Test to Determine Whether a Fourth Amendment Violation Requires Suppression of Seized Evidence

In Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 9 L. Ed. 2d 441, 83 S. Ct. 407 (1963), the Court established the test to be applied when determining whether a Fourth Amendment violation requires the suppression of seized evidence: We need not hold that all evidence is "fruit of the poisonous tree" simply because it would not have come to light but for the illegal actions of the police. Rather, the more apt question in such a case is "whether, granting establishment of the primary illegality, the evidence to which instant objection is made has been come at by exploitation of that illegality or instead by means sufficiently distinguishable to be purged of the primary taint. Id. at 487-88 (quoting John MacArthur Maguire, Evidence of Guilt 221 (1959)).