Founds v. State

Andrew Campbell Founds v. State of Maryland, No. 48, September Term, 2025. Opinion by Eaves, J. CRIMINAL LAW – MOTION TO SUPPRESS – SEARCHES AND SEIZURES – INDEPENDENT SOURCE DOCTRINE The Supreme Court of Maryland held that the Appellate Court of Maryland properly applied the independent source doctrine to affirm the denial of the Petitioner’s motion to suppress. Under the independent source doctrine, where a warrant includes observations derived from an unlawful search alongside independently obtained information, courts apply the objective excision methodology, asking whether the affidavit, with the tainted material removed, establishes probable cause. Assuming—without deciding—that a Fourth Amendment violation occurred in this case, the Court held that the remaining information after excision established probable cause to support the subsequent search of the Petitioner’s apartment. CRIMINAL LAW – SUFFICIENCY OF THE EVIDENCE The Supreme Court of Maryland held that the State introduced sufficient evidence to support the Petitioner’s convictions for possession of over fifty pounds of marijuana, psilocyn mushrooms, and bulletproof body armor. To determine whether a defendant constructively possessed contraband, the Court applied the four-factor framework established in Smith v. State, 415 Md. 174 (2010), examining: (1) the defendant’s proximity to the contraband, (2) whether the contraband was in plain view of and/or accessible to the defendant, (3) whether there were indicia of mutual use and enjoyment, and (4) whether the defendant had an ownership or possessory interest in the location where the contraband was discovered. The evidence permitted a rational factfinder to conclude that the Petitioner’s apartment served as a stash house for a drug-dealing enterprise whereby he could be said to benefit from the mutual use and enjoyment of the contraband; the Petitioner had a possessory interest in the entire apartment—including Bedroom 2 where the marijuana and mushrooms were found—granting him access to that contraband; and he had been inside the apartment proximate to the contraband moments before his arrest. While the Court declined to adopt the State’s broader theory that evidence of a drug-dealing enterprise is alone sufficient to establish constructive possession of all contraband within the apartment, the totality of the evidence assessed through the four factors supported each of the three possessory convictions. Circuit Court for Worcester County Case No. C-23-CR-23-000016 Argued: March 10, 2026 IN THE SUPREME COURT OF MARYLAND No.48 September Term, 2025 ANDREW CAMPBELL FOUNDS v. STATE OF MARYLAND Fader, C.J., Watts, Booth, Biran, Gould, Eaves, Killough, JJ. Opinion by Eaves, J. Watts, Biran, and Gould, JJ., dissent. Filed: August 7, 2026 Pursuant to the Maryland Uniform Electronic Legal Materials Act (§§ 10-1601 et seq. of the State Government Article) this document is authentic. 2026.08.07 '00'04- 15:43:35 Gregory Hilton, Clerk  I INTRODUCTION After investigation and surveillance, law enforcement suspected that Andrew Campbell Founds possessed a large quantity of marijuana that was the subject of a controlled FedEx delivery. Following a brief interaction with law enforcement, officers detained Mr. Founds and engaged in a protective sweep of his apartment after Mr. Founds relayed to the officers that there was another individual in his apartment. During that protective sweep, officers observed in plain view various drugs, firearms, and a bulletproof vest. Law enforcement subsequently presented everything that transpired, including their observations inside Mr. Founds’ apartment, in an application for a warrant to search the apartment. A judge issued that warrant; police eventually searched and seized the contraband and accordingly charged Mr. Founds. Mr. Founds moved in the Circuit Court for Worcester County to exclude the evidence on the basis that officers had unconstitutionally searched his home during the protective sweep prior to the issuance of the warrant and that the police officers’ observation of the contraband therein—which was mentioned in the affidavit in support of the subsequently issued warrant—tainted the warrant. The circuit court denied that motion and a subsequent motion to reconsider, and Mr. Founds pleaded not guilty to an agreed-upon statement of facts to three possessory offenses. The circuit court found Mr. Founds guilty on all three counts. Mr. Founds appealed to the Appellate Court of Maryland, challenging both the denial of his motion to suppress, as well as the sufficiency of the evidence for his three convictions. The Appellate Court affirmed the circuit court on both issues. We issued a writ of certiorari in this case to review those same issues.1 For the reasons discussed below, we hold that the circuit court properly denied Mr. Founds’ motion to suppress and that there was sufficient evidence to support his various convictions. We, thus, affirm the judgment of the Appellate Court. II BACKGROUND A. Factual Background In December 2022, an employee at the Baltimore-Washington International Airport FedEx distribution hub became suspicious of a medium-sized cardboard package and alerted FedEx security. The employee