Exclusionary rule
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In United States constitutional law, the exclusionary rule is a legal principle holding that evidence collected or analyzed in violation of the U.S. Constitution is inadmissible for a criminal prosecution in a court of law (that is, it cannot be used in a criminal trial).
The Exclusionary Rule is designed to provide a remedy and disincentive, short of criminal prosecution, for prosecutors and police who illegally gather evidence in violation of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments in the Bill of Rights, which provide for protection from unreasonable searches and seizure and compelled self-incrimination.
The Exclusionary Rule judges the admissibility of evidence based on deontological ethics[verification needed]; that is, it is concerned with how evidence is acquired, rather than what the evidence proves.[verification needed] For this reason, in strict cases, when an unjust/illegal action is used by police/prosecution to gain any incriminating result, all evidence, arrests, and other such consequences that stemmed from the illegitimate action can be thrown out from a jury (or be grounds for a mistrial if too much information has been irrevocably revealed).[verification needed]
The Exclusionary Rule applies to all citizens or aliens (illegal or documented) who reside within the United States.
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[edit] History of the rule
The exclusionary rule was created in 1914 in the case of Weeks v. United States. This decision, however, created the rule only on the federal level. 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.
[edit] 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 standard criminal case, the Exclusionary Rule does not simply bar the introduction of all evidence obtained from all violations of the Fourth, Fifth, or Sixth Amendments. In Hudson v. Michigan, 547 U.S. ___, No. 04-1360 (June 15, 2006), the U.S. Supreme Court wrote
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.
The Court in Hudson found that the costs of applying the exclusionary rule to the necessarily gray area of the "knock and announce" requirement were outweighed by the deterrence benefit. Over vigorous dissent the Court wrote, "But ignoring knock-and-announce can realistically be expected to achieve absolutely nothing except the prevention of destruction of evidence and the avoidance of life-threatening resistance by occupants of the premises -- dangers which, if there is even "reasonable suspicion" of their existence, suspend the knock-and-announce requirement anyway. Massive deterrence is hardly required."
The Court in Hudson further held that a search whose only illegality is the failure to announce cannot uncover any evidence that would not have been uncovered if the announcement had been properly made, and therefore the suppression of evidence is not an appropriate remedy.
The Exclusionary Rule is not applicable to aliens residing outside of U.S. borders. In United States v. Alvarez 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).
[edit] Exceptions to the rule
Even when the Exclusionary Rule does apply, the rule excludes the illegally obtained evidence only on the issue of the defendant's guilt for the particular crime charged. The evidence can still be admitted to impeach the credibility of the defendant's trial testimony; however, this exception applies only if the defendant testifies, and the evidence is relevant to call into question the truthfulness of the defendant's testimony.
The inevitable discovery doctrine is a direct exception to the exclusionary rule, in that it allows the admission of evidence on the issue of the defendant's guilt where the evidence would otherwise have been excluded. This doctrine was adopted first by the United States Supreme Court in Nix v. Williams in 1984. It holds that evidence obtained through an unlawful search or seizure is admissible in court if it can be established, to a very high degree of probability, that normal police investigation would have inevitably led to the discovery of the evidence. This decision was upheld because given the fact that the exclusionary rule was created specifically to deter police and state misconduct, excluding evidence that would inevitably (hypothetically) have been discovered otherwise would not serve to deter police misconduct. In People v. Stith, the Court stated that this doctrine may not be used to admit primary evidence but only secondary evidence, i.e. evidence found as a result of the primary evidence.
The attenuation exception to the exclusionary rule is that evidence may be suppressed only if there is a clear causal connection between the illegal police action and the evidence. The evidence must result from the unlawful conduct. A three-pronged test was created in People v. Martinez to determine whether there was sufficient attenuation of this connection (i.e. the lack of connection between the disputed evidence and the unlawful conduct): (1) the time period between the illegal arrest and the ensuing confession or consensual search; (2) the presence of intervening factors or event; and (3) the purpose and flagrancy of the official misconduct.
The independent source exception allows evidence to be admitted in court if knowledge of the evidence is gained from a separate, or independent, source that is completely unrelated to the illegality at hand. This rule was formally accepted in People v. Arnau.
The good-faith exception may allow some evidence gathered in violation of the Constitution if the violation results in only a minor or technical error. If a magistrate is erroneous in granting a police officer a warrant, and the officer acts on the warrant in good faith, then the evidence resulting in the execution of the warrant is not suppressible. However, there are a number of situations in which the good faith exception will not apply:
- No reasonable officer would have relied on the affidavit underlying the warrant.
- The warrant is defective on its face for failing to state the place to be searched or things to be seized.
- The warrant was obtained by fraud on the part of a government official.
- The magistrate has "wholly abandoned his judicial role."
[edit] Use outside of the United States
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For the most part, non-US courts have rejected the concept of the exclusionary rule.[citation needed]
[edit] References
- David B. Kopel, The Samurai, the Mountie, and the Cowboy: Should America Adopt the Gun Controls of Other Democracies,Prometheus Books (July 1992), ISBN 0-87975-756-6
