Exclusionary Rule Evaluation Essay

Search and seizure is a vital and controversial part of criminal justice, from the streets to the police station to court. It is guided by the Fourth Amendment, which states that people have the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure of their bodies, homes, papers, and possessions and that warrants describing what and where will be searched and/or seized are required to be able to search the above things (“Fourth Amendment,” n.d.). Interpretations of the Fourth Amendment by the U.S. Supreme Court and the establishment of case law by many state and federal courts have expanded upon the circumstances under which search and seizure is legal. Several doctrines and exceptions have also emerged from the Supreme Court and other case law that guide law enforcement officers on the job and aid lawyers in court.

Arguments are powerful in the United State on the pros and cons of the exclusionary rule. The exclusionary rule is a tool that is used to defend the Fourth Amendment. Is an individual most powerful tool. The exclusionary rule helps ensure the unnecessary search and seizure. Another pros will be shifts the burden of proof away from the individual. There’s a term used that it is powerful when it comes to the exclusionary rule will be “innocent until proven guilty”. They are guilty when you are being

Many constitutions all over the world provide basis for innocence until proven guilty. As such, the courts of law must always factor in the provisions of criminal procedure and natural justice when cross-examining offenders. In light of this, the exclusionary rule allows a defendant to argue his case if his privacy rights were violated before arraigned in court. In essence, the provisions of the exclusionary rule prevent the government authorities and machinery such as FBI and CIA from gathering evidence from an individual in a manner that disrespects the United States constitution. Therefore, the exclusionary law protects an individual against unreasonable search or seizure in line with the provisions of the Fourth

If the trial judge did not exclude the evidence from the trial, then the Supreme Court must overturn the conviction. In some cases, the accused will be retried without the use of the illegally obtained evidence. In other cases, there will not be a retrial because the illegally obtained evidence was the basis of the prosecution's case. The story of the birth and evolution of the exclusionary rule is complex and demonstrates the unique problems the Supreme Court has had to face when interpreting the Fourth Amendment."

The Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination was made applicable to the states in Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U.S. 1 (1964); the sixth Amendment right to appointed was made applicable to the states in Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963); and the Eighth Amendment ban against cruel and unusual punishment was made applicable to the states in Robinson v. California, 370 U.S. 660 (1962). The exclusionary rule was designed to deter police misconduct. Generally it does not apply to evidence obtained by private citizens because it would usually have not deterrent effect. Most private citizens are unfamiliar with constitutional rules such s those governing search and seizure, have no reason to learn them, and would not be disciplined for violating them.

• Fourth Amendment jurisprudence is primarily concentrated in four areas: 1) defining “searches”; 2) the Warrant Requirement, in which warrantless searches are semantically precluded except in specific and tightly constricted situations; 3) the Probable Cause Requirement, whose exclusive provisions are closely associated with the Warrant Requirement’s proscription of police inquiries into same; and, 4) the exclusionary rule, which presumptively excludes any information or evidence gathered in violation of the preceding two (Rickless, 2005).

which stated that when the accused is being tried in a state court, he or she does not have the protection of the exclusionary rule, which protects against illegal search

The Exclusionary Rule is a law passed by the United States Supreme Court. It demands that “any evidence obtained by police using methods that violate a person’s constitutional rights be excluded

The purpose of the exclusionary rule is not to redress the injury to the privacy of the search victim....Instead, the rule's prime purpose is to deter future unlawful police conduct and thereby effectuate the guarantee of the Fourth Amendment against unreasonable search and seizures: 'The rule is calculated to prevent, not to repair.'...In sum, the rule is a judicially created remedy designed to safeguard Fourth Amendment rights generally through its deterrent effect, rather than a personal constitutional right of the party aggrieved.12

“The purpose of the exclusionary rule is not to redress the injury to the privacy of the search victim . . . . Instead, the rule's prime purpose is to deter future unlawful police conduct and thereby effectuate the guarantee of the Fourth Amendment against unreasonable searches and seizures” (Estreicher & Weick, 2010, p. 4). They are saying is that the need for the rule is to deter illegal techniques that police use to obtain evidence, not to simply give more rights to the defendant. As Estreicher and Weick pointed out, “all of the cases since Wolf requiring the exclusion of illegal evidence have been base on the necessity for an effective deterrent to illegal police action” (Estreicher & Weick, 2010, p. 4). So instead of looking at the exclusionary rule as the end-all-right that citizens are

A court first applied the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule in 1914, in Weeks v. United States. In that case, the court determined that because federal officials had violated the Fourth Amendment in their search of the defendant’s domicile and their seizure of his document, the document should have been returned to the defendant and not held for introduction at his criminal trial. The Court deemed the use of the unlawfully seized evidence at trial to be a disadvantageous error, and it reversed a lower court’s decision to confirm the defendant’s conviction by benefiting him. The Court had an opportunity to rethink the exclusionary rule in 1949. In 1949, the judicial system held that the right against unreasonable searches and seizures does expand to state government officials, via the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause, contrary to the holding of Weeks. Nonetheless, the Court rejected to

It will deter police from conducting searches in violation of the Fourth Amendment [2]. The exclusionary rule also protects defendants from self-incrimination. This rule protects against recordings of a confession, if it was gathered in violation of the federal wiretapping statute. The exclusionary rule also protects the defendant when evidence is gathered in violation of their Sixth Amendment right to counsel [3].

The exclusionary rule, handed down by the Supreme Court in 1914, is a “court-made constitutional requirement” regarding evidence obtained during search and seizure (Walker & Hemmens, 2010, p. 89). Since it is not specified in the fourth amendment, the court used the exclusionary rule to allow or exclude evidence according to the rules covering search and seizure. The case that initially brought forth the exclusionary rule was Weeks v. United States. In this case in 1914, police entered the house of Fremont Weeks twice in the same day, once by using a key they found on the property and another time

Good Faith is the last exception. In this case, the magistrate issues a seizure warrant for acquiring evidence. However, this may not be in sync with the role of the exclusionary rule in deterring the police from any misconduct and also the evidence suppression may not occur. The limitation of this exception is that, if the defense can convince the judge that the officer was reckless in seizing the evidence, then the good faith will be nullified.

The Court of Criminal Appeal held that there had been no “deliberate and conscious violation” of the person’s constitutional rights in this case because the relevant Garda had done all that he thought necessary to obtain the search warrant and he was entirely unaware of its inherent defect. The Court, in reaching their conclusion, relied upon the United States’ authority case of U.S. v Leon. In this case the exclusionary rule was stated to be for the purpose of deterring police misconduct.