Ex Parte Bridgett

• Decision Date: 27 June 2008
• Docket Number: 1070439.
• Parties: Ex parte Jarvis Lamar BRIDGETT. (In re Jarvis Lamar Bridgett v. State of Alabama).
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

1 So.3d 1057

Ex parte Jarvis Lamar BRIDGETT.

(In re Jarvis Lamar Bridgett v. State of Alabama).

1070439.

Supreme Court of Alabama.

June 27, 2008.

Andrew J. Segal of Segal & Segal, L.L.C., Huntsville, for petitioner.

Troy King, atty. gen., and P. David Bjurberg, asst. atty. gen., for respondent.

STUART, Justice.

This Court granted certiorari review to determine whether the decision of the Court of Criminal Appeals in this case conflicts with Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963), and Harris v. State, 568 So.2d 421 (Ala.Crim.App.1990). The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the trial court's denial of Jarvis Lamar Bridgett's motion to suppress evidence in the form of marijuana seized from a lockbox found in a bedroom Bridgett was sharing with his girlfriend. We affirm.

Facts

Investigator Shane Killingsworth of the Huntsville Police Department testified during the hearing on Bridgett's motion to suppress that he and other officers responded to a domestic-violence call at the house of the Bridgett's girlfriend, Gloria Curlan. When the officers arrived, Bridgett told them he wanted to pack a bag and leave the house. The officers allowed Bridgett to go upstairs and retrieve his belongings from the bedroom. While Bridgett was packing, Curlan told the officers that there were guns in the bedroom. Killingsworth testified that he immediately went upstairs. He stated: "I removed [Bridgett] from the bedroom, patted him down. He didn't have any weapons on him. I believe the only property that we recovered from him was a key ring in his jacket pocket." Bridgett was removed from the house and placed in a police car. A subsequent search of the bedroom yielded a .25 caliber automatic handgun, a .22 caliber rifle, and a lockbox. Each gun had a lock on it. Killingsworth testified that both Bridgett and Curlan told him that the lockbox belonged to Bridgett. Killingsworth stated that Bridgett informed him that he did not have the keys to the lockbox. Killingsworth further testified that he asked Bridgett if he could use the keys on the key ring to open the lockbox to see if there were any firearms in it. Bridgett responded that "he didn't have a problem with it. That none of the keys would work on the [lockbox] anyway." Contrary to Bridgett's statement to Killingsworth, keys on the key ring unlocked the gun locks and the lockbox. The lockbox contained a small amount of marijuana and a magazine of ammunition for a handgun.

Marvolene McBride, Bridgett's aunt, testified for the defense. She stated that Bridgett was placing items in her vehicle when an officer approached him and escorted him to a police car. She stated that while the officer and Bridgett were talking another officer carried the lockbox out of the house and placed it on the hood of the police car. According to McBride, she never heard the officer ask Bridgett for permission to try the keys on the key ring to open the lockbox.

Bridgett testified at the suppression hearing. According to Bridgett's testimony, Bridgett was preparing to leave the house and had just retrieved his shoes when an officer approached him, conducted a second patdown search¹ of his person, and informed him that he was being detained. The officer then handcuffed him and placed him in a police car. Bridgett testified that he was in the back of the police car for an hour and a half to two hours. Bridgett explained that he was not wearing a jacket at the time and that he did not know when or where the officers found the keys the officers used to open the lockbox and the gun locks. He denied giving the officers permission to use the keys to try to unlock the lockbox, but he stated that he told the officer that the key to the lockbox could be on the key ring. The trial court denied Bridgett's motion to suppress, and he appealed to the Court of Criminal Appeals. That court affirmed the trial court's order. Bridgett v. State, 1 So.3d 1054 (Ala.Crim.App.2007). Bridgett then filed a petition for the writ of certiorari with this Court.

Discussion

Bridgett argues that the Court of Criminal Appeals erred in affirming the trial court's order refusing to suppress the marijuana found in the lockbox because, he says, the court erred in concluding that the issue in this case was whether Bridgett had voluntarily consented to the officers' use of the key that opened the lockbox. According to Bridgett, the key to the lockbox was illegally seized; therefore, he argues, it is irrelevant whether he voluntarily consented to the use of the keys to open the lockbox because, he argues, the marijuana that was found as a result of the use of the illegally seized keys is the fruit of the poisonous tree. Thus, Bridgett argues, the Court of Criminal Appeals' decision affirming the trial court's order denying his motion to suppress the marijuana conflicts with Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963), and Harris v. State, 568 So.2d 421 (Ala.Crim.App.1990).

