By the Court, HARDESTY, J.:
In this appeal, we determine whether the discovery of a valid arrest warrant purges the taint from the illegal seizure of a pedestrian, such that the evidence obtained during a search incident to the arrest is admissible. We conclude that the officer's continued detention of Ralph Torres, after he dispelled any suspicion that Torres was committing a crime, constituted an illegal seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment and the fruits of that illegal seizure should have been suppressed. Therefore, we reverse the judgment of conviction.
In February 2008, Officer Shelley observed a smaller male wearing a sweatshirt with the hood pulled over his head sway and stagger as he walked over a bridge in Elko, Nevada. Officer Shelley thought that the man might be intoxicated and too young to be out past curfew. He then parked his patrol car in a store parking lot at the end of the bridge and addressed Torres as he walked in that direction. Officer Shelley told Torres that he stopped him because he was concerned that Torres was too young to be out after curfew and that it appeared he had been drinking. He asked Torres for identification.
Torres gave Officer Shelley his California identification card (ID card), which revealed that Torres was over the age of 21, and thus, old enough to be out past curfew and consuming alcohol. After reading Torres's ID card, Officer Shelley retained the ID card as he recited Torres's information to police dispatch for verification and to check for outstanding arrest warrants. According to Officer Shelley, it is his standard practice to verify the identification information of every person he encounters because police officers are often given fake identification cards that contain inaccurate information. However, nothing in Officer Shelley's testimony indicated that anything about Torres's ID card seemed fake or inaccurate. Although Officer Shelley could not remember when he handed Torres his ID card back after reciting the information to dispatch, he stated that it is also his standard practice to keep an identification card in his possession until after he gets a response from dispatch.
Within five minutes of transmitting Torres's information to dispatch, Officer Shelley was informed that Torres had two outstanding arrest warrants from California. A second patrol officer arrived and, upon confirmation from dispatch that one of the warrants was extraditable, Officer Shelley took Torres into custody. After taking Torres into custody, Officer Shelley went to
Torres was charged with being an ex-felon in possession of a firearm, receiving or possessing stolen goods, and carrying a concealed weapon. Torres filed a motion to suppress the handgun evidence and to ultimately dismiss the charges. Torres argued that his detention after Officer Shelley confirmed that he was not in violation of curfew was unconstitutional because Officer Shelley did not have suspicion that any other crime was occurring and Torres did not consent to the interaction. Therefore, once Officer Shelley knew Torres was of age, the encounter evolved into an illegal seizure that resulted in the discovery of the firearm. Torres also contended that the discovery of the warrant was not an intervening circumstance sufficient to purge the taint of the discovery of the handgun from the illegal seizure.
In response, the State argued that Officer Shelley had reasonable suspicion to detain Torres because of his stature, the time of day, and his apparent drunkenness, and that Torres consented to the encounter. The State further contended that the discovery of the warrant was an intervening circumstance sufficient to purge the taint of the possibly illegal seizure from the discovery of the handgun, and, therefore, the handgun evidence was not the fruit of an illegal seizure.
The district court denied Torres's motion to suppress because it determined that the initial contact between Officer Shelley and Torres was consensual. However, the district court did not make a determination about whether the consensual encounter became an illegal seizure. Instead, the district court determined the warrant to be an intervening circumstance and found that "the legality, or illegality, of Officer Shelley's decision to run a warrants check on [Torres] to be irrelevant to the legality of [Torres's] arrest." The court found the question irrelevant because the warrant would have been an "intervening circumstance" sufficient to purge the illegality of the seizure if the stop had become illegal. Upon the district court's denial of Torres's motion to suppress, Torres pleaded guilty to being an ex-felon in possession of a firearm pursuant to NRS 202.360(1)(a).
In this appeal, we consider whether the judgment of conviction must be reversed based on Torres's Fourth Amendment challenge and the district court's denial of his motion to suppress.
In Fourth Amendment challenges, this court reviews the district court's findings of fact for clear error but reviews legal determinations de novo. Somee v. State, 124 Nev. 434, 441, 187 P.3d 152, 157-58 (2008). Police encounters can be consensual. See United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 553-54, 100 S.Ct. 1870, 64 L.Ed.2d 497 (1980). "As long as the person to whom questions are put remains free to disregard the questions and walk away, there has been no intrusion upon that person's liberty or privacy as would under the Constitution require some particularized and objective justification." Id. at 554, 100 S.Ct. 1870. However, if a reasonable person would not feel free to leave, he or she
If a person does not consent, "a police officer may [still] stop a person and conduct a brief investigation when the officer has a reasonable, articulable suspicion that criminal activity is taking place or is about to take place." State v. Lisenbee, 116 Nev. 1124, 1127, 13 P.3d 947, 949 (2000); see also NRS 171.123(1); Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 27, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). To conduct an investigative stop, an officer must have more than an "`inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or "hunch"'" that criminal activity is occurring; the officer must have "some objective justification for detaining a person." Lisenbee, 116 Nev. at 1128, 13 P.3d at 949 (quoting Terry, 392 U.S. at 27, 88 S.Ct. 1868).
