exclusionary rule

A rule that forbids the use of illegally obtained evidence in a criminal trial.

The name commonly given to the principle that evidence obtained by the government in violation of a defendant's constitutional right may not be used against him. A defendant may prevent the prosecution from using evidence against her by making a “motion to suppress” before trial asking the judge to rule that the evidence is inadmissible. Physical evidence, confessions, or line‐up identifications are all subject to exclusion if obtained in violation of a defendant's constitutional right. The term exclusionary rule usually refers, however, to suppression of physical evidence that has been seized by the police in violation of a defendant's Fourth Amendment right not to be subjected to an unreasonable search or seizure. (See Search Warrant Rules, Exceptions to.) The Burger and Rehnquist Courts have substantially curtailed the degree to which the exclusionary principle actually operates as a “rule.” This curtailment reflects a fundamental redefinition of the character and purpose of the rule.

“Principled” Origin

The framers of the Fourth Amendment had no reason to consider exclusion as a remedy for an unconstitutional search because they did not regard misconduct by a peace officer as a form of governmental illegality. Rather, misconduct by an officer was understood to be only a personal trespass that was subject to a civil lawsuit for damages. However, as police officers were given discretionary arrest and search authority during the nineteenth century, that early understanding of officer misconduct became increasingly unrealistic, and trespass actions against officers proved less effective as a remedy for unlawful arrests and searches.

The exclusionary rule was created in Weeks v. United States (1914), in which the Supreme Court concluded, for the first time, that a federal marshal's warrantless search of a residence in which illegal lottery tickets were seized was a violation of the Fourth Amendment. Because the marshal's search was unconstitutional, the Court ruled that it was also unconstitutional for a federal court to receive the lottery tickets as evidence when Weeks was prosecuted for sending lottery tickets in the mail. Justice William Day's opinion for a unanimous Court concluded that the trial court's decision to allow the documents to be used in the defendant's trial was “a denial of the constitutional rights of the accused” and that the trial court had no authority to allow unconstitutionally seized evidence to be admitted at trial (p. 398).

The Weeks Court was writing on a nearly blank slate regarding the law of search and seizure. Like the other provisions of the Bill of Rights, the Fourth Amendment does not spell out the consequences if the right that it announces is violated. Prior to Weeks, a violation of a defendant's Fourth Amendment rights was inconsequential, so a defendant had no reason to challenge the constitutionality of a police search. Thus, courts had no occasion to spell out Fourth Amendment standards, and search law remained undeveloped. Only when the exclusionary rule was created was the Court presented with opportunities to pronounce Fourth Amendment search standards.

The Weeks opinion does not explain the theoretical basis for the exclusionary principle in detail. Read in the context of the formalist jurisprudence of the time, however—especially as reflected in the Court's decision in Boyd v. United States (1886)—it is clear that the exclusionary principle derives from the constitutional concept of limited governmental power. Weeks posits that a search that exceeds the constitutional authority of law enforcement officials must be deemed null and void and treated accordingly. If the government had no authority to seize the evidence, then a court—another branch of government—had no “right” to retain the evidence for use in a trial either. In keeping with the principled nature of the Weeks rationale, exclusion was the rule for unconstitutionally seized evidence in the federal courts for several decades. As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote in Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States (1920), the point of the exclusionary principle was that unconstitutionally seized evidence “shall not be used at all” (p. 392). The only significant limitation on the rule's operation in the years following Weeks was a “standing” requirement, developed by lower federal courts, which prevented a defendant from challenging a search that did not violate his or her own personal privacy (e.g., a defendant cannot usually challenge the constitutionality of a search of another person's house, even if that search produced evidence that incriminated the defendant).

Extension to State Proceedings

At the time of Weeks, the Bill of Rights was construed to apply only to the federal government, and Weeks explicitly stated that its rule did not apply to searches by state police officers. In the years following Weeks, a number of state courts considered whether to create state exclusionary rules on their own. Some did; a greater number did not. The arguments in the state debates over the rule mirrored the debate over Weeks itself. Critics of the rule said it served no purpose—suppression of evidence did not, in fact, punish the offending police officer—but its operation was costly to society because criminals were released. As Justice (then New York judge) Benjamin Cardozo put it: “The criminal goes free because the constable has blundered” (People v. Defore, 1926). Critics of the rule suggested that alternative remedies for arbitrary searches—such as suits for damages or administrative sanctions against the offending police officers—would be more effective than the rule. Defenders of the rule expressed doubts regarding the availability or efficacy of these alternatives and argued that the rule was the only practical way to give meaning to the privacy right protected by the Fourth Amendment.

