delivered the opinion of the Court.
Police officers, who were part of a special task force to apprehend fugitives, arrived at a multi-unit apartment building to execute an arrest warrant just as defendant Don Shaw and another individual were exiting the building. Shaw was held by these officers because he refused to give his name. The officers did not know whether Shaw was the subject of the arrest warrant; the officers did know that Shaw, like the fugitive, was a black man. On the record before us, this is the only descriptive basis for the stop. Minutes later, other law enforcement officers, including a parole officer, came to the scene. The officers determined that Shaw was not the target of the arrest warrant to be executed.
The trial court found that Shaw was the subject of an unreasonable stop in violation of the Fourth Amendment. However, applying the attenuation doctrine, the court declined to suppress the drugs, concluding that the parole warrant served as an intervening circumstance that broke the chain between the improper stop and the discovery of the drugs. The Appellate Division concurred that the police unlawfully detained Shaw, but found that the presence of the warrant did not sufficiently attenuate the taint from the unconstitutional stop. Accordingly, the Appellate Division invoked the exclusionary rule and suppressed the drugs.
We now affirm.
I.
Shaw was charged in a four-count indictment with third-degree possession of a controlled dangerous substance, namely heroin, N.J.S.A. 2C:35-10a(l); second-degree possession of heroin with intent to distribute, N.J.S.A. 2C:35-5a(l) and N.J.S.A. 2C:35-5b(2); third-degree possession of heroin with intent to distribute on or near school property, N.J.S.A. 2C:35-7; and second-degree possession of heroin with intent to distribute on or near a public housing facility, public park, or public building, N.J.S.A. 20:35-7.1.
The issues in this case implicate the constitutionality of the stop of Shaw and the application of the exclusionary rule to evidence seized from him. Shaw moved to suppress evidence that the State intended to offer at his trial. At a suppression hearing, the State presented three witnesses: New Jersey - State Police Detective Steve Brown, New Jersey State Parole Officer Dan D’Amico, and Atlantic City Police Officer Steve Palamaro. From their testimony, we learn the following.
A.
On the evening of June 11, 2011, State Police Detective Brown set out to execute an arrest warrant on a named fugitive who
That evening, Parole Officer D’Amico — a participant in Operation FALCON — was part of a second team executing separate warrants. D’Amico was in a car with Atlantic City Police Officer Palamaro and Officer Herbert of the Atlantic County Sheriff’s Office. D’Amico carried a list of parole warrants for non-primary targets. One name on that list was Don Shaw. He was prepared to arrest Shaw or any other wanted parolee on sight.
At approximately 8:00 p.m., as Detective Brown’s team approached 507 Tennessee Avenue, Brown observed two unknown individuals, Shaw and Niam Gardner, exit from the common entrance of the building and walk in different directions. From Detective Brown’s perspective, the men parted ways on seeing the police. However, he did not observe either individual engage in criminal activity, nor did he know where they were going or whether they knew each other. Nevertheless, Brown and several detectives stopped Shaw, and other detectives stopped Gardner. Detective Brown had the name and description of the person identified in the arrest warrant, but the only features that Brown could say that Shaw shared in common with the targeted fugitive were that both were black and both were men.
In response to Detective Brown’s request for his name, Shaw “mumbled something.” Detective Brown then repeatedly asked Shaw for his name, but Shaw would not answer. Detective Brown intended to detain Shaw until he learned his identity. His goal was to make certain that Shaw was not “the person that [they] were actually looking for at 507 Tennessee Avenue.” Indeed, if necessary, Brown was prepared to “transport [Shaw] from that location to the State Police barracks or somewhere and run him on [the] AFIS system to see if his prints matched the person [they] were looking for.”
In the meantime, the second team, which included Parole Officer D’Amico, received a radio call from Detective Brown’s unit that an individual had been stopped and was refusing to give his identity. Within minutes, D’Amico and the occupants of his car appeared on the scene. On arrival, Officer Palamaro recognized Shaw and announced his name to the others in his car.
B.
