Rodriguez

The issue in this case is whether evidence seized in a lawful search incident to a lawful arrest based upon an outstanding warrant should be suppressed if the police invented the ground for the traffic stop which led to the discovery of the warrant. The trial court ruled it did not need to decide whether the police made up their claim defendant’s car had a “burnt out” right brake light because any taint arising from the alleged unlawful stop was dissipated by the discovery of the arrest warrant prior to the search.

*1141 If it indeed happened, fabricating the grounds for a traffic stop and repeating this fabrication under oath at a suppression hearing “strikes at the very core of our system of law.” 1 The subsequent discovery of lawful grounds to arrest and search defendant does not dissipate the taint of such a flagrant violation of defendant’s constitutional rights and society’s necessary trust in its law enforcement officials. Nor is this violation, if it occurred, one for which the suppression of evidence is too drastic a remedy. Quite the opposite is true. Failing to invoke the most drastic remedy available to a court would have the effect of legitimizing deceitful…

The issue in this case is whether evidence seized in a lawful search incident to a lawful arrest based upon an outstanding warrant should be suppressed if the police invented the ground for the traffic stop which led to the discovery of the warrant. The trial court ruled it did not need to decide whether the police made up their claim the defendant's car had a "burnt out" right brake light because any taint arising from the alleged unlawful stop was dissipated by the discovery of the arrest warrant prior to the search.

If it indeed happened, fabricating the grounds for a traffic stop and repeating this fabrication under oath at a suppression hearing "strikes at the very core of our system of law." [1] The subsequent discovery of lawful grounds to arrest and search the defendant does not dissipate the taint of such a flagrant violation of the defendant's constitutional rights and society's necessary trust in its law enforcement officials. Nor is this violation, if it occurred, one for which the suppression of evidence is too drastic a remedy. Quite the opposite is true. Failing to invoke the most drastic remedy available to a court would have the effect of…

Because the Bell Gardens police officers’ discovery of a valid outstanding arrest warrant for Guillermo Rodriguez during the course of their arguably unlawful traffic stop so attenuates the connection between the stop itself and the evidence discovered during their *1150 properly limited search incident to arrest that any taint from the primary illegality has been purged (see People v. Boyer (2006) 38 Cal.4th 412, 448, 450 [ 42 Cal.Rptr.3d 677 , 133 P.3d 581 ] (Boyer)), I would affirm the trial court’s order denying Rodriguez’s motion to suppress. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.

Evidence need not be suppressed as “ ‘fruit of the poisonous tree’ ” even if the evidence would not have come to light but for an infringement of the defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights. 1 (Boyer, supra, 38 Cal.4th at p. 448 ; Hudson v. Michigan (2006) 547 U.S._,_ [ 165 L.Ed.2d 56 , 126 S.Ct. 2159, 2164 ] (Hudson).) “ ‘The question is whether the evidence was obtained by the government’s exploitation of the illegality or whether the illegality has become attenuated so as to dissipate the taint. [Citation.]’ [Citation.]” {Boyer, at p. 448.) “Attenuation can occur, of course, when the causal connection…