The issue of whether the Weeks rule should be applied to the states was reopened when the Court began to construe the degree to which the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause protected the rights of defendants in state criminal cases. In Wolf v. Colorado (1949), Justice Felix Frankfurter wrote for a 5 to 4 majority that, although the concept of due process does include some degree of protection from arbitrary government searches, that protection is not as extensive as the standards of the Fourth Amendment. Therefore, he concluded that the states were not required to apply the Weeks rule; rather they were free to address the problem of arbitrary police searches through any of a variety of alternative remedies.

After Wolf, a “silver platter” doctrine allowed evidence seized by state officers to be admitted in federal trials, even though the searches violated Fourth Amendment standards. A decade later a 5 to 4 majority of the Court rejected the silver platter doctrine in Elkins v. United States (1960). Justice Potter Stewart's majority opinion asserted that the protections provided by the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments against unreasonable searches were equivalent, thus repudiating the basis for Wolf’s refusal to extend the exclusionary rule to the states. In the very next term, in Mapp v. Ohio (1961), five justices voted that the states were also required to apply the Weeks exclusionary rule. Justice Tom Clark's plurality opinion reiterated the Weeks position that the rule is part of a defendant's Fourth Amendment right, but he also argued that the rule was needed because the states had not developed any meaningful alternative remedies for arbitrary searches in the decade since Wolf.

Mapp’s application of the rule to state prosecutions had the effect of extending Fourth Amendment protections to a much larger and more diverse set of defendants than the white‐collar criminals or tax evaders often found in federal prosecutions. Perhaps for that reason, Mapp generated far more political controversy than Weeks had. In particular, Mapp was denounced by police administrators and politicians for “handcuffing” the police.

Deterrence Rationale

Much of the controversy over Mapp focused on the practical effects of the rule. Defenders of the decision such as Professor Yale Kamisar argued that it had finally caused police departments to begin to train officers about search standards. Critics of the rule such as Professor Dallin Oaks responded that the rule could not affect police behavior because suppression of evidence did not directly punish offending officers. They also argued that the rule was not constitutionally required but was really only a judge‐made, instrumental policy aimed at deterring future police misconduct. Because the critics believed that the rule failed as a deterrent, they argued that it should be abandoned as soon as another remedy for unconstitutional searches could be put in place. Thus, what has come to be known as the “deterrence rationale” for the exclusionary rule paradoxically opened up possibilities for attacking, limiting, or even abolishing it.

The deterrence rationale took on increased importance when President Richard Nixon named four justices to the Court—including Chief Justice Warren Burger, an outspoken critic of the rule—who were inclined to favor law enforcement interests. In United States v. Calandra (1974), the Court fundamentally redefined the rule's purpose, substituting the deterrence rationale for the previous principled formulation of the rule in Weeks. Justice Lewis Powell's opinion for the six‐justice majority repudiated the idea that the exclusionary rule was a constitutional right of a defendant who was the victim of an unconstitutional search. It was, he said, merely a prophylactic measure rather than a constitutional rule. Powell asserted that violation of the Fourth Amendment by an unconstitutional search is “fully accomplished” when the search ends and that the admission of unconstitutionally seized evidence in a later trial “work[s] no new Fourth Amendment wrong” (p. 354). Instead, Powell declared that “the rule's prime purpose is to deter future unlawful police conduct” (p. 347).

Powell's Calandra opinion also reasoned that because the rule was intended only to deter, the test for whether it should be applied in a particular setting should be to weigh the “deterrent benefits” of applying the rule against the social “costs” of its operation. In Calandra, the Court decided that the exclusionary rule would not be applied to evidence in grand jury proceedings because exclusion in that setting would not produce any significant increment of deterrence.

Although Calandra only limited the rule's operation, the adoption of a “costs and benefits” approach was widely thought to have positioned the Court to abolish the exclusionary rule on the ground that it generally failed as a deterrent. As it turned out, however, persuasive empirical data about the rule's effectiveness as a deterrent proved to be unavailable. In a pair of 1976 decisions, Stone v. Powell and United States v. Janis, the Court substituted speculation for the unobtainable data, and announced that from that point forward it would assume the rule is effective as a deterrent when evidence is excluded from the prosecutor's case in chief at trial, but that it was doubtful exclusion in other settings would create any significant “incremental deterrent effect” (Stone v. Powell, p. 493).