At first, the trial court suppressed the drugs as the product of an unconstitutional search. It found that “the police did not observe [defendant doing anything that would have aroused an objective, articulable suspicion that [defendant was engaged in criminal activity.” Two men walking out of a multi-family apartment building, and then in opposite directions, “is not overly suspicious behavior.” The court also determined that “[defendant had a right not to answer” Detective Brown’s questions and “that a reasonable person in [his] position would not have felt that he was free to leave.” The court observed that “Trooper Brown’s statement that he was not going to let [defendant leave until they had his information does shed light on the atmosphere surrounding the stop.” The court concluded that “the police did not have a reasonable, articulable suspicion to justify the stop” and suppressed the evidence as the product of a search incident to an unlawful arrest. It emphasized that the warrant was discovered after Shaw had been unconstitutionally detained.
However, on the State’s motion for reconsideration, the court reversed itself. Applying the attenuation doctrine set forth in Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 604-05, 95 S.Ct. 2254, 2262, 45 L.Ed.2d 416, 428 (1975), the court held that the parole warrant dissipated the taint from the illegal detention because the warrant stood as an independent basis for arresting and searching Shaw.
C.
After the suppression hearing, Shaw pled guilty to two of the charges in the indictment pursuant to an agreement with the State. Ultimately, the court sentenced Shaw to concurrent eight-year terms with four years of parole ineligibility on the charges of second-degree possession of heroin with intent to distribute and third-degree possession of heroin with intent to distribute in a school zone.
Shaw then appealed the trial court’s denial of his motion to suppress as permitted by Rule 3:5 — 7(d).
D.
In an unpublished opinion, the Appellate Division reversed the denial of Shaw’s motion to suppress. First, the appellate panel
Second, the panel concluded that the law enforcement officials did not “obtain[] the evidence by means that are sufficiently independent to dissipate the taint of their illegal conduct,” (quoting State v. Johnson, 118 N.J. 639, 653, 573 A.2d 909 (1990) (citing Brown, supra, 422 U.S. at 603, 95 S.Ct. at 2261, 45 L.Ed.2d at 427)). The panel came to that conclusion applying the Brown three-part test.
The panel found that the “five to seven minutest] elaps[ing] between the illegal stop and the intervening event” — the discovery of the parole warrant — favored Shaw. Next, the panel acknowledged that courts in other jurisdictions have held that “an outstanding parole warrant is an intervening act that can attenuate the taint of an illegal stop.” (Internal quotation marks omitted). Because the search of Shaw was conducted based on the parole warrant — the intervening event — and not based on evidence acquired during the illegal detention, the panel maintained that this most important factor favored the State, (citing State v. Williams, 192 N.J. 1, 16, 926 A.2d 340 (2007)). Last, in assessing “the purpose and flagrancy of the police misconduct,” the panel underscored that Detective Brown and his team made “a purposeful decision not grounded in any particularized suspicion” to detain Shaw, even though “they did not know him, knew nothing of his history, and had no reason to believe he had ever been involved in criminal activity.” The panel viewed the stop as a “fishing expedition.” The “flagrancy” factor, the panel stated, favored Shaw.
Significantly, the panel asserted that Shaw did not have a diminished expectation of privacy as a parolee in the circumstances presented here because the police did not have a reason
We granted the State’s petition for certification. State v. Shaw, 208 N.J. 601, 34 A.3d 783 (2011).
II.
The State argues that the Appellate Division erred in invoking the exclusionary rule in this ease. It maintains that the detention of Shaw for no more than five minutes was constitutionally permissible “to briefly question defendant about his identity and to maintain the status quo momentarily before [Shaw] walked away from the building.” Alternatively, the State urges this Court to find, in applying the Brown test, “that the outstanding parole warrant for [Shaw’s] arrest ... was an intervening circumstance that dissipated any taint flowing from the initial encounter.” It asks this Court to join those other jurisdictions that have held that “ ‘the discovery of an outstanding arrest warrant prior to a search incident to arrest constitutes an intervening circumstance,’ within the meaning of Brown, ‘that may — and, in the absence of purposeful or flagrant misconduct, will — attenuate the taint of the antecedent unlawful [ ] stop,’ ” (quoting People v. Brendlin, 45 Cal. 4th 262, 85 Cal.Rptr.3d 496, 195 P.3d 1074, 1076 (2008), cert. denied, 556 U.S. 1192, 129 S.Ct. 2008, 173 L.Ed.2d 1103 (2009)).
