Interdasting
Any lawfags wanna chime in?
Fruit of the poisonous tree includes evidence gathered from just about any kind of police conduct that violates a defendant's constitutional rights.
You might know that evidence the cops find during an illegal search of you or your belongings is probably inadmissible in criminal court. You might also know that the prosecution typically can't use something you've said to the police if officers violated your rights in obtaining the statement (for example, by coercing it out of you).
Generally speaking, the prosecution can't use evidence that comes directly from police illegality—the seized object or the statement. But oftentimes, it also can't use evidence that derives from the illegality—something the officers discovered as a result of the object or statement. The latter is commonly referred to as the "fruit of the poisonous tree."
What Evidence Is Fruit of the Poisonous Tree?
Fruit of the poisonous tree includes evidence gathered from just about any kind of police conduct that violates a defendant's constitutional rights.
Take an illegal wiretap, for example. Suppose the police begin to listen in on and record the statements of suspected drug dealers without first getting a warrant. One of the dealers says that he left some cocaine in an abandoned warehouse so that his buyer could pick it up. The police go to the building and find the drugs. Not only is the illegally recorded statement (the poisonous tree) inadmissible, but so are the drugs the officers found (the fruit of that tree).
In a case that developed the concept of "fruit of the poisonous tree," Wong Sun v. U.S., the prosecution introduced drugs into evidence against the defendant. Federal officers had learned about the drugs from a witness they knew about only because of a statement by the defendant during an illegal arrest. The Supreme Court ruled that everything the officers discovered as a result of the illegal arrest was fruit of the poisonous tree—not just the statement itself but also the witness information they gleaned from it and the actual drugs that the witness led them to. (371 U.S. 471 (1963).)
The U.S. Supreme Court has held that even a confession that comes after the Miranda warnings may be inadmissible if it's the product of an illegal arrest and police misconduct and the confession and illegal arrest are closely related. (Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590 (1975).)
https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/fruit-the-poisonous-tree.html