Although the Court had decided not to abolish the rule entirely (it may be significant that no alternative means of enforcing search standards has ever emerged), this approach to the rule's deterrent effect allowed the Court to curtail sharply the scope of its application. The Court has invoked costs and benefits analysis to admit unconstitutionally seized evidence in civil cases and in deportation hearings, in addition to grand jury proceedings; it has also allowed unconstitutionally seized evidence to be used liberally to impeach a defendant's testimony at trial (which may effectively prevent defendants who have succeeded in having evidence suppressed from testifying); and it has also limited review of state court search rulings through federal habeas corpus proceedings. Meanwhile, lower courts have invoked costs and benefits logic to admit unconstitutionally seized evidence in sentencing and probation or parole revocation hearings—among the most common proceedings in criminal prosecutions.

Exceptions

The Burger and Rehnquist Courts have also limited the operation of the rule by creating several new exceptions that allow the prosecutor unlimited use of unconstitutionally seized evidence, even in his or her case in chief at trial. One exception, announced in Nix v. Williams (1984), allows the use of unconstitutionally seized evidence, if, hypothetically, the police would have “inevitably discovered” the evidence even if the unconstitutional search had not occurred (p. 441). The Court created another exception (commonly but inaccurately called a “good‐faith exception”) in United States v. Leon (1984), which allows the use of evidence that was seized in a search conducted pursuant to an unconstitutionally issued search warrant. There the Court reasoned that a defective warrant is the fault of the magistrate who issued it rather than the police officers who searched; thus, suppressing the evidence would not affect police conduct. A parallel exception, created in Illinois v. Krull (1987), allows the use of evidence seized by police who conducted a search pursuant to an unconstitutional statute. Another exception, created in Arizona v. Evans (1995), allows the use of evidence unlawfully seized by police because of faulty court records.

The exclusionary rule today is a shadow of that envisioned in Weeks. Ironically, the “deterrence rationale” has been invoked to permit so many uses of unconstitutionally seized evidence that the rule's efficacy as a deterrent may well be diminished. Certainly, unconstitutionally seized evidence can often be used to the government's advantage. It also appears that the rule is less “costly” than has often been assumed. A 1983 study by Thomas Davies that was discussed in the Leon opinions estimates that only between 0.6 and 2.35 percent of all felony arrests are “lost” at any stage in the arrest disposition process (including trials and appeals) because of the operation of the exclusionary rule. The rate of lost arrests is somewhat higher in drug and other possessory offenses, but much lower in violent crimes. Thus, the continuing debate over exclusion would appear to be fueled as much by the ideological commitments of the participants as by the effects the rule now exerts on the criminal justice system.

Bibliography

• Thomas Y. Davies, A Hard Look at What We Know (and Still Need to Learn) About the ‘Costs’ of the Exclusionary Rule, American Bar Foundation Research Journal (1983): 611–690.
• Thomas Y. Davies, Recovering the Original Fourth Amendment, Michigan Law Review 98 (1999): 547–750.
• Yale Kamisar, Does (Did) (Should) the Exclusionary Rule Rest on a ‘Principled Basis’ Rather Than an ‘Empirical Proposition’? Creighton Law Review 16 (1983): 565–667.
• Yale Kamisar, The Writings of John Barker Waite and Thomas Davies on the Search and Seizure Exclusionary Rule, Michigan Law Review 100 (2002): 1821–1866.
• Dallin H. Oaks, Studying the Exclusionary Rule in Search and Seizure, The University of Chicago Law Review 37 (1970): 665–757.
• Christopher Slobogin, Why Liberals Should Chuck the Exclusionary Rule, University of Illinois Law Review 1999 (1999): 363–446.
• Potter Stewart, The Road to Mapp v. Ohio and Beyond: The Origins, Development and Future of the Exclusionary Rule in Search and Seizure Cases, Columbia Law Review 83 (1983): 1365–1404

— Thomas Y. Davies

For more information on exclusionary rule, visit Britannica.com.

Evidence obtained in violation of a person's constitutional rights cannot be used to prosecute the person. This restriction on the use of evidence obtained illegally is called the exclusionary rule, which was created in Weeks v. United States (1914). The Supreme Court applied the exclusionary rule to a state government for the first time in Mapp v. Ohio (1961).

The 4th Amendment to the Constitution protects individuals “against unreasonable searches and seizures” by government officials and provides that “no warrants [for searches and seizures] shall issue, but upon probable cause.” If government officials seize evidence without a warrant, for example, it usually is excluded, or thrown out, from the legal proceedings against a person accused of a crime. However, in United States v. Leon (1984), the Court established a “good faith” exception to the exclusionary rule. This means that evidence seized on the basis of a mistakenly issued search warrant can still be used in a trial, if the warrant was issued on good faith—the belief that there were valid reasons for issuing it.

