Powell v. Nevada, 511 U.S. 79, 12 (1994)

Page:   Index   Previous  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  13  14  Next

90

POWELL v. NEVADA

Thomas, J., dissenting

(1990) (internal quotation marks omitted). See also United States v. Ceccolini, 435 U. S. 268, 276 (1978).

Contrary to petitioner's arguments, the violation of McLaughlin (as opposed to his arrest and custody) bore no causal relationship whatsoever to his November 7 statement. The timing of the probable-cause determination would have affected petitioner's statement only if a proper hearing at or before the 48-hour mark would have resulted in a finding of no probable cause. Yet, as the Magistrate found, the police had probable cause to suspect petitioner of child abuse, cf. Illinois v. Gates, 462 U. S. 213 (1983), and there is no suggestion that the delay in securing a determination of probable cause permitted the police to gather additional evidence to be presented to the Magistrate. On the contrary, the Magistrate based his determination on the facts included in the declaration of arrest that was completed within an hour of petitioner's arrest. Thus, if the probable-cause determination had been made within 48 hours as required by Mc-Laughlin, the same information would have been presented, the same result would have obtained, and none of the circumstances of petitioner's custody would have been altered.

Moreover, it cannot be argued that the McLaughlin error somehow made petitioner's custody unlawful and thereby rendered the statement the product of unlawful custody. Because the arresting officers had probable cause to arrest petitioner, he was lawfully arrested at the hospital. Cf. Harris, supra, at 18.1 The presumptively unconstitutional delay in

1 The fact that the arrest was supported by probable cause and was not investigatory in nature fully distinguishes this case from our decisions in Taylor v. Alabama, 457 U. S. 687 (1982), Brown v. Illinois, 422 U. S. 590 (1975), and Dunaway v. New York, 442 U. S. 200 (1979). Where probable cause for an arrest is lacking, as it was in each of those cases, evidence obtained as a result of the Fourth Amendment violation "bear[s] a sufficiently close relationship to the underlying illegality [to require suppression]." New York v. Harris, 495 U. S. 14, 19 (1990). The presence of probable cause, by contrast, validates the arrest and attendant custody, despite " 'technical' violations of Fourth Amendment rights" that may

Page:   Index   Previous  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  13  14  Next

Last modified: October 4, 2007