47 N.Y.2d 398 (1979)
An individual’s independent act, calculated to remove incriminating evidence, even after an unlawful seizure, can attenuate the taint of the illegality, making the evidence admissible.
Summary
The defendant was seized without probable cause. While unlawfully detained in a police car, he threw a loaded revolver out the window. Police retrieved the gun, leading to a search that revealed heroin. The Court of Appeals held that although the initial seizure was illegal, the defendant’s act of discarding the weapon was an independent action, sufficiently attenuating the taint of the unlawful seizure. Therefore, the gun and the heroin were admissible as evidence. The court emphasized the lack of purposeful police misconduct aimed at discovering evidence.
Facts
Detectives investigating a homicide received information that a man called “Heavy” might have relevant information. They found a man believed to be “Heavy” (the defendant), who aroused no suspicion. The detectives asked the defendant to step over to their car, then asked him to enter the vehicle. Without identifying themselves as police officers, they began driving away. One detective asked the defendant if he was “clean” and told him to keep his hands visible. The detective then saw the defendant throw a black object out the window, which was identified as a loaded .32 caliber automatic revolver. A subsequent search at the police station revealed packets of heroin on the defendant.
Procedural History
The defendant was charged with criminal possession of a weapon and a controlled substance. The defendant moved to suppress the evidence, arguing that the pistol and heroin were obtained in violation of his constitutional rights. Special Term denied the motion to suppress. The defendant pleaded guilty to the drug charge, and a jury convicted him of the weapon offense. The Appellate Division affirmed the lower court’s decision.
Issue(s)
Whether the defendant’s act of throwing the revolver from the car was a direct and immediate response to the illegal detention, thereby tainting the discovery of the weapon and making it inadmissible as evidence.
Holding
No, because the defendant’s act of throwing the revolver was not in direct and immediate response to the illegal detention but an independent act, the revolver, disclosed as a result of defendant’s independent act, was not tainted by the prior illegality.
Court’s Reasoning
The court acknowledged the initial seizure of the defendant was unlawful because the police lacked probable cause. However, the court distinguished this case from those where the defendant’s actions were a direct consequence of unlawful police action, citing People v. Baldwin, People v. Loria, and People v. Cantor. In those cases, the evidence was revealed as a spontaneous reaction to illegal police conduct. The court reasoned that the defendant’s act in this case was an independent act involving a calculated risk, rather than a spontaneous reaction. The court noted, “While the time for reflection is not measured in minutes or seconds it is measured by facts. The time must be long enough to make a choice, as the result of thought and reflection, and to act upon the choice thus made.” Furthermore, the court emphasized that the police illegality lacked the “quality of purposefulness” to uncover incriminating evidence, meaning it was not designed to discover the weapon. The court determined that suppressing the evidence would not serve the exclusionary rule’s purpose of deterring lawless police activity in this particular instance because the police conduct did not provoke the defendant’s action, nor was it intended to find evidence. Citing Wong Sun v. United States, the court reasoned that the connection between the unlawful police conduct and the discovery of the challenged evidence was “‘so attenuated as to dissipate the taint’”.