Search and Seizure — exclusionary rule — attenuation

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United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Criminal

Search and Seizure — exclusionary rule — attenuation

A search occurring one hour after a previous illegal search was sufficiently attenuated that suppression is not required.

“If ordered, suppression of unconstitutionally obtained evidence can permit ‘[t]he criminal . . . to go free because the constable has blundered.’ People v. Defore, 150 N.E. 585, 587 (N.Y. 1926)  (Cardozo, J.). Given a blunder that the Government does not dispute here, Defendant David Conrad argues that the district court should have suppressed all the evidence of child pornography that was recovered following an illegal entry into his father’s home. As we explain below, however, the district court correctly denied exclusion of evidence obtained from Mr. Conrad’s own home—an hour’s drive away from the home that had been illegally entered and which Mr. Conrad authorized the Government to search. That evidence was sufficiently attenuated from the original illegal entry so as to have been purged of the unconstitutional taint.”

Affirmed.

10-2001 U.S. v. Conrad

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, St. Eve, J., Magnus-Stinson, J.