forwarded the package to a shipping hub in Salisbury, Maryland, where a FedEx security employee, suspecting that the package contained “illegal contraband,” opened the package. FedEx employees observed what they believed to be marijuana and contacted the Wicomico County Sheriff’s Office. Sergeant Tyler Bennett responded, seized the package, returned to his office for further investigation, and determined that it contained approximately 17 heat-sealed packages with a total net weight of 19.6 pounds of marijuana tetrahydrocannabinol. Because the FedEx package contained a delivery address located in Worcester County, Sgt. Bennett contacted members of the Worcester County Sheriff’s Office Criminal Enforcement Team to conduct further investigation. The heat-sealed packages were placed in their original packaging and resealed so 1 Founds v State, 492 Md. 646 (2025). 2 that detectives could conduct a controlled delivery of the package to the address indicated on the shipping label. A detective placed the package on the front porch of the residence, knocked on the door, and left. Approximately two hours later, a different detective observed a white male arrive at the address in a grey Kia, place the package in his vehicle, and leave. A registration check revealed that the Kia was registered to Mr. Founds. While surveilling the vehicle, detectives lost sight of it; however, they eventually learned of an address associated with Mr. Founds and proceeded to that address. Upon arriving at that address, detectives noticed the same grey Kia that they previously had been surveilling. Detectives approached the house and spoke with the homeowner who indicated that the vehicle belonged to Mr. Founds, who rented an apartment in the residence with a separate entrance. Detective Corporal Converse, of the Worcester County Sheriff’s Office, proceeded to the separate entrance, knocked, and announced himself. Mr. Founds eventually answered the door, at which point Det. Cpl. Converse observed an overwhelming smell of marijuana emanating from inside the apartment. Det. Cpl. Converse noted that Mr. Founds seemed “overly nervous” and was “trembling and covered in sweat.” Det. Cpl. Converse advised Mr. Founds that officers were conducting a drug investigation and believed him to be in possession of a package of marijuana. Mr. Founds then became uncooperative, and Det. Cpl. Converse placed him in an investigative detention. Law enforcement proceeded to conduct a protective sweep of the apartment “in preparation for a search warrant.” During the sweep, detectives located another individual on the stairwell and detained him. Detectives also observed in plain 3 view several heat-sealed bags containing what they suspected was marijuana and a large brown box consistent with the original FedEx package. Upon securing the apartment, detectives applied for a search warrant. The supporting affidavit detailed the above investigative steps taken from the time the FedEx package was first noted at the airport through the point that the officers conducted the protective sweep of Mr. Founds’ apartment. A judge in the District Court of Maryland sitting in Worcester County issued the warrant, which law enforcement officers executed that evening. Mr. Founds’ apartment contained two bedrooms, a common living room and common area, a kitchen, a bathroom, and a storage room. Pursuant to the search, officers discovered a total net weight of 52.364 pounds of marijuana distributed throughout the apartment. In Bedroom 1, detectives found the original FedEx package containing fourteen heat-sealed packages of marijuana with a net weight of 13.2666 pounds, as well as several firearms and ammunition. In Bedroom 2, officers found four bags containing psilocyn mushrooms weighing roughly 2.5 pounds and numerous bags of marijuana. In addition to what they recovered from both bedrooms, officers recovered more marijuana, a firearm, several high-capacity magazines and ammunition, eight digital scales, roughly $80,000 in cash, drug ledgers, and a bulletproof vest. The marijuana recovered outside Bedroom 1—including that found in Bedroom 2 and elsewhere in the apartment—totaled 39.098 pounds, which, combined with the 13.266 pounds from Bedroom 1, comprised the total 52.364 pounds of marijuana. 4 B. Procedural History 1. The Circuit Court for Worcester County In January 2023, the State charged Mr. Founds in the Circuit Court for Worcester County with ten counts arising from the seizure of contraband from his apartment. Mr. Founds filed a motion to suppress, alleging that the evidence obtained was discovered through an illegal search because “the warrant on which the search was based was devoid of sufficient probable cause[.]” Specifically, Mr. Founds argued that, under Buie v. State, 320 Md. 696 (1990), a protective sweep is authorized only incident to a lawful arrest. Because he was subject to an investigative detention, Mr. Founds argued that “[a] protective sweep was prohibited because [he] was not the subject of a valid arrest prior to officers entering his home.” He alternatively argued that, under Buie, law enforcement had no reasonable articulable suspicion to believe that there was another armed occupant inside the residence. Thus, because