Wong Sun v. United States

Petitioners
Wong Sun, James Wah Toy
Respondent
United States
Petitioners' Claim
That use of evidence illegally obtained by police in criminal proceedings violates the petitioners' constitutional rights under the Due Process Clause ofthe Fourteenth Amendment.
Chief Lawyer for Petitioners
Edward Bennett Williams
Chief Lawyer for Respondent
J. William Doolittle
Justices for the Court
Hugo Lafayette Black, William J. Brennan, Jr. (writing for the Court), William O. Douglas, Arthur Goldberg, Earl Warren
Justices Dissenting
Tom C. Clark, John Marshall Harlan II, Potter Stewart, Byron R. White
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
14 January 1963
Decision
Upheld Wong Sun's claim and overturned two lower courts' decisions allowing use in criminal trials of evidence illegally obtained without warrants.
Significance
The ruling established the "fruits of the poisonous tree" doctrine. In conformance with the Due Process Clause, the doctrine directs that any evidence resulting from illegal search and seizure, no matter how remotely connected cannot be introduced in court. After a court finding of illegality, the government is charged with the responsibility to show that any evidence introduced did not result from knowledge of the illegal evidence. The decision significantly expanded the exclusionary rule which excludes the use of certain evidencein trials. Later Court decisions weakened the rule by creating more exceptions where evidence could be appropriately used. This decision, and others by the Warren Court protecting defendants' rights, led to creation of the public defender system in the United States.
The Fourth Amendment is perhaps one of the most important provisions protecting human liberty in the Constitution. The amendment prohibits "unreasonable"search and seizure by requiring police to obtain a search warrant only aftershowing "probable cause" to an impartial neutral magistrate. The warrants must describe the particular place to be searched and items to be seized as evidence. Probable cause requires the government to demonstrate that the evidencewould lead a person of reasonable caution to the belief that a felony was committed. The Court in the 1948 Johnson v. United States case reaffirmed the role of "a neutral and detached magistrate" to assess probable cause and issue warrants rather than relying solely on the instantaneous judgement of"zealous officers . . . engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime." Because the Fourth Amendment did not provide remedies for violations, the Court in the 1914 Weeks v. United States case created the exclusionary rule to deter police misconduct. The rule excluded from trialsevidence gained through illegal searches and seizures.
Early on a June morning in 1959, after six weeks of surveillance, federal narcotics agents in San Francisco arrested Hom Way for heroin possession. Upon arrest, Way stated he had purchased heroin from a person known as "Blackie Toy," owner of a laundry elsewhere in town. The police proceeded promptly to a laundry in the vicinity indicated by Way. When a street-clothed agent announced at the door of the closed laundry that he was a narcotics agent, James WahToy slammed the door and fled to a rear residence room with his family. The agents broke through the door and pursued Toy through the laundry and residence. A search uncovered no narcotics. Upon arrest, Toy denied selling narcoticsbut indicated another person named "Johnny" did and described where "Johnny"could be found. The agents then proceeded promptly to the residence described, which they entered, and where they discovered Johnny Yee in a bedroom. A search revealed less than an ounce of heroin. Upon his arrest Yee stated the heroin was obtained from Toy and another person named "Sea Dog" who Toy identified as Wong Sun. The agents next proceeded to Sun's residence which they entered and where they found Sun still sleeping. A search uncovered no narcotics. Toy, Yee, and Sun were arraigned on violation of federal narcotics laws andreleased. Several days later they returned for interrogation. No attorneys were present during the questioning. An agent prepared written statements based on comments made by the three and each reviewed them for accuracy. They, however, refused to sign the statements though admitting to their accuracy.
At the resulting trial without a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Way did not testify and Yee, the principal witness, repudiated his own unsigned statement. The court excused Yee to avoid self-incrimination. Four items of evidence were therefore introduced to supportthe government's case: (1) statements by Toy in his bedroom while being arrested; (2) heroin taken from Yee; (3) Toy's unsigned pretrial statement; and (4) Sun's pretrial statement. The defense objected to the use of these "fruits"of their alleged unlawful arrests and searches. Yee and Sun were found not guilty of conspiracy charges, but convicted "of fraudulent and knowing transportation and concealment of illegally imported heroin."
An appeal to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit resulted in affirmation of the conviction. Though the appeals court held that the arrests violatedthe Fourth Amendment's requirement of warrants based on "probable cause" and"reasonable grounds," the court ruled the four items of evidence "were not the fruits of the illegal arrests," and, therefore, were properly admitted asevidence. The court found neither Way nor Yee to be proven reliable informants to justify the arrests of Toy and Sun without warrants. The Supreme Court then granted certiorari to hear the case. The Court's interest in the case focused on the trial judge's acceptance of the four items of evidence.
Fruits of the Poisonous Tree
By a 5-4 vote, the Court reversed and remanded the appeals court decision. Inaddressing Toy's connection, Justice Brennan, writing for the majority, first agreed with the court of appeals finding that neither reasonable grounds nor probable cause existed to support Toy's arrest. Brennan wrote, "It is basicthat an arrest with or without a warrant must stand upon firmer ground thanmere suspicion." In the case of Toy, insufficient evidence existed to justifyissuing a warrant, even if sought, since Hom Way was not a previously established reliable informant. Brennan asserted that agents cannot "roam" the streets of San Francisco following the lead of an unproven informant. The government argued Toy's flight from the front door justified the use of Way's information. However, Brennan found the narcotics agent at Toy's door initially misrepresented his intent by neither readily identifying his purpose nor makingan effort to confirm that Toy was the "Blackie Toy" described by Way. Brennanbelieved Toy's flight could easily have been "a natural desire to repel an apparently unauthorized intrusion." To accept the government's argument "wouldmean that a vague suspicion could be transformed into probable cause for arrest by reason of ambiguous conduct which the arresting officers themselves had provoked." Brennan added that the Court has "consistently rejected that a search unlawful at its inception may be validated by what it turns up." Therefore, since the agent's uninvited entry into Toy's residence was illegal, theresulting arrest was illegal. Similarly, Toy's statements at the time of arrest cannot be used as evidence since they resulted from illegal police activity. Brennan rejected the government argument that Toy's statements at the timeof his arrest were admissible as evidence and not subject to the exclusionary rule because they were spoken at "free will" and were not incriminating.
