United States v. Geofredo Littlebird, Jr.

MEMORANDUM

Geofredo James Littlebird, Jr., appeals the denial of his motion to suppress statements he made to investigators after an illegal traffic stop. Littlebird argues that his inculpatory statements should be suppressed because those statements were the product of a violation of the Fourth Amendment. Notwithstanding the government’s concession that the traffic stop violated the Fourth Amendment, we conclude that intervening events sufficiently attenuated Littlebird’s subsequent statements from the taint of that illegality and we affirm.

“We review de novo the mixed question of fact and law whether evidence deriving from an illegal search is sufficiently tainted to require suppression, because legal concepts must be applied and judgment exercised about the values that animate the Fourth Amendment.” United States v. Ortiz-Hernandez, 427 F.3d 567, 575-76 (9th Cir.2005) (citing United States v. Johns, 891 F.2d 243, 244 (9th Cir.1989)) (internal quotation marks omitted).

The admissibility of Littlebird’s statements depends upon whether those statements were “come at by exploitation of ... illegality or instead by means sufficiently distinguishable to be purged of the primary…