On the other hand, Shaw urges that we affirm the Appellate Division. He insists that the investigatory stop was not based on a reasonable and articulable suspicion of criminal activity. Moreover, he argues that a balancing of the Brown factors weighs in favor of suppression of the evidence. Although acknowledging that the outstanding parole warrant may constitute an intervening circumstance, he insists that “the taint of the police misconduct had not been dissipated when the police discovered the evidence during the search incident to arrest.” Shaw emphasizes the alleged flagrancy of the police misconduct, asserting that “[t]his is not a case where the police, in good faith, were mistaken in
III.
A.
The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution and Article I, Paragraph 7 of the New Jersey Constitution both guarantee “[t]he right of the people to be secure ... against unreasonable searches and seizures[J” U.S. Const. amend. IV; N.J. Const. art. I, K 7. Because warrantless stops and searches are presumptively invalid, the State bears the burden of establishing that any such stop or search is justified by one of the ‘“well-delineated exceptions’ to the warrant requirement.” State v. Frankel, 179 N.J. 586, 598, 847 A.2d 561 (quoting Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385, 390, 98 S.Ct. 2408, 2412, 57 L.Ed.2d 290, 298-99 (1978)), cert. denied, 543 U.S. 876, 125 S.Ct. 108, 160 L.Ed.2d 128 (2004). Indeed, the State must prove “by a preponderance of the evidence the validity of a warrantless search.” State v. Edmonds, 211 N.J. 117, 128, 47 A.3d 737 (2012) (citing State v. Wilson, 178 N.J. 7, 12-13, 833 A.2d 1087 (2003)). In this case, the State claims that Detective Brown and his team conducted a proper investigatory stop of Shaw as he walked from the common entrance of the multi-unit apartment building at 507 Tennessee Avenue — the location at which those law enforcement officers were seeking to execute an arrest warrant.
People, generally, are free to go on their way without interference from the government. That is, after all, the essence of the Fourth Amendment — the police may not randomly stop and detain persons without particularized suspicion. See Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 9, 27, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1873, 1883, 20 L.Ed.2d 889,
A minimally intrusive field inquiry is transformed into an investigative stop or detention — a seizure “within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment” — when “a reasonable person would have believed that he was not free to leave.” United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 554, 100 S.Ct. 1870, 1877, 64 L.Ed.2d 497, 509 (1980); Terry, supra, 392 U.S. at 16, 88 S.Ct. at 1877, 20 L.Ed.2d at 903 (“It must be recognized that whenever a police officer accosts an individual and restrains his freedom to walk away, he has ‘seized’ that person.”); State v. Rodriguez, 172 N.J. 117, 126, 796 A.2d 857 (2002) (noting that investigative stop occurs “when an objectively reasonable person feels that his or her right to move has been restricted”) (citing State v. Davis, 104 N.J. 490, 498, 517 A.2d 859 (1986)).
An investigatory police stop, sometimes referred to as a Terry stop, is permissible “if it is based on specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, give rise to a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity.” Pineiro, supra, 181 N.J. at 20, 853 A.2d 887 (citations omitted). The standard for this form of brief stop or detention is less than the probable cause showing necessary to justify an arrest. See
B.
In reviewing a motion to suppress, we defer to the trial court’s findings of fact. See State v. Elders, 192 N.J. 224, 244, 927 A.2d 1250 (2007) (“A trial court’s findings should be disturbed only if they are so clearly mistaken ‘that the interests of justice demand intervention and correction.’ ” (quoting State v. Johnson, 42 N.J. 146, 162, 199 A.2d 809)). However, we need not defer to a trial or appellate court’s interpretation of the law. See State v. Gandhi, 201 N.J. 161, 176, 989 A.2d 256 (2010). We review such legal issues de novo. Ibid.
