is no
precedent for this test in Shareef, Erwin, Eylicio-Montoya, King or any of our
other vehicular stop cases, which have uniformly considered passenger, driver,
and owner together for purposes of analyzing whether evidence is fruit of the
illegal detention of the vehicle and its occupants.
In this regard, particular note should be taken of King, 990 F.2d 1552.
There, our court (per Judge Baldock) viewed the driver and passenger identically
for purposes of upholding suppression of the evidence. In King, an officer
approached a car stopped near the scene of an accident. The driver of the car had
been honking continually at the slow-moving traffic proceeding around the
accident site. When the officer reached the car, she saw a loaded firearm tucked
under the driver’s right thigh. Id. at 1555. The driver was ordered out of the car
and the passenger was instructed to remain in the car. Disobeying police orders,
the passenger left the car. After walking a short distance, she discarded a
package, which was immediately seized by the police and found to contain drugs.
A search of the car turned up $2700 in cash and an additional $400 was found on
the driver’s person. On the basis of the illegally seized evidence, both the driver
and the passenger were charged with possession with intent to distribute cocaine
and cocaine base and with using and carrying a firearm during the commission of
a drug trafficking offense. Id. at 1556, n.1. The driver was also charged with
- 24 -
possession of a firearm by a felon. Id. In our analysis, we affirmed the district
court’s suppression of the money, gun and drugs as to both defendants, without
regard to which defendant possessed the item or whether it was found in the car
or outside of it. Id. at 1564. We did not analyze each occupant of the vehicle
separately as the majority here suggests we do and as the Nava-Ramirez court did.
My third objection to Nava-Ramirez is that it focuses on the “primary
illegality” 3 as being the illegal search of the car and not the illegal detention of
the car and its occupants. Significantly, Nava-Ramirez cites Shareef in support of
its statement that “at a minimum, a defendant must adduce evidence at the
suppression hearing showing the evidence sought to be suppressed would not have
come to light but for the government’s unconstitutional conduct.” Nava-Ramirez,
210 F.3d at 1131 (emphasis added). However, Shareef focuses on the detention
of the three vehicles and their occupants in that case as the unconstitutional police
conduct and examines whether the illegally seized evidence is the fruit of that
detention. In contrast, Nava-Ramirez improperly focuses on the search of the car
as the primary illegality and thereby concludes that the defendant must
demonstrate he attempted to leave in the car. Shareef nowhere asks the question
Nava-Ramirez does: Did the passenger attempt to remove the car from the scene
3
The Court in Wong Sun refers to the connection between the “primary
illegality” and the allegedly tainted evidence. See 371 U.S. at 487-88; supra at 5.
- 25 -
so that it would not be searched? Rather, Shareef asks: Was the evidence seized
as a result of the illegal detention of the car and its occupants? But for that
illegal detention, would the evidence have been found? Shareef, like all our other
vehicle stop cases, presumes the existence of a factual nexus between the illegal
detention of the cars and their occupants and the illegally seized evidence because
that “but for” connection (the factual nexus) is unquestionably demonstrated by
the facts: but for the illegal detention of the vehicle and its occupants, the vehicle
would have left the scene and the contraband would not have been discovered.
My final objection to Nava-Ramirez is that it requires a non-owner driver to
try to prevent the police from illegally searching the car he is driving. In other
words, such a driver must attempt to remove the car from the scene in order to
stop it from being illegally searched before he is entitled to have evidence
discovered in the trunk suppressed. Nava-Ramirez implies that Shareef supports
this requirement. Although our court concluded in Shareef that the evidence was
admissible because the three vehicles would have in any event been legally
impounded at the request of the rental company, the case does not bear the weight
that Nava-Ramirez places upon it. Unlike Nava-Ramirez, Shareef does not
support the proposition that because the illegal search would have happened
anyway, the evidence is admissible. This is a critical distinction because the
Supreme Court and this court have consistently held that in order for the
- 26 -
government to prove the primary taint has been dissipated, it must establish
attenuation, independent source, or inevitable discovery through lawful means.
In Nix v. Williams, 104 S.Ct. 2501 (1984), for example, the Court held that
“if the prosecution can establish by a preponderance of the evidence that the
information ultimately or inevitably would have been discovered by lawful means
. . . then the deterrence rationale has so little basis that the evidence should be
received.” Id. at 2509 (emphasis added). Conversely, if the evidence is
discovered by unlawful means, the exclusionary rule should apply since its
underlying rationale is to deter unlawful police conduct. Under Nava-Ramirez,
however, the defendant is forced to prove, as part of his initial showing, that he
attempted to stop the police from illegally searching the car. Not only is this
requirement contrary to the precedent contained in cases such as Nix, it
undermines the rationale for the exclusionary rule in the taint context: “the
knowledge gained by the government’s own wrong cannot be used by it.” Wong
Sun, 371 U.S. at 485, citing Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States, 251 U.S.
