"Fruit of the Poisonous Tree"

Example 1

A police officer suspects that a woman stole a TV. Instead of getting a search warrant, as required by the U.S. Constitution, the officer goes to the woman’s house and knocks on the door. When the woman opens the door, the officer barges in and looks around the home. He sees the stolen TV. On the basis of the officer’s testimony, the woman is charged with theft. However, the presence of the stolen TV in the woman’s home will be considered inadmissible as fruit of the poisonous tree, as the officer lacked a search warrant.

Example 2

During a routine traffic stop, a police officer asks the driver of a car if they do drugs. The driver replies, “That’s none of your business.” The officer responds by putting the driver in handcuffs and shoving them into their police car. The officer heads back to the driver’s car and looks for drugs. He searches the compartments and the trunk, but finds nothing. Then, the officer looks under the rear passenger seat and finds cocaine. He arrests the driver for drug possession. However, the evidence of the cocaine will be excluded as fruit of the poisonous tree. The officer didn’t have probable cause to search the car, and the driver no longer had access to the car, meaning this was an unreasonable search that violated the Fourth Amendment.

Case Examples

• Definition: Courts have long held that “the ‘fruit of the poisonous tree’ doctrine ... bars the admissibility of evidence which police derivatively obtain from an unconstitutional search or seizure.” United States v. Arrington, 440 F. Supp. 3d 719, 730 (E.D. Mich. 2020).
• Purposefulness of the officer's conduct: Courts have also found that the conduct of an officer and whether the officer purposefully broke the law have a major impact on the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine. As the court in Arrington opined, "the purposefulness factor is met when the unlawful action is investigatory, that is, when officers unlawfully seize a defendant in the hope that something might turn up.” United States v. Arrington, 440 F. Supp. 3d 719, 732 (E.D. Mich. 2020). In Arrington, the defendant filed a motion to suppress evidence. He alleged that he was illegally searched by officers in violation of the Fourth Amendment when the officers stopped his car in a high-crime area, and they would not let him leave even after the initial reason for his stop was resolved. Id.
• Probable cause and warrants: If there is not adequate evidence to support probable cause for a warrant after the warrant is issued, anything seized under that warrant comes from the poisonous tree. See United States v. Waide, 60 F.4th 327, 335 (6th Cir. 2023). In Waide, officers seized the defendant's DVR to obtain surveillance footage of a shed fire next door. The defendant challenged the seizure, claiming that there was no probable cause to seize the DVR. Id. The Court agreed and suppressed the evidence obtained from the DVR. Id.

Key facts:

A 1991 study found that motions to suppress evidence were granted only 2% of the time. See Search Warrants, Motions to Suppress, and "Lost Cases": The Effects of the Exclusionary Rule in Seven Jurisdictions, 82 JOURNAL OF CRIMINAL LAW AND CRIMINOLOGY, 4, 1061 (1991), https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/search-warrants-motions-suppress-and-lost-cases-effects&sa=D&source=docs&ust=1774710207289086&usg=AOvVaw1KvTFG7rQ-e2RowV5-wy22.