the “source of the probable cause for the [w]arrant was obtained in violation of the [Fourth] and [Fourteenth] Amendment[s,]” and because “no other basis existed for the warrant,” Mr. Founds argued that “all evidence obtained as a result of the execution of the warrant must be suppressed[.]” The State submitted a generic answer denying “each, every, and all of the allegations” in Mr. Founds’ motion to suppress. Mr. Founds’ original motion was filed in February 2023 and contained bald allegations that the warrant was secured without probable cause. The State submitted its answer summarily denying Mr. Founds’ allegations on March 15, 2023. It was not until one week after the State submitted its answer that Mr. Founds submitted a supplement to his original motion, including a 5 memorandum of law, which more fully fleshed out his arguments regarding the warrant, as we recounted above. The circuit court held a hearing in April 2023. The court found that, while an exigency existed for the purposes of conducting the protective sweep, the officers unlawfully created the exigency. The court then excised the portions of the search warrant affidavit containing the detectives’ observations from inside the apartment and found that the remaining information provided a sufficient basis for the issuing judge to find probable cause. The court accordingly denied the motion to suppress. Mr. Founds filed a motion for reconsideration. Relying on this Court’s opinion in Miles v. State, 365 Md. 488 (2001), Mr. Founds argued that the circuit court had used the wrong standard in deciding his motion to suppress. In Mr. Founds’ view, the correct test is not whether, in excising the tainted information from the warrant, the issuing judge still could have found that probable cause existed; rather, the correct test is whether “the seizure of the evidence is sufficiently attenuated from the taint of the clearly unlawful initial intrusion[.]” For its part, the State argued that the facts of Miles made it inapplicable to the case at bar and that the doctrines of independent source and inevitable discovery “support a finding of probable cause[]” based on the other information “within the four corners of the search warrant.” In a written order, the court denied the motion for reconsideration and refined its earlier ruling. After reviewing Miles and Kentucky v. King, 563 U.S. 452 (2011), the court found that the officers created the exigency but “did not do so by violating, or threatening to violate the Fourth Amendment[.]” 6  Mr. Founds pleaded not guilty to an agreed-upon statement of facts to Count II (possession of fifty pounds or more of cannabis in violation of Md. Code Ann., Crim. Law (“CR”) § 5-612), Count IV (possession of psilocyn with intent to distribute in violation of CR § 5-602), and Count X (possession of a bulletproof body armor during and in relation to a drug trafficking crime in violation of CR § 4-106). After the State read the agreed-upon statement of facts, Mr. Founds moved for judgment of acquittal, which the court implicitly denied by subsequently finding Mr. Founds guilty on Counts II, IV, and X. The circuit court sentenced Mr. Founds to a total of ten years of imprisonment, with all but five years suspended without parole, and three years of supervised probation. Mr. Founds noted a timely appeal to the Appellate Court of Maryland. 2. The Appellate Court of Maryland In the Appellate Court, Mr. Founds presented two issues: (1) whether the circuit court erred in denying his motion to suppress and (2) whether there was sufficient evidence to find that he exercised dominion and control over the contents recovered in Bedroom 2. Founds v. State, No. 2266, 2025 WL 2374199, at *1 (Md. App. Ct. Aug. 15, 2025). The Appellate Court affirmed the circuit court on both issues. Id. As to the motion to suppress, the court held that the detectives were justified in conducting the protective sweep due to exigent circumstances (possible destruction of evidence), the detectives did not create the exigency through a Fourth Amendment violation, and the warrant application was not tainted. Id. at *6. Although the court concluded that the warrant did not contain any information obtained in violation of the 7 Fourth Amendment, the court observed that, even if the protective sweep were unlawful, the excised search warrant provided a substantial basis for the issuing judge to find probable cause under the independent source doctrine. Id. at *6–8. On the sufficiency question, the court held that there was sufficient evidence for the circuit court to find that Mr. Founds possessed the contraband found in Bedroom 2 and the body armor. Id. at *10. The court reasoned that a rational factfinder could conclude that the apartment served as a stash-house for a drug-dealing enterprise in which Mr. Founds participated and that he exercised dominion and control over the contraband in Bedroom 2, as well as the body armor. Id. III STANDARD OF REVIEW With respect to this Court’s review of a circuit court’s ruling on a motion to suppress, our scope is limited to the facts generated by the record at the suppression hearing. State v. Stone, 493 Md. 78, 96 (2026). We accept the circuit court’s findings of fact