385, 392 (1920). The exclusionary rule exists “in order to make effective the
fundamental constitutional guarantees of sanctity of the home and inviolability of
the person.” Id. at 484 (citations omitted). To allow the government to introduce
illegally seized evidence unless the defendant establishes he could have prevented
the officer’s inevitable but unlawful discovery of that same evidence defies
common sense in addition to being inconsistent with precedent. See, e.g.,
- 27 -
Shareef, 100 F.3d at 1508 (suppression of evidence reversed where “vehicles
would have been impounded and search as a result of a lawful investigation that
was underway before any of the defendants was illegally seized”) (emphasis
added)); Eylicio-Montoya, 70 F.3d at 1165 (inevitable discovery doctrine applied
where illegally seized evidence would have been observed by customs agents
“during the course of a lawful Terry stop.”) (emphasis added)); United States v.
Romero, 692 F.2d 699, 704 (10th Cir. 1982) (illegal pat down irrelevant where
marijuana packet “clearly would have been discovered within a short time through
a lawful investigation already underway.”) (emphasis added)).
Apart from Nava-Ramirez’s conflict with existing law, there are good
policy reasons to be concerned about its implications. First, to follow the test
would vitiate the policy considerations supporting the exclusionary rule in the
context of the Fourth Amendment, as discussed above. There is no difference
from a policy standpoint between permitting the police to use unconstitutionally
seized evidence against an illegally detained passenger and using it against an
illegally detained automobile owner. In both instances, the evidence is the fruit
of the illegal detention of the vehicle and all of the occupants. Second, the policy
considerations for excluding the evidence are particularly strong in the case at
hand, where the district court specifically found that the police officers’ conduct
was flagrantly illegal. Third, the Nava-Ramirez test comes dangerously close to
creating a right without a remedy, something which is strongly disfavored in
- 28 -
American jurisprudence. We have held in Erwin, Eylicio-Montoya, and King,
among other cases, that passengers have the right to challenge their illegal stops,
arrests, and detentions as surely as do owner-drivers. Under the heightened Nava-
Ramirez fruits analysis, however, while a non-owner driver and a passenger may
theoretically challenge their illegal detention, they will have no remedy because
they will be unable to satisfy the implausible Nava-Ramirez requirement that they
prove they tried to leave with the vehicle prior to the illegal search. 4
Such reasoning leads to the result obtained in United States v. Carter, 14
F.3d 1150 (6th Cir. 1994), upon which the majority relies. The Sixth Circuit there
applied the same flawed analysis set forth in Nava-Ramirez and held that illegally
seized evidence was admissible against a passenger because he could not have left
prior to the car search, and thus would not have been able to remove the thing
being searched from the area. Id. at 1154. 5 The Carter decision is in the minority
4
There are other policy reasons to be concerned about the result in Nava-
Ramirez. In the already dangerous and charged atmosphere of some vehicular
stops, it is unwise to encourage citizens to drive away from a stop or detention
they believe to be illegal. Attempting to remove the car from the scene would
make this situation even more dangerous for motorists, passersby, and law
enforcement officers. It is also unclear under current law whether, if a driver fled
the scene of a stop, the police would have independent grounds for reasonable
suspicion or probable cause based on flight.
5
Notably, the passenger in Carter was sentenced to 63 months in federal
prison on drug charges whereas the government dropped all charges against the
driver of the car after the district court granted his motion to suppress. Carter, 14
F.3d at 1154.
- 29 -
of other federal circuits addressing whether a passenger must meet a heightened
“factual nexus” test in order to suppress illegally seized evidence as fruit of an
illegal detention. See e.g., United States v. Twilley, 222 F.3d 1092, 1097 (9th Cir.
2000) (suppressing evidence obtained from illegal search of car following illegal
stop of non-owner, non-driver passenger); United States v. Jones, 234 F.3d 234,
243-244 (5th Cir. 2000) (suppressing evidence obtained through illegal search
following illegal detention of non-owner, non-driver passenger.)
In sum, Nava-Ramirez constitutes a dramatic departure from the settled
precedent of this circuit. It imports into our fruits analysis a heightened “factual
nexus” standard from the Ninth Circuit even when the Ninth Circuit has never
applied that standard to vehicular stop cases. Nava-Ramirez confuses the
conceptually distinct standing and “fruit of the poisonous tree” analyses, thereby
analyzing the driver and the owner of the car differently. It also improperly
focuses on the search as the primary illegality instead of focusing on the illegal
detention of the car and its occupants. Finally, it sets forth a test to be met by
defendants that is unworkable and implausible. Each of these holdings in Nava-
Ramirez goes against the grain of well-established precedent in this circuit and in
the Supreme Court.
As Nava-Ramirez conflicts in several regards with our precedent in its
imposition of a new fruits analysis, our earlier cases control the outcome of the
instant case. “When faced with an intra-circuit conflict, a panel should follow
- 30 -
earlier, settled precedent over a subsequent deviation therefrom.” United States v.
Espinoza, 244 F.3d 1234, 1244 (10th Cir. 2001), citing Haynes v. Williams, 88
F.3d 898, 900 & n.4 (10th Cir. 1996) (other citations and quotations omitted). I
would confine Nava-Ramirez to its narrow facts and disregard the portion of the
opinion that is in conflict with our earlier cases. I would employ the fruits
analysis set forth in those earlier cases without importing the heightened “factual
nexus” test set forth in Nava-Ramirez. In so doing, I would affirm the ruling of
the district court. Thus, I respectfully dissent.
- 31 -