See also Mapp v. Ohio; Searches and seizures; United States v. Leon; Weeks v. United States

The principle based on federal constitutional law that evidence illegally seized by law enforcement officers in violation of a suspect's right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures cannot be used against the suspect in a criminal prosecution.

The exclusionary rule is designed to exclude evidence obtained in violation of a criminal defendant's Fourth Amendment rights. The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures by law enforcement personnel. If the search of a criminal suspect is unreasonable, the evidence obtained in the search will be excluded from trial.

The exclusionary rule is a court-made rule. This means that it was created not in statutes passed by legislative bodies but rather by the Supreme Court. The exclusionary rule applies in federal courts by virtue of the Fourth Amendment. The Supreme Court has ruled that it applies in state courts through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. (The Bill of Rights — the first ten amendments — applies to actions by the federal government. The Fourteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court has held, makes most of the protections in the Bill of Rights applicable to actions by the states.)

The exclusionary rule has been in existence since the early 1900s. Before the rule was fashioned, any evidence was admissible in a criminal trial if the judge found the evidence to be relevant. The manner in which the evidence had been seized was not an issue.

This began to change in 1914, when the Supreme Court devised a way to enforce the Fourth Amendment. In Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383, 34 S. Ct. 341, 58 L. Ed. 652 (1914), a federal agent had conducted a warrantless search for evidence of gambling at the home of Fremont Weeks. The evidence seized in the search was used at trial, and Weeks was convicted. On appeal, the Supreme Court held that the Fourth Amendment barred the use of evidence secured through a warrantless search. Weeks's conviction was reversed, and thus was born the exclusionary rule.

The exclusionary rule established in Weeks was constitutionally required only in federal court until Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S. Ct. 1684, 6 L. Ed. 2d 1081 (1961). In Mapp, Cleveland police officers had gone to the home of Dollree Mapp to ask her questions regarding a recent bombing. The officers demanded entrance into her home. Mapp called her attorney and then refused to allow the officers in without a warrant. The officers became rough with Mapp, handcuffed her, and searched her home. They found allegedly obscene books, pictures, and photographs.

Mapp was charged with violations of obscenity laws, prosecuted, convicted, and sentenced to seven years in prison. The Ohio Supreme Court affirmed the conviction, but the U.S. Supreme Court overturned it.

In Mapp, the Court held that the exclusionary rule applied to state criminal proceedings through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Before the Mapp ruling, not all states excluded evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Since Mapp, a defendant's claim of unreasonable search and seizure has become a matter of course in most criminal prosecutions.

A criminal defendant's claim of unreasonable search and seizure is usually heard in a suppression hearing before the presiding judge. This hearing is conducted before trial to determine what evidence will be suppressed, or excluded from trial.

The exclusionary rule is still regularly invoked by criminal defendants, but its golden age may have passed. Since the 1980s, the Supreme Court has severely limited its application. According to the Court, this rule was not devised to cure all Fourth Amendment violations. Rather, it was designed primarily to deter police misconduct. This construction led to the good faith exception to Fourth Amendment violations established in United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 104 S. Ct. 3405, 82 L. Ed. 2d 677 (1984).

In Leon, police officers searched the Burbank, California, home of Alberto A. Leon, and arrested Leon after they found a large quantity of drugs in his possession. The search was executed pursuant to a warrant that was later determined to be invalid. The information provided by the police in their affidavit in support of the warrant had been stale, which meant that too much time had passed between the observations that prompted it and the application for the warrant. No evidence suggested that a police officer had lied about facts. Rather, the staleness of the affidavit had simply been overlooked by the magistrate.

The drug evidence seized from Leon's home was excluded from trial by the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the ruling. On appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed, holding that evidence gathered in a search executed pursuant to a warrant later found to be defective should not be excluded from trial.

The majority in Leon opened its analysis by noting that the Fourth Amendment "contains no provisions expressly precluding the use of evidence obtained in violation of its commands." The exclusionary rule, according to the majority, was not designed to be a personal right. It was created by the Court "to deter police misconduct rather than to punish the errors of judges and magistrates." Under this interpretation, excluding evidence obtained through an honest mistake would serve no purpose. The Court's ruling in Leon meant that evidence obtained in violation of a person's Fourth Amendment rights would not be excluded from trial if the law enforcement officer, though mistaken, acted reasonably.