unless clearly erroneous and review the record and any reasonable inferences drawn therefrom in the light most favorable to the prevailing party on the motion. Id. Questions of law are reviewed de novo, and where a party has raised a constitutional challenge to a search or seizure, we must make an “independent constitutional evaluation as to whether the officer’s encounter with the defendant was lawful.” Id. (quoting Sizer v. State, 456 Md. 350, 362 (2017)). As to the sufficiency of the evidence, we ask whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the State, any “rational trier of fact could have found the 8 essential elements of the crime.” Nguyen v. State, 492 Md. 179, 197 (2025) (quoting State v. Pagotto, 361 Md. 528, 533 (2000)). We do not re-weigh the evidence or ask whether we believe “the evidence at trial established guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id. at 198 (quoting Pagotto, 361 Md. at 534). Rather, we review whether the verdict was supported by evidence that could convince a rational trier of fact of the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. Id. IV ANALYSIS Mr. Founds challenges his conviction on two grounds: that (1) the detectives manufactured the exigency that justified their warrantless entry into his apartment, requiring that the evidence subsequently recovered pursuant to the search warrant be suppressed as fruits of an illegal search that violated the Fourth Amendment2 and (2) the State lacked sufficient evidence to prove that Mr. Founds constructively possessed the marijuana and psilocyn mushrooms located in Bedroom 2 and the body armor. We begin our analysis by providing an overview of certain Fourth Amendment 2 Although Mr. Founds argued in his supplemental motion to suppress that law enforcement’s actions were violative of the Maryland Declaration of Rights, the circuit court did not separately address any claim under Maryland law and ruled exclusively on the Fourth Amendment ground. Mr. Founds did not ask the circuit court to consider any separate State ground in his motion for reconsideration, nor did he raise such an issue in his brief to the Appellate Court of Maryland, which likewise did not address that issue. Our analysis, thus, proceeds solely under the Fourth Amendment, and we need not address whether the Maryland Declaration of Rights affords greater or lesser protection than the Fourth Amendment in this context. See Washington v. State, 482 Md. 395, 454– 55 (2022) (“[While] we have asserted that Article 26 may have a meaning independent of the Fourth Amendment, we have not held, to date, that it provides greater protection against state searches than its federal kin.” (quoting King v. State, 434 Md. 472, 483 (2013))). 9 principles, namely, the exclusionary rule and the exception to that rule that plays the predominant role in this case—the independent source doctrine. We discuss the Supreme Court of the United States’ opinion in Murray v. United States, 487 U.S. 533 (1988), in which the Court held that the independent source doctrine applies to evidence initially discovered unlawfully but subsequently lawfully obtained as a result of an independent source untainted by the initial illegality. We then turn to a question of first impression in Maryland concerning the independent source exception to the exclusionary rule and, specifically, the standard that governs when a suppression court is asked to exclude evidence obtained pursuant to a search warrant when the search warrant affidavit includes information that was observed during a prior unlawful entry. After adopting the objective approach to Murray’s second prong, in the same manner as every federal circuit court that has addressed the issue, we move on to the facts of Mr. Founds’ case. We assume—without deciding—that the detectives’ entry into Mr. Founds’ apartment constituted a Fourth Amendment violation. Even so, we hold that, under the independent source doctrine, the assumed illegal entry in this case does not compel suppression of the evidence seized pursuant to the subsequent warrant-authorized search. After excising any tainted material from the warrant affidavit, the remaining untainted information independently establishes probable cause. With the contraband in Mr. Founds’ apartment lawfully in play, we also hold that the agreed-upon statement of facts provided a sufficient basis for the circuit court to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Founds committed the three possessory offenses for which he was convicted. We, therefore, affirm the denial of Mr. Founds’ motion to suppress and uphold his 10 convictions. A. The Fourth Amendment, the Exclusionary Rule, and the Independent Source Doctrine The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, made applicable to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment, protects individuals against unreasonable searches and seizures. Stone, 493 Md. at 98–99. Generally, evidence obtained in violation of these protections is subject to the exclusionary rule, which prevents governments from using—in any fashion—such evidence, as well as “fruit[s] of the poisonous tree,” i.e., any evidence derivative of the illegal conduct. Thornton v. State, 465 Md. 122, 