In Wong Sun, the United States Supreme Court held that a court, when considering the admissibility of evidence obtained as a result of illegal government action, must determine "`whether, granting establishment of the primary illegality, the evidence to which instant objection is made has been come at by exploitation of that illegality or instead by means sufficiently distinguishable to be purged of the primary taint.'" 371 U.S. at 488 (quoting Maguire, Evidence of Guilt 221 (1959)). If the evidence is determined to be the "fruit of the poisonous tree," then the evidence must be suppressed. Id. The Court of Criminal Appeals applied the Wong Sun holding in Harris, stating:

"[A]lthough the appellant consented to the police officer's search of his trunk, this consent was tainted by the prior illegal police action. Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471 (1963). ...

"`... [W]hile it is thus true that a consent to search which fails the voluntariness test because of prior illegality may just as convincingly be said to be a fruit of the prior illegality, the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine also extends to invalidate consents which are voluntary.'"

568 So.2d at 424.

The facts in the record are conflicting as to whether the key ring holding the key to the lockbox was obtained during a Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968), patdown search of Bridgett or during the search of the bedroom for weapons. We need not determine whether the key was illegally seized, however, because, even it if was, we conclude that Bridgett's consent to the use of the key was voluntary and that the search of the lockbox was sufficiently purged from the original taint. Wong Sun, supra.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in United States v. Delancy, 502 F.3d 1297 (11th Cir.2007), has provided a two-part test to assist in the analysis when a consent to search follows illegal police action, stating:

"Under controlling case law, we are required to conduct two separate inquiries where a consent to search follows prior illegal activity by the police. First, a court must determine whether the consent was voluntary. Second, the court must determine whether the consent, even if voluntary, requires exclusion of the evidence found during the search because it was the `fruit of the poisonous tree'—the product of an illegal entry. See United States v. Santa, 236 F.3d 662, 676-77 (11th Cir.2000):

"`For consent given after an illegal seizure to be valid, the Government must prove two things: that the consent is voluntary, and that the consent was not a product of the illegal seizure. Thus, the voluntariness of consent is only a threshold requirement; a voluntary consent to search does not remove the taint of an illegal seizure. Rather, the second requirement focuses on causation: "whether, granting establishment of the primary illegality, the evidence to which instant objection is made has been come at by exploitation of that illegality or instead by means sufficiently distinguishable to be purged of the primary taint."'

"(quoting Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 488, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963)) (citations omitted); see also United States v. Ramirez-Chilel, 289 F.3d 744, 752 n. 9 (11th Cir.2002) (`Typically, if the ensuing search occurs after an initial illegality, such as an illegal entry or an illegal arrest, we must first determine whether the consent to search was voluntary and then, whether the consent was tainted by the initial illegality.').

"This two step approach is mandatory, and the government bears the burden on both issues. See United States v. Robinson, 625 F.2d 1211, 1219 (5th Cir. 1980)....

"As the Supreme Court observed long ago, `[w]e need not hold that all evidence is "fruit of the poisonous tree" simply because it would not have come to light but for the illegal actions of the police. Rather, the more apt question in such a case is whether, granting establishment of the primary illegality, the evidence to which instant objection is made has been come at by exploitation of that illegality or instead by means sufficiently distinguishable to be purged of the primary taint.' Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 488, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963) (quotation marks omitted). We are obliged to determine whether the consent was `sufficiently an act of free will to purge the primary taint of the unlawful invasion,' or, alternatively, whether the causal connection had `become so attenuated as to dissipate the taint.' Id. at 486-87, 83 S.Ct. 407 (quotation marks omitted).

"This is a fact-specific question, and no single fact is dispositive. See Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 603, 95 S.Ct. 2254, 45 L.Ed.2d 416 (1975)....

"In Santa, we considered three factors in determining whether a defendant's consent was tainted by his illegal arrest: `[1] the temporal proximity of the seizure and the consent, [2] the presence of intervening...