"But a `seizure that is lawful at its inception can violate the Fourth Amendment if its manner of execution unreasonably infringes interests protected by the Constitution.'" State v. Beckman, 129 Nev. ___, ___, 305 P.3d 912, 916-17 (2013) (quoting Illinois v. Caballes, 543 U.S. 405, 407, 125 S.Ct. 834, 160 L.Ed.2d 842 (2005)). For an investigative stop to be reasonable, it "must be temporary and last no longer than is necessary to effectuate the purpose of the stop." Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 500, 103 S.Ct. 1319, 75 L.Ed.2d 229 (1983). "[An individual] may not be detained even momentarily without reasonable, objective grounds for doing so...." Id. at 498, 103 S.Ct. 1319 (emphasis added).
"[T]he nature of the police-citizen encounter can change-what may begin as a consensual encounter may change to an investigative detention if the police conduct changes and vice versa." United States v. Zapata, 997 F.2d 751, 756 n. 3 (10th Cir. 1993). A consensual encounter is transformed into a seizure in violation of the Fourth Amendment "if, in view of all the circumstances surrounding the incident, a reasonable person would have believed that he was not free to leave." Immigration & Naturalization Serv. v. Delgado, 466 U.S. 210, 215, 104 S.Ct. 1758, 80 L.Ed.2d 247 (1984).
In Lisenbee, we considered such a transformation and determined the defendant was not "free to leave." 116 Nev. at 1128-30, 13 P.3d at 950-51. There, we concluded that after the defendant produced identification demonstrating he was not the possible suspect police were looking for, NRS 171.123(4) prevented further detention by police.
Veritably, scholars have noted the disagreement between other courts on whether a seizure has occurred for Fourth Amendment purposes when the police retain an individual's identification. See Aidan Taft Grano, Note, Casual or Coercive? Retention of Identification in Police-Citizen Encounters, 113 Colum. L.Rev. 1283 (2013) (highlighting the differences between the Fourth and the D.C. Circuit Courts regarding whether a consensual encounter can become a seizure solely through the retention of an individual's identification). In United States v. Weaver, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals held that an officer's retention of the defendant's identification beyond its intended purpose was not a seizure, as the defendant was a pedestrian, and, while "awkward," the defendant "could have walked away from the
Here, Officer Shelley testified that he stopped Torres because Officer Shelley thought Torres was a minor out past curfew and too young to be drinking. Once Torres produced his ID card verifying he was not a minor and over the age of 21, the suspicion for the original encounter was cured and Officer Shelley no longer had reasonable suspicion to detain Torres. But rather than release Torres, Officer Shelley continued to detain him, and contacted dispatch to check for warrants. The officer explained his further detention of Torres as his "standard practice" because he "very often get[s] fake I.D.'s, altered information on I.D.'s, I.D.'s that resemble the person but is not truly that person." However, there is no evidence to show that Torres's ID card was fake or altered in any way. Like Lisenbee, where a consensual encounter transformed into an illegal seizure, Officer Shelley retained Torres's ID card after the reasonable suspicion for the original stop eroded.
Generally, the exclusionary rule requires courts to exclude evidence that the police obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment, thereby deterring any incentive for the police to disregard constitutional privileges. See generally Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 656, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081 (1961). Courts must also exclude evidence obtained after the constitutional violation as "indirect fruits of an illegal search or arrest." New York v. Harris, 495 U.S. 14, 19, 110 S.Ct. 1640, 109 L.Ed.2d 13 (1990). However, not "all evidence is `fruit of the poisonous tree' simply because it would not have come to light but for the illegal actions of the police." Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 487-88, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963). The United States Supreme Court has found that when the constitutional violation is far enough removed from the acquisition of the evidence, the violation is sufficiently "`attenuated [so] as to dissipate the taint'" of the illegality and the evidence may be admitted. Id. at 491, 83 S.Ct. 407 (quoting Nardone v. United States, 308 U.S. 338, 341, 60 S.Ct. 266, 84 L.Ed. 307 (1939)). To be admissible, the police must acquire the evidence "by means sufficiently distinguishable to be purged of the primary taint." Id. at 488, 491, 83 S.Ct. 407 (internal quotations omitted) (excluding physical evidence because it was discovered "by the exploitation" of the illegality of the unlawful arrest, but not excluding statements made by the defendant several days after his arrest because the causal connection had attenuated "the primary taint" (internal quotations omitted)).
To resolve the suppression issue, the State urges this court to either create a per se rule of attenuation or apply the factors from
In Brown, the police arrested the defendant without probable cause and without a warrant. Id. at 591, 95 S.Ct. 2254. Thereafter, the police gave the defendant comprehensive Miranda
To be sure, the Brown factors are well suited to address the factual scenario of that case in determining "whether a confession is the product of a free will under Wong Sun." Id. at 603-04, 95 S.Ct. 2254. We do not perceive the Brown factors as particularly relevant when, as here, there was no demonstration of an act of free will by the defendant to purge the taint caused by an illegal seizure.
We conclude that the further detention of Torres was not consensual at the time of the warrants check, and thus Torres was illegally seized. The officer retained Torres's ID card longer than necessary to confirm Torres's age, rendering Torres unable to leave. Because the officer did not have reasonable suspicion necessary to justify the seizure under NRS 171.123(4), the evidence discovered as a result of the illegal seizure must be suppressed as "fruit of the poisonous tree" since no intervening circumstance purged the taint of the illegal seizure. Therefore, we conclude that the district court in this case should have suppressed the evidence of the firearm discovered on Torres's person after the investigative stop transformed into an illegal seizure.
For the reasons set forth above, we reverse the judgment of conviction and remand this matter to the district court to allow Torres to withdraw his guilty plea.