150 (2019); see also Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States, 251 U.S. 385, 392 (1920) (“The essence of a provision forbidding the acquisition of evidence in a certain way is that not merely evidence so acquired shall not be used before the Court but that it shall not be used at all.” (emphases added)). The exclusionary rule is not grounded in the text of the Fourth Amendment; rather, it is a judicially created remedy. See Stone v. Powell, 428 U.S. 465, 482 (1976) (“The exclusionary rule was a judicially created means of effectuating the rights secured by the Fourth Amendment.”). Because the exclusionary rule’s purpose is to deter government actors from violating the Fourth Amendment, Thornton, 465 Md. at 150, it applies only “where its deterrence benefits outweigh its substantial social costs[,]” id. (quoting Utah v. Strieff, 579 U.S. 232, 237 (2016)). And because the exclusionary rule is not absolute, there are well-recognized exceptions that permit evidence to be used notwithstanding a Fourth Amendment violation, and these exceptions include the doctrines of (1) attenuation, (2) inevitable 11 discovery, and (3) independent source. Williams v. State, 372 Md. 386, 409 (2002). These exceptions reconcile the exclusionary rule’s deterrence function with the interest of presenting the factfinder with all probative evidence where the connection between the illegal conduct and the evidence has been sufficiently severed. Id. at 410; see Nix v. Williams, 467 U.S. 431, 444 (1984) (“If the prosecution can establish by a preponderance of the evidence that the information ultimately or inevitably would have been discovered by lawful means[] . . . []then the deterrence rationale has so little basis that the evidence should be received.”). Although the attenuation and inevitable discovery exceptions are not before us, it is worth briefly mentioning them. The attenuation doctrine allows evidence to be used notwithstanding a Fourth Amendment violation where the “connection between unconstitutional police conduct and the evidence is remote or has been interrupted by some intervening circumstance[.]” Strieff, 579 U.S. at 238. In applying the attenuation doctrine, courts consider the “‘temporal proximity’ between the unlawful conduct and the discovery of the evidence,” the “presence of intervening circumstances,” and the “purpose and flagrancy of the official misconduct.” Thornton, 465 Md. at 151 (quoting Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 603–04 (1975)). The inevitable discovery doctrine applies when evidence would have been discovered through lawful means even though it initially was discovered through a Fourth Amendment violation. Williams, 372 Md. at 410. The Supreme Court has held that, so long as a government “can establish by a preponderance of the evidence that the information ultimately or inevitably would have been discovered by lawful means[,]” 12 then the exclusionary rule will not bar use of the evidence because, in that scenario, “the deterrence rationale [would have] so little basis[.]” Nix, 467 U.S. at 444. The operative inquiry is what would have happened if the lawful investigation had proceeded, not merely what could have happened. See Williams, 372 Md. at 416 (“[S]peculation will not satisfy the demands of the inevitable discovery doctrine[] . . . .”); Elliot v. State, 417 Md. 413, 437 (2010) (discussing courts’ reluctance to apply the doctrine to ephemeral evidence or scenarios where a government expects a person to wait for an officer to arrive with a valid warrant). The independent source doctrine applies when evidence was actually discovered through lawful means wholly independent of any constitutional violation. Williams, 372 Md. at 410–11. When evidence is found pursuant to a search warrant obtained following an unlawful entry, the independent source doctrine can be an exception to suppression if the warrant rests on an untainted, independent foundation—that is, if the warrant was not issued based on information acquired during the illegal entry. Murray, 487 U.S. at 542. Unlike the inevitable discovery doctrine, which asks whether law enforcement would have discovered the evidence through other lawful means, the independent source doctrine addresses whether the evidence was actually obtained through lawful means independent of the unlawful conduct. Id. Here, the State relies upon the independent source doctrine, and our analysis now turns to that doctrine in greater detail. The Supreme Court of the United States first recognized the independent source doctrine in Silverthorne. There, the Court stated the doctrine’s animating principle: Lawfully obtained information remains usable even when a government has previously 13 come by the same facts through unlawful means. Silverthorne, 251 U.S. at 392. There, two business owners were arrested pursuant to an indictment, and the Federal Government unlawfully seized books, papers, and documents from the business. Id. at 390. With the knowledge it possessed about the aforementioned documents, the Government filed a new indictment. Id. at 391. The district court, however, ordered that the original business records be returned but impounded the copies and photographs. Id. The Government