Finally, another exception to the exclusion rule is the so-called unavoidable detection exception. The Court established the exception of inevitable discovery in 1984 in Nix v. Williams. [22] The inevitable exception to discovery allows for the use of evidence if the government would have found evidence regardless of illegality. [23] n. the rule that evidence obtained illegally and in bad faith may not be introduced into criminal proceedings. The technical term is that it is “excluded” on a request for deletion by the defendant`s lawyer. It is based on the constitutional requirement that “.. No [person] may be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process. (Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, applied to the states by the 14th Amendment). A technical error in a search warrant issued in good faith does not preclude obtaining evidence obtained under that search warrant. However, evidence discovered as a result of the illegal gathering of other evidence is excluded under the “poison tree fruit doctrine.” Thus, if an unlawful wiretap reveals the location of other evidence, the transcript of the wiretap conversation and the evidence to which the listeners were referred are excluded. See: Request for deletion, due process) The exclusionary rule does not prevent the government from introducing illegally collected evidence to charge defendants` statements in court or to challenge credibility.
The Supreme Court recognized this exception in Harris v. New York as a litmus test to prevent perjury. However, even if the government suspects perjury, it can only use tainted evidence for impeachment and cannot use it to prove guilt. The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits police officers from conducting inappropriate searches and seizures by requiring either a valid warrant or a probable reason. But what if a police officer conducts a search that violates the Fourth Amendment and subsequently finds incriminating evidence? Well, that`s where the “exclusion rule” comes in. A major criticism of the Fourth Amendment`s exclusionary rule is that it is supposed to contradict the original intent of the Constitution. Yale law professor Akhil Amar, for example, argued that “nothing in the text, history, or structure of the Fourth Amendment” supports the rule. [53] Critics such as Amar, Oaks, and Wilkey point out that the Fourth Amendment text does not state that illegally seized evidence should be excluded. Some legal historians argue that the framers of the Constitution only intended that victims of improper search or seizure could bring civil suits. However, suppression of evidence has always been our last resort, not our first impulse.
Exclusion rule results in “significant social costs”, United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 907 (1984), which sometimes involves the release of the guilty and the dangerous in general. So we were “cautious against expansion,” Colorado v. Connelly, 479 U.S. 157, 166 (1986) and “have repeatedly emphasized that the `heavy price` of the rule in the search for truth and law enforcement objectives is a major obstacle to those pushing for its application,” Pennsylvania Vol. of Probation and Parole v. Scott, 524 U.S. 357, 364–365 (1998) (reference omitted). We rejected the “indiscriminate application” of the rule, Leon, op.
cit. cit., p. 908, and we considered it applicable only “assuming that its remedial purposes will be served as effectively as possible”, United States v. Calandra, 414 USA 338, 348 (1974) – i.e. “when its deterrent benefits outweigh its `substantial social costs`”, Scott, op. cit. cit., p. 363, (cited by Leon, op.
cit., p. 907). Whether the sanction of exclusion is appropriately imposed in a particular case differs from whether the rights of the party seeking to invoke the rule have been violated by the conduct of the police. Although the exclusionary rule was not rejected in its entirety, its application was considerably restricted. For example, defendants who have not themselves been subject to unlawful search and seizure cannot object to the presentation of evidence illegally obtained by co-conspirators or co-defendants.41Footnote41 Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128 (1978); United States v. Padilla, 508 USA 77 (1993) (only persons whose privacy or property rights have been violated may object to a search on Fourth Amendment grounds; the exercise of control and surveillance of property based on participation in a criminal conspiracy does not in itself create such interests); United States v. Salvucci, 448 U.S.
83 (1980); Rawlings v. Kentucky, 448 U.S. 98 (1980). In United States v. Payner, 447 U.S. 727 (1980), the Court held that it was impermissible for a federal court to exercise its power to oversee the administration of justice in the federal system to suppress otherwise admissible evidence on the basis that federal officials had flagrantly violated the rights of others to obtain evidence for others if the agents knew that the defendant would not be able to: their conduct under the Fourth Amendment. and even a defendant whose rights have been violated may consider admissible evidence not as evidence of guilt, but to accuse his or her testimony.42FootnoteUnited States v. Havens, 446 U.S. 620 (1980); Walder v. United States, 347 U.S. 62 (1954).
See Agnello v. United States, 269 U.S. 20 (1925) (now erroneous by Havens). The impeachment exception applies only to the accused`s own testimony and cannot be extended to the use of illegally obtained evidence to indict the testimony of other defense witnesses. James v. Illinois, 493 U.S. 307 (1990). In addition, evidence obtained through unlawful search and seizure may sometimes be used directly in criminal proceedings if the prosecution can demonstrate a sufficient attenuation of the link between police misconduct and evidence gathering.43FootnoteWong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 487–88 (1963); Alderman v. United States, 394 U.S.
165, 180–85 (1969); Braun v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590 (1975); Taylor v. Alabama, 457 U.S. 687 (1982); Utah v. Strieff, 136 pp. ct. 2056 (2016). United States v. Ceccolini, 435 U.S. 268 (1978), refused to exclude the testimony of a witness discovered during an illegal search.
Since a witness is freely willing to testify and is therefore more likely to stand out, the application of the exclusion rule should not be examined according to the standard applicable to the exclusion of inanimate objects. Deterrence would serve little and relevant evidence and physical evidence would be lost to the prosecution. In New York v. Harris, 495 U.S. 14 (1990), the court refused to overturn the confession of a suspect whose arrest in his apartment violated the Fourth Amendment because no warrant was obtained despite the existence of a probable reason. And in Segura v. United States, 468 U.S. 796 (1984), evidence seized pursuant to an arrest warrant obtained after the admission of illegal entry, because there was an independent basis for issuing the arrest warrant. This rule also applies to evidence clearly observed during the first illegal search. Murray v. United States, 487 U.S.
533 (1988). See also United States v. Karo, 468 U.S. 705 (1984) (regardless of the tainted evidence, there was sufficient untainted evidence in the affidavit to support probable cause and search warrant). Defendants convicted in trials that gave them a full and fair opportunity to bring claims for violations of the Fourth Amendment cannot subsequently bring those claims before the federal government because, as the Court concluded, the cost outweighs the minimal deterrent effect.44FootnoteStone v. Powell, 428 U.S. 465, 494 (1976). The exclusion of evidence as a remedy for violations of the Fourth Amendment began in Boyd v.
United States1Footnote116 U.S. 616 (1886). which, as noted above, did not concern a search and seizure, but a compulsory production of commercial documents, which the Court compared to a search and seizure. In addition, the court compared the self-incrimination provision of the Fifth Amendment to the protection of the Fourth Amendment to derive a rule requiring the exclusion of forced evidence because the defendant had been forced to incriminate himself by presenting it.2Footnote: We have already noted the close connection between the two amendments. They cast a great light on each other.