Here, at 8:00 p.m., Shaw and Gardner walked out of the front entrance of a multi-unit apartment building and headed in different directions just as Detective Brown and his team arrived to execute an arrest warrant. At the suppression hearing, Detective Brown could remember only the most generic description given in the arrest warrant: a black male. Despite the fact that the arrest warrant described just one man, the officers detained two men.
The only descriptive feature Shaw shared with the fugitive sought by Detective Brown was that he was a black man. The trial court found that Shaw did not act in any way that “would have aroused an objective, articulable suspicion that [he] was engaged in criminal activity.” Detective Brown and his fellow officers were permitted to ask questions of Shaw — to conduct a field inquiry — but Shaw was under no obligation to respond. Yet, Detective Brown was clear in his testimony that Shaw’s failure to answer questions — to identify himself — was the basis for Shaw’s detention. Indeed, although Detective Brown had no objective
No one disputes that Shaw was “seized” within the meaning of our federal or state constitutions. He was not free to leave, and he was held against his will by armed law enforcement officers. The only question is whether Detective Brown and his fellow officers had a reasonable and articulable suspicion to justify the detention. We agree with both the trial court and Appellate Division that the officers did not possess the requisite level of suspicion to detain Shaw. We conclude that Shaw was the subject of an impermissible investigatory detention in violation of the Fourth Amendment and Article I, Paragraph 7 of our State Constitution.
We next address the applicability of the exclusionary rule to this case.
IV.
A.
Although Shaw was subjected to an unconstitutional investigatory detention for the purpose of determining whether he was the person named in a warrant to be executed at 507 Tennessee Avenue, he was not searched until the police learned he was named in a different warrant — a parole warrant. The detention lasted for as long as five minutes — and perhaps longer. Significantly, State Parole Officer D’Amico, who participated in Operation FALCON, carried with him a list of those wanted on parole warrants. Shaw’s name was on the wanted list. D’Amico was tasked with arresting those named in parole warrants whom he encountered while he assisted in fulfilling the primary objectives of Operation FALCON.
The exclusionary rule generally bars the State from introducing into evidence the “fruits” of an unconstitutional search or
Before addressing this precise issue, we briefly review the rationale underlying the exclusionary rule.
B.
“The exclusionary rule ‘is a judicially created remedy designed to safeguard’ the right of the people to be to be free from ‘unreasonable searches and seizures.’ ” Williams, supra, 192 N.J. at 14, 926 A.2d 340 (quoting United States v. Calandra, 414 U.S. 338, 348, 94 S.Ct. 613, 620, 38 L.Ed.2d 561, 571 (1974)). The rale has a two-fold purpose. One “ ‘is to deter future unlawful police conduct’ by denying the prosecution the spoils of constitutional violations.” State v. Badessa, 185 N.J. 303, 310-11, 885 A.2d 430 (2005) (quoting State v. Evers, 175 N.J. 355, 376, 815 A.2d 432 (2003)). In that regard, “[t]he rule is calculated to prevent, not to repair. Its purpose is to deter — to compel respect for the constitutional guaranty in the only effectively available way — by removing the incentive to disregard it.” Elkins v. United States, 364 U.S. 206, 217, 80 S.Ct. 1437, 1444, 4 L.Ed.2d 1669, 1677 (1960) (citing Eleuteri v. Rickman, 26 N.J. 506, 513, 141 A.2d 46 (1958)). The second purpose “is to uphold judicial integrity by serving notice that our courts will not provide a forum for evidence procured by unconstitutional means.” Williams, supra, 192 N.J.
Although the exclusionary rule “may vindicate the Fourth Amendment rights of a particular defendant, and more generally the privacy rights of all persons,” it also may “depriv[e] the jury or judge of reliable evidence that may point the way to the truth.” Id. at 14-15, 926 A.2d 340 (citations omitted). Because of the high price exacted by suppressing evidence, “the exclusionary rule is applied to those circumstances where its remedial objectives can best be achieved.” Id. at 15, 926 A.2d 340 (citing Calandra, supra, 414 U.S. at 348, 94 S.Ct. at 620, 38 L.Ed.2d at 571). Thus, when law enforcement officials secure evidence that is sufficiently independent of the illegal conduct — evidence that is not tainted by the misdeed — then withholding evidence from the trier of fact is a cost that may not be justified by the exclusionary rule. Badessa, supra, 185 N.J. at 311, 885 A.2d 430.