Justice John Paul Stevens dissented, arguing that the facts of the case did not warrant such a sweeping exception to the exclusionary rule. In a separate dissenting opinion, Justices William J. Brennan, Jr., and Thurgood Marshall conceded that, "as critics of the exclusionary rule never tire of repeating," the Fourth Amendment does not contain an express provision calling for the exclusion of evidence seized in violation of its commands. Brennan and Marshall dismissed this argument by noting that the Constitution is stated in general terms, and that the Supreme Court regularly creates doctrines designed to enforce its simple terms.

Brennan and Marshall maintained that "the chief deterrent function of the [exclusionary] rule is," far beyond the simple prevention of police misconduct, "the tendency to promote institutional compliance with Fourth Amendment requirements on the part of law enforcement agencies generally." In other words, if a search warrant is found defective at any point in the prosecution, the evidence should be excluded, even if the defect is due to an honest mistake. This, according to Brennan and Marshall, would preserve the integrity of both law enforcement and the Fourth Amendment. Brennan and Marshall concluded that the majority's reliance on the deterrence rationale "robbed the [exclusionary] rule of legitimacy."

In 1995, the Supreme Court revisited the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule. In Arizona v. Evans, 514 U.S. 1, 115 S. Ct. 1185, 131 L. Ed. 2d 34 (1995), the error of a court employee mistakenly listed Isaac Evans as the subject of a misdemeanor arrest warrant. A police officer stopped Evans for a traffic violation, searched Evans pursuant to the faulty warrant information, and found marijuana.

On trial for possession of marijuana, Evans moved to suppress the marijuana evidence. The Maricopa County Superior Court granted the motion. The state of Arizona appealed, and the Arizona Court of Appeals reversed. The Supreme Court of Arizona then heard the case and held that the evidence should be excluded.

On appeal by the state of Arizona, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed, holding that evidence seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment as a result of clerical error need not be excluded from trial. In so holding, the Court emphasized that the Fourth Amendment exists only to guard against unreasonable police intrusions. According to the Court, "[T]he use of the fruits of a past unlawful search or seizure ‘works no new Fourth Amendment wrong' " (Evans, quoting Leon, quoting United States v. Calandra, 414 U.S. 338, 94 S. Ct. 613, 38 L. Ed. 2d 561 [1974]).

The good faith exception established in Leon is just one exception that renders the exclusionary rule inoperable. Evidence seized by private parties is not excluded from trial if the search was not at the direction of law enforcement officers. If a criminal defendant testifies in her or his own defense, illegally seized evidence may be used to impeach the defendant's testimony. Evidence seized in violation of a person's Fourth Amendment rights may be used in grand jury proceedings and civil proceedings. In a grand jury proceeding, however, illegally seized evidence may not be used if it was obtained in violation of the federal wire tapping statute (18 U.S.C.A. § 2510 et seq.).

Few legal observers express satisfaction with the exclusionary rule. Some commentators criticize the Supreme Court for limiting the scope of the rule with the good faith exception. Others contend that the rule should be abolished because it impedes law enforcement. Some members of Congress have even proposed legislation to abolish the exclusionary rule in federal court. To date, no such legislation has been adopted.

The exercise of the exclusionary rule can, in some cases, attract enormous public attention. In 1996, U.S. district court judge Harold Baer, Jr., excluded from trial a taped confession and eighty pounds of cocaine and heroin. New York City police officers had stopped the vehicle of Carol Bayless after seeing four men hurry away from the vehicle when they noticed the police. According to Baer, people in that particular New York City neighborhood naturally fled because they rightfully feared abusive police officers. Thus, the police officers in this case had no probable cause to believe that the vehicle Bayless was driving held evidence of a crime. After public outcry, Baer reversed his decision and admitted the evidence into trial.

See: Criminal Law; Criminal Procedure; Fruit of the Poisonous Tree; Mapp v. Ohio.

Criminal procedure

Criminal trials and convictions

Rights of the accused

Fair trial · Speedy trial Jury trial · Counsel Presumption of innocence Exclusionary rule1 Self-incrimination Double jeopardy2

Verdict

Conviction · Acquittal Not proven3 Directed verdict

Sentencing

Mandatory · Suspended Custodial Dangerous offender4, 5 Capital punishment Execution warrant Cruel and unusual punishment

Post-sentencing

Parole · Probation Tariff6 · Life licence6 Miscarriage of justice Exoneration · Pardon

Related areas of law

Criminal defenses Criminal law · Evidence Civil procedure

Portals

Law · Criminal justice

1 U.S. courts. 2 Not in English/Welsh courts. 3 Scottish courts. 4 English/Welsh courts. 5 Canadian courts. 6 UK courts.

v • d • e

The exclusionary rule is a legal principle in the United States, under constitutional law, which holds that evidence collected or analyzed in violation of the defendant's constitutional rights is sometimes inadmissible for a criminal prosecution in a court of law. This may be considered an example of a prophylactic rule formulated by the judiciary in order to protect a constitutional right. However, in some circumstances at least, the exclusionary rule may also be considered to follow directly from the constitutional language, such as the Fifth Amendment's command that no person "shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself" and that no person "shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law."

