Page:Brief for the United States, Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471 (1963).djvu/45



On the assumption that the arrests were illegal, petitioners contend that all the evidence obtained after those arrests must be deemed the "fruit of the poisonous tree" and therefore inadmissible. The court below rejected this contention, holding that the voluntary statements by petitioners—by Toy at the time of his arrest and by both, later, after arraignment—were sufficiently independent so that they could not be said to be the product of the arrests. If this question need be reached, we submit that the decision of the court of appeals is correct.

There can be no doubt that if evidence sought to be introduced is the true product of illegal government action it is not admissible in a federal prosecution. The Court, however, has never held nor said that any evidence which would not have been obtained but for the illegal conduct is automatically inadmissible. Rather, the test has been the proximity of the connection between the improper official activity and the particular evidence proffered by the government. Where the bond is direct and unbroken the rule of exclusion applies, but where the connection is attenuated or the nexus is cut by sufficient intervening conduct the evidence is acceptable. In our view, a voluntary decision by defendants (or third parties)