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that the trial court’s ruling, when the evidence is viewed in the light most favorable to the
Commonwealth, was reversible error.’” Knight v. Commonwealth, 71 Va. App. 771, 782 (2020)
(quoting Cantrell v. Commonwealth, 65 Va. App. 53, 56 (2015)).
Thus, “we are ‘bound by the trial court’s findings of historical fact unless “plainly
wrong” or without evidence to support them and we give due weight to the inferences drawn
from those facts by resident judges and local law enforcement officers.’” Myers, 83 Va. App. at
664 (quoting Cantrell, 65 Va. App. at 56). Nevertheless, we must “review[] de novo the
overarching question of whether a search or seizure violated the Fourth Amendment.” Williams
v. Commonwealth, 71 Va. App. 462, 475 (2020).
“The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution, as incorporated in and
applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, guarantees ‘[t]he right of the people to
be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and
seizures.’” Hill v. Commonwealth, 68 Va. App. 610, 617 (2018) (alteration in original). Indeed,
“[n]o right is held more sacred, or is more carefully guarded, by the common law, than the right
of every individual to the possession and control of his own person, free from all restraint or
interference of others, unless by clear and unquestionable authority of law.” Terry v. Ohio, 392
U.S. 1, 9 (1968) (quoting Union Pac. Ry. Co. v. Botsford, 141 U.S. 250, 251 (1891)).
“In order to deter law enforcement officials from violating the Fourth Amendment by
stopping persons without reasonable suspicion . . . , the Supreme Court has directed that ‘all
evidence obtained by an unconstitutional search and seizure [is] inadmissible in federal court
regardless of its source.’” United States v. Pearce, 531 F.3d 374, 381 (6th Cir. 2008) (second
alteration in original) (quoting Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 654 (1961)). “This exclusionary
rule is supplemented by the ‘fruit of the poisonous tree’ doctrine, which bars the admissibility of
evidence which police derivatively obtain from an unconstitutional search or seizure.” Id.
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