United States v. Bocharnikov, No. 19-30163 (9th Cir. 2020)
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When a confession results from certain types of Fourth Amendment violations, the government must go beyond proving that the confession was voluntary—it must also show a sufficient break in events to undermine the inference that the confession was caused by the Fourth Amendment violation.
In 2017, police officers went to defendant's home after someone at his address pointed a laser at a police aircraft in flight and illegally detained defendant. The police interrogated defendant without Miranda warnings and seized the laser. Eight months later, an FBI agent approached defendant to ask follow up questions about the incident where defendant again admitted to shining the laser at the plane. After defendant was charged with violating 18 U.S.C. 39A, he moved to suppress the statements he made to the FBI agent.
The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's denial of defendant's motion to suppress the inculpatory statements he made to the FBI agent. In this case, the panel considered the temporal proximity of the search to the confession, the presence of intervening circumstances, and the purpose and flagrancy of the official misconduct, and held that the second encounter was directly linked to the original illegalities. Therefore, defendant's statements should have been suppressed.
Court Description: Criminal Law. The panel reversed the district court’s denial of a motion to suppress inculpatory statements in a case in which the defendant entered a conditional guilty plea to aiming a laser at an aircraft in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 39A. After someone at the defendant’s address pointed a laser at a police aircraft in flight, officers went to the defendant’s home, illegally detained him, interrogated him without Miranda warnings, and after the defendant confessed, seized the laser. Eight months later, an FBI agent approached the defendant outside his home and stated he was there to ask “follow-up” questions about the incident. The defendant again admitted to shining the laser at the plane. The defendant moved to suppress the inculpatory statements he made to the FBI agent because the illegality of the first encounter tainted the second. The government did not dispute that the initial encounter violated at least the Fourth Amendment. The panel explained that when a confession results from certain types of Fourth Amendment violations, the government must go beyond proving that the confession was voluntary—it must also show a sufficient break in events to undermine the inference that the confession was caused by the Fourth Amendment violation. After considering together the relevant factors set forth in Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. UNITED STATES V. BOCHARNIKOV 3 590 (1975), the panel was persuaded that the second encounter, introduced as a “follow up” to the first, was directly linked to the original illegalities. The panel explained that although significant time had passed, and the record does not show that the officers’ conduct was purposeful or flagrant, the eight-month time period was collapsed by the agent opening the conversation by stating that he was following up on the original investigation. Without other intervening circumstances that act to separate the incidents, the panel concluded that the government cannot carry its burden of proving that the defendant’s statements were sufficiently attenuated from the illegal detention and seizure eight months prior. Concurring, District Judge Chhabria wrote separately to emphasize that reversal is warranted only because of how this case was presented to the panel: instead of meaningfully analyzing the defendant’s first encounter with law enforcement to help the panel determine what sort of violation occurred, the government joined the defendant in the view that because his rights were violated in the first encounter (and regardless of which particular rights were violated), the panel must conduct the attenuation analysis outlined in Brown to determine whether the confession must be excluded.
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