Brennan continued that if Toy's statements about Yee were unlawfully obtainedand excluded as evidence, then narcotics taken from Yee must also be excluded. Since the narcotics seizure resulted from illegal police action, it was also "fruit of the poisonous tree." Lastly, Sun's unsigned statement offered nocorroborating evidence about Toy's activity. Information in Toy's statement,being directly connected with the illegal arrest, could not stand alone andbe lawfully used as evidence. Brennan concluded Toy's conviction must be reversed based on the lack of submissible evidence not associated in some way with illegal police actions.
Regarding Wong Sun's conviction, Brennan agreed with the court of appeals that Sun's arrest was without probable cause or reasonable grounds. However, Brennan found that Sun's unsigned statement was not fruit of the illegal arrest.That Sun returned voluntarily several days after his initial release to provide the statement indicated to Brennan the statement was sufficiently disconnected from the illegal arrest. Also, though Toy's statement did not sufficiently support Sun's statement, the heroin seized from Yee did serve as independent corroboration. Hence, Sun's statement was legally acceptable evidence. Brennan was not certain as to whether the lower court based its decision on Yee's narcotics alone, or the inadmissible confession of Toy. Therefore, Brennanreversed the court of appeals decision and ruled that Sun be retried.
Justice Clark, joined by Justices Harlan, Stewart, and White, offered the dissenting opinion. Clark wrote that the Court made a "Chinese puzzle" out of basically simple facts and "dashed to pieces . . . standards of probable causenecessary to secure an arrest warrant or to make an arrest without one." Clark asserted this decision placed a much greater burden on officers carrying out duties often involving split-second decisions in uncertain situations. Clark saw efficient police work in the case facts, demonstrated by the swiftnessof the four contacts that early June morning. Toy's flight from officers whenbeing informed they were narcotics agents constituted probable cause for further action in Clark's mind. The combination of Way's statements concerning Toy, Toy's flight, Toy's statement at the time of arrest, and the discovery ofnarcotics subsequently at Yee's residence did not construct a "poisonous tree" and were admissible evidence. As a result, Clark saw no reason to overturnthe consistent decisions of the two lower courts regarding Toy's conviction.Regarding Sun, Clark maintained the Court applied too high a standard by dismissing Toy's confession about Sun. Clark wrote, "corroboration merely fortifies the truth of the confession, without independently establishing the crimecharged." He believed the two confessions provided key details of their acquisition and use of heroin the day prior to the arrest.
Impact
This landmark decision established the "fruit of the poisonous tree" doctrineand affirmed the constitutional prohibition against unreasonable search andseizure. The Wong case added to the exclusionary rule by holding thatunless the government can clearly demonstrate that secondary evidence was discovered independently of the "tainted," illegal, primary evidence, then the secondary evidence must be excluded as "fruit of the poisonous tree."
The Wong decision was one of a series of key findings made by the Warren Court in the 1960s, during what was perceived as a "revolution" in the development of criminal procedure. Another landmark case was the Miranda v. Arizona decision in 1966 requiring police to advise suspects of their rights prior to questioning. The Court, by limiting police powers to investigateand prosecute crimes, sought to balance the need to gather evidence against invasion of privacy.
More conservative Supreme Courts since the 1960s sought to limit the exclusionary rule by narrowing the range of evidence considered "fruit" of a Fourth Amendment violation. In United States v. Leon (1984) the Court held that if officers acted with a reasonable belief their conduct did not violate the Fourth Amendment then the search was legal. This amounted to a generalized"good faith" or "reasonableness" exception to the exclusionary rule. In Nix v. Williams (1984), the Court recognized the "inevitable-discovery" exception by holding that illegally gathered evidence could still be used if thegovernment could demonstrate that such evidence would have been "inevitably"discovered through other lawful sources anyhow. The Court further expanded the exception to the "independent source" exception in Murray v. United States in 1988.
With the Wong decision the exclusionary rule became perhaps the most contentious issue associated with the Fourth Amendment. Many believed punishment for Fourth Amendment violations should more appropriately consist of civilor criminal lawsuits or disciplinary actions against police officers responsible for unlawful searches. In 1995, as part of the "Contract with America" war on crime, the newly Republican-controlled 104th Congress introduced the Exclusionary Rule Reform Act. The bill expanded on the Court's "good faith" exception to the exclusionary rule, made electronic search and seizure easier, and suspended the need for search warrants in many situations. The proposed standards only required that law enforcement demonstrate "good intent" insteadof obtaining a warrant before searching a business or residence.
Increased emphasis on defendants' constitutional rights by the Court in the 1960s led to a rapid increase in number of public defender offices by the early 1970s. Defense lawyers were no longer considered a luxury, but instead wereconstitutionally required to protect defendants' rights. By the 1980s publicdefender offices were a major part of the criminal justice system.
Related Cases

• Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383 (1914).
  
• Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10 (1948).
  
• Miranda v. Arizona, 387 U.S. 436 (1966).
  
• Nix v. Williams, 467 U.S. 431 (1984).
  
• Unites States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897 (1984).
  
• Murray v. United States, 487 U.S. 533 (1988).