Cox

This case recasts Justice Cardozo’s oft-quoted dictum on the exclusionary rule: although the constables here blundered, the defendant will not go free.

After the denial of his motion to suppress evidence, defendant Donnell Cox pled no contest to a charge of resisting an executive officer arising from his refusal to permit officers to search him and his subsequent attempt to evade arrest. The trial court sentenced defendant to 16 months in prison, but granted him credit for time served and released him on parole.

On appeal, defendant contends the trial court erred in denying his suppression motion because the police lacked any reasonable suspicion that he was violating the law and therefore had no basis to conduct the investigatory detention that led to the search he resisted. Essentially, defendant argues that the officers’ observations of his resistance (and subsequent testimony regarding those observations) were the product of the illegal seizure and should be excluded as fruit of the poisonous tree.

Although we agree with defendant that he was acting lawfully when the police detained him, and the police had no reasonable suspicion of the contrary, we find no error…