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State v. Milliken11/23/2005
an exception to the "fruit of the poisonous tree" doctrine. See Abernathy, 159 S.W.3d at 604- 05. As stated by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit,
There is a strong policy reason for holding that a new and distinct crime, even if triggered by an illegal stop, is a sufficient intervening event to provide independent grounds for arrest. As . . . recognized [by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in United States v. Bailey, 691 F.2d 1009, 1017 (11th Cir. 1982)], " contrary rule would virtually immunize a defendant from prosecution for all crimes he might commit that have a sufficient causal connection to the police misconduct." Because the arrest for the new, distinct crime is lawful, evidence seized in a search incident to that lawful arrest is admissible.
United States v. Sprinkle, 106 F.3d 613, 619 (4th Cir. 1997). See also State v. Robert Lee Mallard, No. M2000-00351-CCA-R3-CD, 2001 WL 178461, at *5 (Tenn. Crim. App., Nashville, Feb. 23, 2001) (holding that, even if arresting officer's initial seizure of accused was unconstitutional, accused's subsequent actions in attempting to hide evidence constituted "a sufficient intervening event to allow for independent grounds for the arrest and subsequent search incident to the arrest," such that evidence obtained during the search was not subject to suppression); State v. George Wesley Harville, No. 01-C-01-9607-CC-00300, 1997 WL 661726, at *3 (Tenn. Crim. App., Nashville, Oct. 24, 1997) (holding that evidence pertaining to an aggravated assault against the arresting officer was admissible, even if the preceding stop or arrest was illegal, because proof of such conduct "is not obtained as a result of the exploitation of the illegal stop or arrest.").
The same analysis obtains in the case before us. The evidence supporting the charges to which the Defendant pled guilty was gathered not as a result of the allegedly invalid stop, but as a result of the Defendant's intervening and illegal conduct. That conduct superceded the initial stop insofar as giving the police an independent - and constitutionally sound - basis for arresting the Defendant and, incident to that arrest, searching his vehicle. Furthermore, it was after his arrest that the Defendant refused to submit to a blood alcohol test, thereby violating the implied consent law. Thus, even if we were to agree with the Defendant that the officer's initial stop of him was constitutionally infirm, we would not thereby conclude that the evidence supporting his convictions should have been suppressed. Accordingly, the Defendant's certified question of law is not dispositive of his case and we are therefore without jurisdiction to entertain it.
The Defendant's appeal is dismissed.
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