then filed new subpoenas to reobtain the originals. Id. The business owners refused, and the Government subsequently initiated a contempt proceeding, which ended in a finding of contempt against the business and imprisonment for one of the business owners. Id. at 390–91. During that proceeding, the Government, acknowledging that it originally unlawfully seized the business records, nevertheless contended that it could use the information it learned from those records to “call upon the owners in a more regular form to produce them[]” and that the Fourth Amendment protects mere physical possession. Id. at 391. The Supreme Court squarely rejected that argument: The essence of a provision forbidding the acquisition of evidence in a certain way is that not merely evidence so acquired shall not be used before the Court but that it shall not be used at all. Of course this does not mean that the facts thus obtained become sacred and inaccessible. If knowledge of them is gained from an independent source they may be proved like any others, but the knowledge gained by the Government’s own wrong cannot be used by it in the way proposed. Id. at 392. Because that did not occur in Silverthorne, the Government could not leverage the information it learned from the unlawful seizure to turn around and subpoena the business owners for those very same documents. Id. 14  In Franks v. Delaware, the Supreme Court held, for the first time, that a criminal defendant has a right—after the ex parte issuance of a search warrant—to challenge the veracity of statements in an affidavit submitted in support of the warrant. 438 U.S. 154, 155–56 (1978). There, the defendant sought to challenge the truthfulness of some of the statements contained in a warrant that eventually led to the seizure of incriminating evidence. Id. at 157–58. The trial court denied the motion to suppress, and the Supreme Court of Delaware affirmed, holding that a defendant could never attack the veracity of statements contained in a warrant affidavit. Id. at 160. The Supreme Court reversed. It held that, when the Fourth Amendment demands a showing of probable cause, “the obvious assumption is that there will be a truthful showing.” Id. at 164–65 (quoting United States v. Halsey, 257 F. Supp. 1002, 1005 (S.D.N.Y. 1966)). In other words, the information proffered by the affiant must be “believed or appropriately accepted by the affiant as true.” Id. at 165. The Court, thus, held: [W]here the defendant makes a substantial preliminary showing that a false statement knowingly and intentionally, or with reckless disregard for the truth, was included by the affiant in the warrant affidavit, and if the allegedly false statement is necessary to the finding of probable cause, the Fourth Amendment requires that a hearing be held at the defendant’s request. In the event that at that hearing the allegation of perjury or reckless disregard is established by the defendant by a preponderance of the evidence, and, with the affidavit’s false material set to one side, the affidavit’s remaining content is insufficient to establish probable cause, the search warrant must be voided and the fruits of the search excluded to the same extent as if probable cause was lacking on the face of the affidavit. Id. at 155–56. Because the Delaware courts embraced an absolutist view that a defendant could never challenge the veracity of the statements contained in a warrant affidavit, the Supreme Court reversed and remanded the case back to the Delaware courts to determine, 15 in the first instance, whether the defendant was entitled to such a hearing. Id. at 172. Although Franks concerned deliberately false statements rather than information obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment, the Supreme Court established the excision methodology for testing whether a warrant could validly stand alone on its otherwise legitimate portions. Id. at 171–72. Several years later, the Supreme Court decided Segura v. United States, 468 U.S. 796 (1984), reaffirming and clarifying the independent source doctrine framework. There, officers unlawfully entered an apartment to secure it while a separate officer obtained a search warrant, but the officers inside observed, in plain view during a protective sweep, items associated with drug trafficking. Segura, 468 U.S. at 799–801. Nothing discovered during the initial illegal entry was presented to the judge who ultimately issued the warrant, and none of the evidence discovered during that initial, illegal search was at issue. Id. at 801, 813–14.3 The Court held that all the evidence discovered during the subsequent warrant-authorized search was admissible because it 3 In Segura, the district court ruled that there were no exigent circumstances justifying the initial illegal entry. 