The exclusionary rule is designed to provide a remedy and disincentive, short of criminal prosecution, in response to prosecutors and police who illegally gather evidence in violation of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments in the Bill of Rights, by conducting unreasonable searches and seizure or compelled self-incrimination. The exclusionary rule also applies to violations of the Sixth Amendment, which guarantees the right to counsel.

This rule is occasionally referred to as a legal technicality because it allows defendants a defense that does not address whether the crime was actually committed. In this respect, it is similar to the explicit rule in the Fifth Amendment protecting people from double jeopardy.

The exclusionary rule judges the admissibility of evidence based on deontological ethics; that is, it is concerned with how evidence is acquired, rather than what the evidence proves. For this reason, in strict cases, when an illegal action is used by police/prosecution to gain any incriminating result, all evidence whose recovery stemmed from the illegal action—this evidence is known as "fruit of the poisonous tree"—can be thrown out from a jury (or be grounds for a mistrial if too much information has been irrevocably revealed).

The exclusionary rule applies to all persons within the United States regardless of whether they are citizens, immigrants (legal or illegal), or visitors.

Contents 1 History of the rule 2 Applications of the exclusionary rule 3 Limitations of the rule 4 Criticism 5 See also 6 References

History of the rule

Up until the independence of the United States, the courts of England excluded self-incriminating evidence that was provided as a result of official compulsion, regardless of its reliability.^[1] In 1769, Lord Chief Justice Mansfield explained as follows:

“

[I]n civil causes, the court will force parties to produce evidence which may prove against themselves; or leave the refusal to do it (after proper notice) as a strong presumption, to the jury....But in a criminal or penal cause, the defendant is never forced to produce any evidence; though he should hold it in his hands in court.[2]

”

Chief Justice Mansfield also explained that "If any evidence or confession has been extorted from her, it will be of no prejudice to her on the trial."^[3] Additionally, a defendant could sue to suppress and regain possession of at least some types of illegally-seized evidence, in a common law action for replevin.^[4]

However, in the 1783 case of King v. Warickshall, the English courts declined to suppress evidence obtained by illegal coercion. In the Warickshall case, evidence was gathered as a result of an involuntary confession, and the court held that the evidence (but not the confession itself) could be admitted.^[5] It is questionable whether the Warickshall rule became known in the United States before 1789 (when the U.S. Bill of Rights was written), and whether it applied to confessions obtained by both governmental and private parties.^[1] In any event, no decision by the Supreme Court of the United States has ever endorsed the Warickshall rule as a constitutional matter.^[1]

Generally speaking, English law before 1789 did not provide as strong an exclusionary rule as the one that later developed under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, regarding unlawful searches and seizures.^[4] The Fourth Amendment, after all, was partly a reaction against English law including the general warrant and the writs of assistance.^[4]

In the 1886 case of Boyd v. United States,^[6] the U.S. Supreme Court addressed compulsory production of business papers, and the Court excluded those papers based on a combination of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. Boyd was closely limited to its facts, and several years later the Court stated that the Fourth Amendment does not extend to "excluding testimony" about wrongful searches and seizures.^[7]

In 1897, the U.S. Supreme Court held, in Bram v. United States,^[8] that involuntary confessions are inadmissible as evidence. The Court in Bram did not announce a strong version of the exclusionary rule that would apply uniformly to exclude all evidence gathered in violation of the Bill of Rights, but instead announced a weak version that excluded only self-incriminating testimony that was compelled in violation of the Fifth Amendment. The distinction between testimonial versus other self-incriminating evidence is a matter of continuing debate.^[9]

Before a strong version of the exclusionary rule was addressed and adopted by the federal courts, it had already been adopted by at least one state court, namely the Iowa Supreme Court, as that court would later describe:

“

The genesis of Iowa’s exclusionary rule was a civil case, Reifsnyder v. Lee, 44 Iowa 101 (1876).... The first application of the exclusionary rule in a criminal context occurred in the Height case, decided in 1902. Height involved a physical exam of the defendant against his will. 117 Iowa at 652, 91 N.W. at 935. This court held that the examination of the defendant violated the due process clause of the Iowa Constitution, as well as article 1, section 8’s prohibition of unreasonable searches.[10]

