C Independent Source

• Library: Illinois Decisions on Search and Seizure (2017 Ed.)

C. Independent Source

Murray v. United States, 487 U.S. 533 (1988) (Here, the defendants claimed that a prior warrantless illegal entry onto the premises of a warehouse where marijuana was located so tainted the determination of probable cause, followed by the later issuance of a search warrant to seize the contraband in the warehouse, that the evidence should have been suppressed. HELD: The independent source doctrine permits the use at trial of evidence discovered initially during an unlawful search, but later obtained independently from lawful activities untainted by the initial illegality. Here, the knowledge that the marijuana was in the warehouse may have been acquired at the time of the unlawful entry, but even so, if the later acquisition of the warrant was not the result of that first entry but was based upon information from an independent source, then the exclusionary rule should not apply. The independent source doctrine rests on the idea that, while the government should not profit from its illegal activity, neither should it be placed in a worse position than it would otherwise have occupied regardless of the illegal activity. Where a later, lawful seizure is genuinely independent of an earlier, tainted one, there is no reason why the evidence should be suppressed because of the initial illegal incident. Here, the government agents did not mention in their search warrant application the fact that they had previously been in the building unlawfully and had seen the contraband therein; instead, the warrant was issued based entirely on other independent evidence. Thus, the Fourth Amendment did not require the suppression of evidence...