In People v. Brendlin (2008) 45 Cal.4th 262, the defendant was a passenger in a car a deputy stopped for expired registration tags, which stop was subsequently determined to be an unlawful stop and detention. When the deputy approached, he looked inside the car and saw containers of substances used to produce methamphetamine. He asked the defendant to identify himself and defendant complied. The deputy returned to his patrol car and learned the defendant had an outstanding arrest warrant. After back-up arrived, the defendant was arrested, the car was searched incident to the arrest, and contraband was found. (Brendlin, supra, 45 Cal.4th at pp. 265-266.) The Brendlin court evaluated "whether the existence of defendant's outstanding arrest warrant--which was discovered after the unlawful detention but before the search of his person or the vehicle--dissipated the taint of the illegal seizure and rendered suppression of the evidence seized unnecessary." (Brendlin, supra, 45 Cal.4th at p. 267.) The court acknowledged, but for the unlawful detention, police would not have discovered the outstanding warrant for defendant's arrest and would not then have conducted the search incident to arrest that produced the contraband. However, Brendlin cautioned, "this does not mean . . . that the fruits of the search incident to that arrest must be suppressed." (Id. at p. 268.) Instead, the suppression motion must instead be evaluated by applying the case law (developed in both the federal courts and in California) on "attenuation," which examines " 'whether the chain of causation proceeding from the unlawful conduct has become so attenuated or has been interrupted by some intervening circumstance so as to remove the "taint" imposed upon that evidence by the original illegality.' (United States v. Crews (1980) 445 U.S. 463, 471 63 L.Ed.2d 537, 100 S.Ct. 1244.)" (Brendlin, at p. 269.) Brendlin acknowledged the issue of whether the existence of an outstanding arrest warrant attenuates the taint of an antecedent unlawful seizure was a question of first impression in California. However, Brendlin recognized the federal courts (as well as courts in other states) have applied the three general factors on attenuation enunciated in Brown v. Illinois (1975) 422 U.S. 590: "the temporal proximity of the unlawful seizure to the subsequent search of the defendant's person or vehicle, the presence of intervening circumstances, and the flagrancy of the official misconduct in effecting the unlawful seizure" (Brendlin, supra, 45 Cal.4th at p. 269), to evaluate "whether the discovery of an outstanding arrest warrant has attenuated the taint of an antecedent unlawful seizure." (Ibid.) Brendlin applied the three Brown factors and concluded "the outstanding warrant, which was discovered prior to any search of defendant's person or of the vehicle, sufficiently attenuated the taint of the unlawful traffic stop." (Brendlin, at pp. 269-270.) Considering the factor of the temporal proximity of the unlawful seizure to the subsequent search of the defendant's person or vehicle, Brendlin noted only a few minutes elapsed between the unlawful traffic stop and the discovery of the warrant that led to the arrest and search incident to arrest. Brendlin concluded, under these circumstances, the temporal proximity of the unlawful seizure to the subsequent search was either irrelevant to attenuation or was outweighed by the other two factors. (Brendlin, supra, 45 Cal.4th at p. 270.) As to the second factor Brendlin noted "the case law uniformly holds that an arrest under a valid outstanding warrant--and a search incident to that arrest--is an intervening circumstance that tends to dissipate the taint caused by an illegal traffic stop." (Id. at p. 271.) Brendlin reasoned a warrant is not reasonably subject to interpretation or abuse and supplies the legal authority for arresting a defendant independent of the circumstances that led the officer to initiate the unlawful detention. Accordingly, Brendlin concluded that because "no search of defendant's person or of the vehicle was undertaken until the deputy had confirmed the existence of the outstanding warrant citations, the challenged evidence was thus the fruit of the outstanding warrant, and was not obtained through exploitation of the unlawful detention." (Ibid.) Brendlin then examined the third factor--the flagrancy of the official misconduct in effecting the unlawful seizure--and concluded the evidence did not justify suppression based on flagrant misconduct. Brendlin observed that the fact the detention was determined to be unlawful is not the equivalent of showing flagrant misconduct, because a mistaken belief by an officer that he or she has cause to detain the defendant does not establish that the detention was pretextual or in bad faith. Although the facts might later be determined to have been insufficient to justify the detention, "the insufficiency was not so obvious as to make one question the deputy's good faith in pursuing an investigation of what he believed to be a suspicious registration, nor does the record show that he had a design and purpose to effect the stop 'in the hope that something else might turn up.' (Quoting Brown v. Illinois, supra, 422 U.S. at p. 605.) In particular, there is no evidence at all that the deputy 'invented a justification for the traffic stop in order to have an excuse to run a warrant check ' (People v. Rodriguez (2006) 143 Cal.App.4th 1137, 1143) or that a search of the vehicle or its occupants was the 'ultimate goal' of the initial unlawful detention." (Brendlin, supra, 45 Cal.4th at pp. 271-272.)