”

In 1914, the U.S. Supreme Court announced a strong version of the exclusionary rule, in the case of Weeks v. United States, under the Fourth Amendment prohibiting unreasonable searches and seizures.^[11] This decision, however, created the rule only on the federal level. The "Weeks Rule", which made an exception for cases at the state level, was adopted by numerous states at a time during prohibition. In adopting the rule, actions by states often reflected attitudes towards prohibition, which was enacted by adoption of the Eighteenth Amendment and was enforced through the Volstead Act. Concerns about privacy violations also extended to other instances where criminal sanctions were permitted for "victimless" crime, such as illegal gambling or narcotics violations.^[12]

In 1920, the U.S. Supreme Court adopted the "fruit of the poisonous tree" doctrine in the case of Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States.^[13] The Court stated that allowing evidence gathered as an indirect result of an unconstitutional search and seizure "reduces the Fourth Amendment to a form of words."

Wolf v. Colorado (1949) ruled that states were not required to adopt the exclusionary rule. Despite the ruling, some states adopted the exclusionary rule. The Supreme Court of California ruled in People v. Cahan (1955) that the exclusionary rule applied for cases in the state of California. By 1960, 22 states had adopted the rule without substantial qualifications: California, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Washington, Texas, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming. Michigan also had an exclusionary rule, but with limitations for some narcotics and firearms evidence. In Alabama, Maryland, and South Dakota, the exclusionary rule applied in some situations.^[12]

It was not until Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 (1961) that the exclusionary rule was also held to be binding on the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, which guarantees due process. Up until Mapp, the exclusionary rule had been rejected by most states.^[14]

Applications of the exclusionary rule

The exclusionary rule originally often applies to evidence obtained through unauthorized search and seizure. Under the Fourth Amendment, a warrant, which required probable cause, should be obtained in order to conduct a search. A number of exceptions to the warrant requirement have developed, based on other interpretations of what "reasonableness" entails. A strict interpretation of the Fourth Amendment says that a search without a warrant is unreasonable. This interpretation is favored by civil liberties advocates.^[15]

The rule was expanded in the 1960s to cover other aspects of law enforcement procedure, including "involuntary" confessions,^[16] suspect identification obtained in violation of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments,^[17] wiretapping evidence in violation of federal law,^[18] and other evidence obtained through very unreasonable or "shocking" means in violation of Constitutional rights.^[19][20] In Illinois, People v. Albea (1954) ruled that testimony from witnesses found in course of an unlawful search cannot be admitted into court.

Limitations of the rule

The exclusionary rule does not apply in a civil case, in a grand jury proceeding, or in a parole revocation hearing.

Even in a criminal case, the exclusionary rule does not simply bar the introduction of all evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth, Fifth, or Sixth Amendment. In Hudson v. Michigan, 547 U.S. 586, 126 S.Ct. 2159 (June 15, 2006), Justice Scalia wrote for the U.S. Supreme Court:

“

Suppression of evidence, however, has always been our last resort, not our first impulse. The exclusionary rule generates "substantial social costs," United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 907 (1984), which sometimes include setting the guilty free and the dangerous at large. We have therefore been "cautious against expanding" it, Colorado v. Connelly, 479 U.S. 157, 166 (1986), and "have repeatedly emphasized that the rule's 'costly toll' upon truth-seeking and law enforcement objectives presents a high obstacle for those urging [its] application," Pennsylvania Bd. of Probation and Parole v. Scott, 524 U.S. 357, 364-365 (1998) (citation omitted). We have rejected "indiscriminate application" of the rule, Leon, supra, at 908, and have held it to be applicable only "where its remedial objectives are thought most efficaciously served," United States v. Calandra, 414 U.S. 338, 348 (1974) – that is, "where its deterrence benefits outweigh its 'substantial social costs,'" Scott, supra, at 363, (quoting Leon, supra, at 907). Whether the exclusionary sanction is appropriately imposed in a particular case is an issue separate from the question whether the Fourth Amendment rights of the party seeking to invoke the rule were violated by police conduct.

