State v. Strieff

Justice LEE,

opinion of the Court:

{1 In this case we are asked to determine the applicability of the "attenuation" exception to the exclusionary rule to a fact pattern addressed in a broad range of lower-court opinions but not by the United States Supreme Court. The essential fact pattern involves an unlawful detention leading to the discovery of an arrest warrant followed by a search incident to arrest. The attenuation inquiry is essentially a proximate cause analysis. -It asks whether the fruit of the search is tainted by the initial, unlawful detention, or whether the taint is dissipated by…