Brendlin

The issue presented in this case is whether evidence seized in a search incident to a lawful arrest based upon a valid outstanding warrant nonetheless must be suppressed because the discovery of the warrant occurred during an unlawful traffic stop. Case law from other state and federal courts uniformly holds that the discovery of an outstanding arrest warrant prior to a search incident to arrest constitutes an intervening circumstance that may—and, in the absence of purposeful or flagrant police misconduct, will—attenuate the taint of the antecedent unlawful traffic stop. We join this chorus of cases and reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeal, which had ordered suppression of the evidence seized from defendant’s person and from the vehicle in which he was a passenger on the sole ground that the outstanding warrant would not have been discovered “[b]ut for the unlawful vehicle stop.”

Background

Around 1:40 a.m. on November 27, 2001, Sutter County Sheriff’s Deputy Robert Charles Brokenbrough effected a traffic stop of a brown 1993 Buick Regal with expired registration tabs on Franklin Avenue in Yuba City. Prior to the stop, Deputy Brokenbrough confirmed through…