”

Limitations on the exclusionary rule have included the following:

• Evidence unlawfully obtained from the defendant by a private person is admissible. The exclusionary rule is designed to protect privacy rights, with the Fourth Amendment applying specifically to government officials.^[21]
• Evidence can only be suppressed if the illegal search violated the person's own (the person making the court motion) constitutional rights. The exclusionary rule does not apply to privacy rights of a third party.^[22]
• The defendant cannot take advantage of the situation (police breaching rules) to turn the case to their advantage, in face of other evidence against them.^[23]
• The Silver Platter doctrine applied before the Elkins v. United States ruling in 1960. State officials that obtained evidence illegally were allowed to turn over evidence to federal officials, and have that evidence be admitted into trial.^[24]
• If the court determines that the evidence obtained in the unlawful search would have been found in a later, warranted search, the evidence may be brought forth in court.

The exclusionary rule is not applicable to aliens residing outside of U.S. borders. In United States v. Alvarez-Machain, 504 U.S. 655, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that property owned by aliens in a foreign country is admissible in court. Certain persons in the U.S. receive limited protections, such as prisoners, probationers, parolees, and persons crossing U.S. borders. Corporations, by virtue of being, also have limited rights under the Fourth Amendment (see corporate personhood).

Criticism

In the 1970s, Dallin H. Oaks,^[20] Malcolm Wilkey,^[25] and others called for the exclusionary rule to be abolished. By the 1980s, the exclusionary rule remained controversial and was strongly opposed by President Ronald Reagan. But, some opponents began seeking to have the rule modified, rather than abolished altogether. The case, Illinois v. Gates, before the Supreme Court brought the exclusionary rule for reconsideration. The Supreme Court also considered allowing exceptions for errors made by police in good faith. The Reagan administration also asked Congress to ease the rule.^[26]

See also

• Deontological ethics vs. Consequentialism

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} Davies, Thomas. “Farther and Farther from the Original Fifth Amendment: The Recharacterization of the Right Against Self-Incrimination as a 'Trial Right' in Chavez V. Martinez”, Tennessee Law Review, Volume 70, pages 987-1045 (2003).
2. ^ Roe v. Harvey, 98 Eng. Rep. 302 (K.B. 1769).
3. ^ Rudd's Case, 168 Eng. Rep. 160 (K.B. 1775).
4. ^ ^{a b c} Warden v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294 (1967).
5. ^ King v. Warickshall, 168 Eng. Rep. 234, 235 (K.B. 1783).
6. ^ Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616 (1886).
7. ^ Adams v. New York, 192 U.S. 585 (1904).
8. ^ Bram v. United States, 168 U.S. 532 (1897).
9. ^ United States v. Hubbell, 530 U.S. 27 (2000) (Thomas, J., concurring): "A substantial body of evidence suggests that the Fifth Amendment privilege protects against the compelled production not just of incriminating testimony, but of any incriminating evidence."
10. ^ Iowa v. Cline, Supreme Court of Iowa (September 7, 2000).
11. ^ Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383 (1914).
12. ^ ^{a b} Allen, Francis A. (1961). "Exclusionary Rule in the American Law of Search and Seizure, The Exclusionary Rule Regarding Illegally Seized Evidence". Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology and Police Science 52 (3): 246–254. 
13. ^ Silverthorne Lumber v. United States, 251 U.S. 385 (1920).
14. ^ Cassell, Paul. "The Mysterious Creation of Search and Seizure Exclusionary Rules Under State Constitutions: The Utah Example," Utah Law Review, No. 3, page 751, 756 (1993).
15. ^ Davies, Thomas Y. (1999). "Recovering the Original Fourth Amendment". Michigan Law Review 98: 547. doi:10.2307/1290314. 
16. ^ Miranda v. Arizona 384 U.S. 436 (1966)
17. ^ United States v. Wade 388 U.S. 218 (1967) – lineups; Gilbert v. California 388 U.S. 263 (1967) – identifications
18. ^ Lee v. Florida 392 U.S. 378 (1968)
19. ^ Rochin v. California 342 U.S. 165 (1952) – "shocking" methods
20. ^ ^{a b} Oaks, Dallin H. (1970). "Studying the exclusionary rule in Search and Seizure". University of Chicago Law Review 37 (4): 665–757. doi:10.2307/1598840. 
21. ^ Burdeau v. McDowell, 256 U.S. 465 (1921)
22. ^ United States v. Jeffers and Jones v. United States clarify the standing requirements.
23. ^ Walder v. United States
24. ^ Wolf v. Colorado (1949)
25. ^ Wilkey, Malcolm R. (1978). "The Exclusionary Rule: Why Suppress Valid Evidence?". Judicature 62 (5): 214–232. 
26. ^ Taylor, Jr., Stuart (1983-01-26). "Exclusionary-Rule Fight Moves to Supreme Court". The New York Times. 

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)