Can a reversal of a drug conviction be reversed based on a combination of legal and illegal police work?

Similarly, the decisions in United States v. Falley, supra, and United States v. Cole, supra, should be understood as involving a combination of legal and illegal police work, in such a mix that the defendants' ultimate convictions were not sufficiently tainted to warrant reversal. In United States v. Falley, the defendants were convicted on drug charges for smuggling large quantities of Indian hashish into the United States in imported table tops and brass nameplates. The government conducted a "saturation investigation" of customs brokers, which revealed importation documents for the defendants' goods. The prosecution's case also presented tax returns, travel documents, a suitcase containing drugs seized by airport inspectors, and informants' testimony. Against this background, this court rejected the claim that an illegal search of the defendants' home mandated reversal because an address book containing their broker's name had been seized. The court found that the government's investigation proceeded on sufficient information independent of the illegally obtained materials and that "(e)ven if the address book had shortened or facilitated the investigation, it did not supply fruit sufficiently poisonous to be fatal." United States v. Falley, supra, 489 F.2d at 40.