C.
As explained earlier, the issue is whether the drugs found on Shaw were the product of the “exploitation” of the unlawful stop and detention or of a “ ‘means sufficiently distinguishable’ ” from the constitutional violation such that the “taint” of the violation was “purged.” See Hudson v. Michigan, 547 U.S. 586, 592, 126 S.Ct. 2159, 2164, 165 L.Ed.2d 56, 65 (2006) (quoting Wong Sun, supra, 371 U.S. at 488, 83 S.Ct. at 417, 9 L.Ed.2d at 455). “[T]he exclusionary rule will not apply when the connection between the unconstitutional police action and the secured evidence becomes ‘so attenuated as to dissipate the taint’ from the unlawful conduct.” Badessa, supra, 185 N.J. at 311, 885 A.2d 430 (quoting Murray v. United States, 487 U.S. 533, 536-37, 108 S.Ct. 2529, 2533, 101 L.Ed.2d 472, 480 (1988)).
The United States Supreme Court limned the contours of the attenuation doctrine in Brown, supra, 422 U.S. at 602-04, 95 S.Ct. at 2261-62, 45 L.Ed.2d at 426-27. In that case, the police arrested
Whether the discovery of an outstanding parole warrant is sufficient to break the causal chain between an unlawful investigatory detention and a subsequent search is a case of first impression for this Court. However, the application of the attenuation doctrine is a familiar feature of our jurisprudence. For example, we have applied the Brown factors in determining the admissibility of a confession that followed an unlawful arrest, State v. Worlock, 117 N.J. 596, 622-24, 569 A.2d 1314 (1990), the admissibility of a police officer’s observations after an unconstitutional
We now turn to the Brown framework to decide whether, given the facts of this case, an outstanding parole warrant constitutes an intervening event sufficiently independent to dissipate the taint of an unlawful detention. The answer to that question requires a fact-intensive analysis that encompasses a weighing of all three of the Brown factors.
V.
A.
We first consider the temporal proximity between the unconstitutional detention and the discovery of the heroin found on Shaw. Temporal proximity “is the least determinative” of the three factors because whether the passage of time breaks the chain between an unlawful stop and the securing of evidence oftentimes is ambiguous. Worlock, supra, 117 N.J. at 622-23, 569 A.2d 1314. In cases where a confession or consent to search follows shortly after an unlawful stop, the brevity of the interval ordinarily will work against the State. That is because the closeness in time between the two may lend credence to the argument that an unlawful detention was exploited to extract a confession or consent from a suspect. See id. at 623, 569 A.2d 1314. However, the circumstances here present a different calculus. Shaw cannot credibly argue that he would have benefitted by a longer rather than shorter detention before he was arrested on a valid parole warrant. Holding a suspect in custody without any particularized suspicion for an hour for purposes of a warrant check is certainly a greater constitutional deprivation than holding him for five minutes. Equally clear is that no one in the course of his or her travels would want to be detained by the police for even five minutes in the absence of an objectively reasonable basis. All
B.
