Page:Brief for the United States, Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471 (1963).djvu/46

 freely to give information to arresting officers, when in truth it is freely given, breaks the link; the resulting evidence is not then attributable to, or the product of, the illegal arrests. Such freely-given declarations are the product of a human being's voluntary choice to speak rather than to remain silent when he could freely decline to say anything.

1. The general rule is illustrated by Silverthorne v. United StatesSilverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States [sic], 251 U.S. 385, which laid down the "poisonous tree" doctrine. There, the government seized evidence, made photostats, and studied the documents. After the documents had been ordered returned as illegally seized, the government attempted by subpoena to have the evidence produced for use at a trial. In reversing a conviction for contempt for failure to honor the subpoena, this Court pointed out that knowledge of the existence and contents of the documents was the direct result of the government's wrongful action and held that the government could not thus profit from its own wrong. Suppression of evidence would have little meaning, the Court said, if such a direct product of illegal action could be introduced in evidence. Similarly, where officers, as the result of an illegal entry, observe incriminating facts, testimony as to their observations is the direct product of the illegal entry and is excludable. E.g., McGinnis v. United States, 227 F. 2d 598 (C.A. 1) (cited by petitioners). There is obviously a direct connection between the illegal entry and the officers' observations.