468 U.S. at 802. Even though the district court agreed that the warrant otherwise furnished probable cause, it ruled that the drugs seized pursuant to the search warrant were nevertheless fruit of the poisonous tree, requiring that all the evidence be suppressed. Id. On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the district court’s conclusion that no exigent circumstances existed to justify the initial illegal entry, thereby requiring suppression of the evidence observed in plain view during that illegal entry. Id. at 802–03. But the Second Circuit reversed the district court’s conclusion that the evidence seized pursuant to the search warrant and not originally observed during the illegal entry also had to be suppressed. Id. at 803. Thus, the only issue before the Supreme Court was “whether drugs and the other items not observed during the initial [illegal] entry and first discovered by the agents the day after the entry, under an admittedly valid search warrant, should have been suppressed.” Id. at 804. 16 was obtained through an independent source wholly unconnected to the illegal entry. Id. at 813–14. The Court emphasized that “[n]one of the information on which the warrant was secured was derived from or related in any way to the initial entry into [the defendants’] apartment[,]” and that “[n]o information obtained during the initial entry or occupation of the apartment was needed or used by the agents to secure the warrant.” Id. at 814. In Murray, the Supreme Court picked up where Segura left off, addressing how the independent source doctrine applies where “evidence acquired by an untainted search . . . is identical to the evidence unlawfully acquired.” 487 U.S. at 538. There, federal agents unlawfully entered a warehouse and observed, in plain view, burlap-wrapped bales later confirmed to contain marijuana. Id. at 535. As in Segura, the officers did not disclose the warrantless entry, or any observations made during that entry, to the magistrate. Id. at 535–36. The Court held that evidence initially observed during an unlawful search may be admitted if it was subsequently seized through a lawful independent source, reaffirming that the exclusionary rule’s deterrence purpose—to put police “in the same, not . . . worse, position that they would have been in if no police error or misconduct had occurred”—is fully served without suppression in that circumstance. Id. at 537 (quoting Nix, 467 U.S. at 443). The Court explained the contours of the independent source doctrine: The ultimate question, therefore, is whether the search pursuant to [the] warrant was in fact a genuinely independent source of the information and tangible evidence at issue here. This would not have been the case if the agents’ decision to seek the warrant was prompted by what they had seen during the initial entry, or if information obtained during that entry was 17  presented to the Magistrate and affected [their] decision to issue the warrant. Id. at 542 (emphasis added) (footnote omitted). On those points, the Supreme Court noted that the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in that case made the following statements: [W]e can be absolutely certain that the warrantless entry in no way contributed in the slightest either to the issuance of a warrant or to the discovery of the evidence during the lawful search that occurred pursuant to the warrant. * * * This is as clear a case as can be imagined where the discovery of the contraband in plain view was totally irrelevant to the later securing of a warrant and the successful search that ensued. As there was no causal link whatever between the illegal entry and the discovery of the challenged evidence, we find no error in the court’s refusal to suppress. Id. at 542–53 (alterations in original) (emphases added) (quoting United States v. Moscatiello, 771 F.2d 589, 603, 604 (1st Cir. 1985)). While the Supreme Court was satisfied that law enforcement’s decision not to reveal to the magistrate the prior illegal entry and subsequent observations ensured that the issuing magistrate’s decision was not infected, it was not so persuaded regarding possible officer motivation. Id. at 543. The Supreme Court was concerned with an appellate court making such assertions without a sufficient factual basis in the record and remanded the matter to the district court to correct that error. Id. (“[I]t is the function of the District Court rather than the Court of Appeals to determine the facts, and we do not think the Court of Appeals’ conclusions are supported by adequate findings.”). Thus, under Murray, a warrant obtained after an illegal search is not an 18 independent source if either of the following are true: (1) “the agents’ decision to seek the warrant was prompted by what they had seen during the initial entry,” or (2) “information obtained during that entry was presented to the Magistrate and affected his [or her] decision to issue the warrant.” 487 U.S. at 542. In other words, Murray established a two- pronged test, and both questions must be answered in the affirmative for the warrant to be an independent source. As discussed above, Murray did not involve a circumstance in which the warrant application or affidavit contained information that was obtained from the unlawful entry. This case requires us to examine the independent source exception to the exclusionary rule in the context of a search warrant containing some untainted and some tainted information. The proper approach to assessing situations concerning officer motivation or effect on the issuing judge has produced stark disagreement among federal and state courts. For example, federal and state court