The second factor is the presence of intervening circumstances — in this case, the parole warrant for Shaw’s arrest. Whether a parole or an arrest warrant is a determinative intervening event in an attenuation analysis necessarily depends on the particular facts of a case. A number of jurisdictions have found that an arrest warrant is an intervening circumstance that purges the taint emanating from an unlawful stop. Notably, in those cases, the unlawful stops were not initiated for the purpose of determining whether the suspects were fugitives; rather, the discovery of the warrants were incidental to unlawful motor vehicle or investigatory stops. See, e.g., United States v. Johnson, 383 F.3d 538, 546 (7th Cir.2004) (finding that evidence seized after unlawful motor vehicle stop was admissible because of intervening circumstance — outstanding arrest warrant for defendant); Brendlin, supra, 85 Cal.Rptr.3d 496, 195 F.3d at 1080 (holding that despite unlawfulness of traffic stop for expired registration, search of defendant’s person and vehicle was constitutional because search occurred only after discovery of outstanding arrest warrant, and therefore drugs were lawfully found); State v. Hill, 725 So.2d 1282, 1283, 1287 (La.1998) (holding that discovery of arrest warrant was intervening circumstance after unlawful Terry stop based on generalized narcotics tip); McBath v. State, 108 P.3d 241, 242, 248 (Alaska App.2005) (holding that “regardless of the potential illegality of the investigative stop” of truck for expired plates, “the pre-existing arrest warrant was an independent, untainted ground for [passenger’s] arrest[,]” and thus drugs discovered were lawfully obtained).
Similarly, the Alaska appellate court in McBath, supra, observed that an arrest warrant may not constitute a determinative intervening circumstance “where the police conducted an unjustifiable ‘dragnet’ investigative stop of many people, hoping to find some for whom there were outstanding arrest warrants.” 108 P.3d at 249. In such a case, “the flagranee of the police misconduct may still require suppression of the evidence.” Ibid.
There is a difference between an unlawful motor vehicle or investigatory stop in which, incidental to the stop, the police learn about an outstanding warrant and, as here, an unlawful stop executed for the specific purpose of ascertaining whether a sus
In Mitchell, two police officers conducted an unlawful investigatory stop of the defendant, demanding that he provide identification. Id. 291 Ill.Dec. 786, 824 N.E.2d at 644. Using the defendant’s identification, one of the officers ran a computer check “to see if there were any warrants outstanding for” him. Ibid. The check revealed a traffic warrant that led to the defendant’s arrest and to a search that uncovered a small amount of cocaine. Id. 291 Ill.Dec. 786, 824 N.E.2d at 644-45. Applying the Brown attenuation doctrine, the Illinois appellate court suppressed the drugs as the product of a search in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Id. 291 Ill.Dec. 786, 824 N.E.2d at 648-50. The Mitchell court determined that “the officers stopped defendant for no apparent reason other than to run a warrant check on him. Thus, the purpose of the stop in this case was directly related to the arrest of defendant, which then led directly to the search of defendant.” Id. 291 Ill.Dec. 786, 824 N.E.2d at 649. The court concluded that factors two and three in BroiAm weighed in favor of suppression because “the evidence was obtained by exploiting the original illegality.” Id. 291 Ill.Dec. 786, 824 N.E.2d at 650. The court noted that suppressing evidence “appears to be the only way to deter the police from randomly stopping citizens for the purpose of running warrant checks.” Ibid.
As Mitchell demonstrated, and as suggested in Brendlin and McBath, the intervening circumstances and flagrancy factors can become intertwined. That is true in the present case.
The police initiated the stop and detention to determine if Shaw was wanted on a particular arrest warrant. That Shaw was eventually arrested on a different warrant is not of significant import when one considers that Shaw’s name was on a parole warrant list carried by Parole Officer D’Amico when he went on patrol during Operation FALCON. D’Amico was prepared to
Accordingly, the second factor in Brown does not weigh in favor of the State here.
C.
We next turn to “purpose and flagrancy of the official misconduct” — the third Brown factor. 422 U.S. at 604, 95 S.Ct. at 2262, 45 L.Ed.2d at 427.
The only discernible features that Shaw — and presumably Gardner- — shared with the person sought on the warrant to be executed at 507 Tennessee Avenue were that both were black men. The Appellate Division characterized the stop of these two individuals as a “fishing expedition.” Apparently, any other black man walking out of the apartment building at the moment Detective Brown and company arrived would have been detained if he would have refused to identify himself. In that regard, it may have been happenstance that Shaw and Gardner, and not two other individuals, were detained. It also bears mentioning that Detective Brown was prepared, if necessary, to transport Shaw to headquarters for fingerprinting to determine his identification.
