INDEPENDENT SOURCE 2-PRONG TEST
There's a two-pronged test for determining whether the evidence obtained had an untainted independent source.
State v. Reddick, _ So.3d _ (Fla. 1st DCA 2025):
As a general rule, evidence obtained unlawfully is inadmissible. However, the independent source doctrine is an exception to that exclusionary rule. Rodriguez v. State, 187 So. 3d 841, 845 (Fla. 2015). The independent source doctrine “applies when evidence is discovered as a result of unlawful police activity but is also discovered independently through a lawful investigation that occurs either before or after the illegal activity, so long as the independent investigation is ‘untainted by the initial illegality.”’ Jackson v. State, 1 So. 3d 273, 278 (Fla. 1st DCA 2009) (quoting Murray v. United States, 487 U.S. 533, 537 (1988)). As we have noted, “the fact that police obtained evidence in a manner that violated a defendant’s right against unreasonable searches and seizures does not necessarily require that a trial court exclude it.” Wingate v. State, 289 So. 3d 566, 568 (Fla. 1st DCA 2020), cause dismissed, No. SC20-871, 2020 WL 3265112 (Fla. June 17, 2020).
Murray established that when applying the independent source doctrine to an unlawful entry, the question is “whether the search pursuant to warrant was in fact a genuinely independent source of the information and tangible evidence.” 487 U.S. at 542. The Murray court emphasized that the doctrine means to balance deterrence of unlawful police conduct against the public interest in utilizing all probative evidence of a crime. Id. at 537. Significantly for this case, Murray also emphasized that the goal is to avoid putting police in a worse position than if they had avoided a potentially improper search. Id.
Murray requires a two-pronged test for determining whether the evidence obtained had an untainted independent source: (1) whether the officer’s decision to seek the warrant was prompted by what was observed during the initial entry, and (2) whether any information obtained during that entry was presented to the warrant judge and affected the decision to issue the warrant. Id. If the officer would have sought a warrant even without having entered the place in question, “his decision to seek the search warrant is supported by an ‘independent source,’ and the evidence seized under the warrant is admissible regardless of whether the initial entry violated the Fourth Amendment.” United States v. Noriega, 676 F.3d 1252, 1260–61 (11th Cir. 2012).
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Because the warrant was issued wholly on the basis of information known before entry, the evidence was admissible under the independent source doctrine. See Segura v. United States, 468 U.S. 796, 799 (1984) (“[T]he evidence discovered during the subsequent search of the apartment the following day pursuant to the valid search warrant issued wholly on information known to the officers before the entry into the apartment need not have been suppressed.”).