Fourth Amendment; Warrantless arrest; Continued detention; Prompt judicial probable-cause determination; Riverside Cnty v McLaughlin; Unconstitutional seizure; Exclusionary rule; Attenuation doctrine; Brown v Illinois; Miranda warnings; Voluntariness; People v Cipriano; People v Stewart; People v Manning

The court held that statements made while a defendant is detained in violation of McLaughlin must be excluded unless the prosecution proves they were sufficiently attenuated from the unconstitutional detention. Defendant was arrested without a warrant after his infant daughter was hospitalized, remained detained for at least 64 hours without a judicial probable-cause determination, and made inculpatory statements after police confronted him with autopsy results. He was convicted but later granted a new trial. The trial court ruled the statements admissible, concluding they were voluntary under Cipriano. On appeal, the court first held that defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights were violated because he was detained “for more than 48 hours following a warrantless arrest” without a probable-cause determination, and the prosecution conceded the delay was unjustified. The court next held that voluntariness alone is not the proper suppression standard. It reasoned that a McLaughlin violation makes the continued detention unlawful, and statements made during that detention are subject to exclusion unless they are “sufficiently attenuated from the taint” of the Fourth Amendment violation. The relevant factors include Miranda warnings, temporal proximity, intervening circumstances, and “the purpose and flagrancy of the police misconduct.” The court explained that exclusion would “appreciably deter police misconduct” because McLaughlin’s 48-hour rule is “clear, simple, and easy to apply,” and police can generally avoid violations by promptly presenting an arrestee to a magistrate. The court rejected the prosecution’s reliance on Cipriano, reasoning that voluntariness protects Fifth Amendment interests, while the Fourth Amendment asks whether police exploited an unlawful seizure. Thus, “a finding of voluntariness” is only a threshold condition and does not establish attenuation. The court overruled Manning to the extent it held that a McLaughlin violation is only one factor in the Cipriano voluntariness inquiry, explaining that Manning “erred in concluding” that voluntariness sufficiently protected Fourth Amendment interests. Because the trial court did not apply the attenuation standard, the court vacated the order admitting defendant’s statements and remanded.

Justice Zahra dissented. He would have retained Manning and held that Cipriano’s voluntariness inquiry adequately protects defendants because it already considers “the length of detention” and “unnecessary delays” in bringing a suspect before a magistrate. He reasoned that exclusion should remain a “last resort,” that civil remedies and voluntariness review provide sufficient deterrence, and that suppressing voluntary statements would impose high costs on the “truth-finding functions” of criminal trials.