The trial court noted that the stop was in a high-crime area. That 507 Tennessee Avenue is located in a high-crime area does not mean that residents in that area have lesser constitutional protection from random stops. See State v. Valentine, 134 N.J. 536, 547, 636 A.2d 505 (1994) (citing Maryland v. Buie, 494 U.S. 325, 334-35 n. 2, 110 S.Ct. 1093, 1098 n. 2, 108 L.Ed.2d 276, 286 n. 2 (1990)) (noting that “a stop in a high-crime area does not by itself justify a Terry frisk”). Moreover, we disagree with the unrealistically high bar that the trial court set for flagrant con
The random detention of an individual for the purpose of running a warrant check — or determining whether the person is wanted on a particular warrant — cannot be squared with values that inhere in the Fourth Amendment and Article I, Paragraph 7 of our State Constitution. A random stop based on nothing more than a non-particularized racial description of the person sought is especially subject to abuse.
We have previously said that the third Brown “factor requires consideration of the manner in which the defendant was ... detained.” Chippero, supra, 164 N.J. at 357, 753 A.2d 701. Here, this factor weighs most heavily against the State and is determinative in our analysis.
VI.
In balancing all three of the Brown factors, we conclude that, in the specific circumstances of this case, the parole warrant was not an intervening circumstance that sufficiently purged the taint from or attenuated the effect of the unlawful detention. Shaw was detained to determine if he was named in an arrest warrant and ultimately arrested because he was the subject of a warrant— albeit a different one than the warrant that triggered the stop. We do not suggest that the discovery of an arrest warrant in other
In State v. Williams, supra, we noted that had the “defendant merely stood his ground and resorted to the court for his constitutional remedy, then the unlawful stop would have led to the suppression of the [evidence].” 192 N.J. at 17, 926 A.2d 340. Shaw did not resist or take flight. He has sought his remedy in this Court and is entitled to relief.
The application of the exclusionary rule in this case is not only about Don Shaw but also about the right of all individuals to be free from random stops. “Suppressing evidence sends the strongest possible message that constitutional misconduct will not be tolerated and therefore is intended to encourage fidelity to the law.” Id. at 14, 926 A.2d 340. Our jurisprudence commands that suppression is the appropriate remedy in this case.
VII.
Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the Appellate Division reversing the trial court and granting Shaw’s motion to suppress the evidence seized from him after his arrest on the parole warrant. To be clear, this determination does not provide Shaw relief for any preexisting violation of his parole or any charges arising from the warrant issued by the Galloway Township Municipal Court. We remand to the trial court for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
For affirmance and remandment — Chief Justice RABNER, Justices LaVECCHIA, ALBIN, HOENS and PATTERSON — 5.
Opposed — None.
Detective Brown did not have a photograph of the fugitive named in the arrest warrant. At the time of the motion to suppress hearing, Detective Brown
AFIS stands for Automated Fingerprint Identification System. See New Jersey State Police, Identification and Information Technology Section, State Bureau of Identification (SBI), http://www.njsp.org/divorg/admin/iits.html (last visited Nov. 29, 2012).
Officers Palamaro and D'Amico also recognized Gardner. The record, however, does not reveal whether there was any legal basis to detain or arrest him.
Brown, supra, set forth three factors to be considered in determining whether inculpatory statements elicited by police were sufficiently attenuated from an unlawful stop: (1) “the temporal proximity" between the illegal conduct and the challenged statements; (2) “the presence of intervening circumstances"; and (3)
The court imposed an extended term on the third-degree school-zone offense.
Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 478-79, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 1630, 16 L.Ed.2d 694, 726 (1966).
Based on its facts, United States v. Green, 111 F.3d 515, 517-18 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 522 U.S. 973, 118 S.Ct. 427, 139 L.Ed.2d 328 (1997), is somewhat of an outlier from the cases above. That is because the vehicle stop at issue was related to the potential execution of a warrant. Id. at 517-18. In Green, the
Although we conclude that the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution compels the result in this case, Article I, Paragraph 7 of our State Constitution provides an independent ground for our decision.