California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from People v. Jones, A139321 (Cal. App. 2015):
in having juries receive all probative evidence of a crime are properly balanced by putting the police in the same, not a worse, position that they would have been in if no police error or misconduct had occurred. [Citations.] When the challenged evidence has an independent source, exclusion of such evidence would put the police in a worse position than they would have been in absent any error or violation.' [Citation.]" (People v. Weiss (1999) 20 Cal.4th 1073, 1077-1078.) Where the affidavit supporting a search warrant contains both information obtained by unlawful conduct as well as untainted information, a two-prong test applies to justify application of the independent source doctrine. (Id. at pp. 1078, 1082.) First, the affidavit, excised of any illegally obtained information, must be sufficient to establish probable cause. (Id. at p. 1082.) Second, the evidence must support a finding that "the police subjectively would have sought the warrant even without the illegal conduct." (Id. at p. 1079; see also id. at p. 1082 [" 'if the application contains probable cause apart from the improper information, then the warrant is lawful and the independent source doctrine applies, provided that the officers were not prompted to obtain the warrant by what they observed during the initial entry' "].) The circumstances here satisfied both prongs.
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