John Sheldon Pickens, Jr. v. United States
CriminalProcedure HabeasCorpus Privacy JusticiabilityDoctri
Does an unlawful flee that would not have happened but for the police's violation of the Fourth Amendment trigger the independent source exception to the Fourth Amendment's exclusionary rule?
In the case below, police warrantlessly monitored Petitioner ’s cell phone GtS data. Using this information, the police located Petitioner and made an unconstitutional investigatory stop. Petitioner fled during the stop. Once the flee concluded, police searched Petitioner s car and found the evidence that resulted in Petitioner ’s conviction for a controlled substances offense. The district court held that Petitioner ’s flee triggered the independent source exception to the Fourth Amendment ’s exclusionary rule. The question presented by this petition is: Does an unlawful flee that would not have happened but for the police ’s violation of the Fourth Amendment trigger the independent source exception to the Fourth Amendment ’s exclusionary rule?