Essay On Exclusionary Rule

Police officers use search and seizure as a tool to ensure their safety, gather evidence, and arrest suspects. In police training, a search is defined as an examination of a hidden place, i.e. a person or their property, whose purpose is to find contraband (DOCJT, 2014, p. 10). A seizure is defined as the capture or arrest of a person or the confiscation of property (DOCJT, 2014, p. 10). Depending on the individual situation, a warrant may or may not be required to conduct searches and seizures. The exclusionary rule, which states that illegally seized evidence is inadmissible in court, has guided the definition of search and seizure, specifically as it pertains

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

The Fourth Amendment protects citizens from unreasonable search and seizures. (People v. Williams 20 Cal.4th 125.) A defendant may move to suppress as evidence any tangible or intangible thing obtained as a result of an unreasonable search and seizure without a warrant. (Penal Code §1538.5(a)(1)(A).) Warrantless searches and seizures are presumptively unreasonable. (Williams, supra, 20 Cal.4th 119; see also Minnesota v. Dickerson (1993) 508 U.S. 366 (stating searches and seizures conducted outside the judicial process are per se unreasonable unless subject to an established exception).) While the defendant has the initial burden of raising the warrantless search issue before the court, this burden is satisfied when the defendant asserts the absence of a warrant and makes a prima facie case in support. (Williams, supra, 20 Cal.4th 130.) Accordingly, when the prosecution seeks to introduce evidence seized during a warrantless search, they also bear the burden in showing that an exception to the warrant applies. (Mincey v. Arizona (1978) 98 S.Ct. 2408; see also People v. James (1977) 19 Cal.3d 99.) Evidence obtained as a result of an unlawful search and seizure is considered “fruit of the poisonous tree” and should be suppressed. (Wong Sun v. United States (1963) 371 U.S. 471; see also Minnesota v. Dickerson (1993) 508 U.S. 372 (stating unreasonable searches are invalid under Terry and should be suppressed).)

Evidence that is illegally obtained cannot be used in a criminal trial and officers must have a valid warrant before conducting searches or seizing evidence (Weeks v. U.S., 1914).

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 Exclusionary rule requires that any evidence taken into custody be obtained by police using methods that violates an individual constitutional rights must be excluded from use in a criminal prosecution against that individual. This rule is judicially imposed and arose relatively recently in the development of the U.S. legal system. Under the common law, the seizure of evidence by illegal means did not affect its admission in court. Any evidence, however obtained, was admitted as long as it satisfied other evidentiary criteria for admissibility, such as relevance and trustworthiness. The exclusionary rule was developed in 1914 and applied to the case of Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383, and was limited to a prohibition on the use

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 Mapp Court viewed other remedies, such as criminal sanctions, as being ineffective in ensuring compliance with the Fourth Amendment.8 Although the Mapp Court stated that the exclusionary rule was an essential part of both the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, subsequent Supreme Court decisions have abandoned that position. For example, in United States v. Leon 9 the Supreme Court stated that "[t]he Fourth Amendment contains no provision expressly precluding the use of evidence obtained in violation of its commands, and an examination of its commands and purposes makes clear that using fruits of a past unlawful search or seizure 'works no new Fourth Amendment wrong'"10 In United States v. Calandra,11 the Supreme Court stated:

“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

In the case of Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213 the court dismissed the charge the based on information in error. Therefore the illegal drugs that were found on the premises during the search had to be thrown out based on the poisonous fruit. Does the warranty at 10 did not have the drugs in the actual warrant on which they were looking for. Indeed, applying the exclusionary rule to warrant searches may well reduce incentives for police to utilize the preferred warrant procedure when a warrantless search may be permissible under one of the established exceptions to the warrant requirement. See ante, at 236; Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S., at 611, and n. 3 (POWELL, J., concurring in part); P. Johnson, New Approaches to Enforcing the Fourth Amendment 11 (unpublished paper, 1978). See also United States v. United States District Court, 407 U.S. 297, 316-317 (1972); United States v. Ventresca, 380 U.S. 102,

The Supreme Court first outlined the search-incident-to-arrest exception in Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752 (1969) and United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218 (1973), holding that police may search a suspect's person and the immediate vicinity during a lawful arrest. This exception serves two governmental interests: (1) the need to ensure officer safety and disarm the suspect and (2) the need to prevent destruction of evidence. But, as the Court stressed in a recent case, when "there is no possibility" that the suspect could gain access to a weapon or destroy evidence "both justifications for the search-incident-to-arrest exception are absent and the rule does not apply." Arizona v. Gant, 556 U.S. 332, 339 (2009). The basic rule under the Fourth Amendment is that "searches conducted outside the judicial process, without prior approval by judge or magistrate, are per se unreasonable." Id. at 338.

Joe, great job in describing the Mapp v. Ohio case where the exclusionary rule came into play. If you have been in law enforcement long enough and have made cases, particularly involving drugs and DUI’s, the chances that one of your cases involving the exclusionary rule are likely. I absolutely believe in the exclusionary rule because it protects a person from illegal searches and seizures. All of the cases that the defense tried to use the exclusionary rule against me was just an attempt to get their client’s charges dismissed because that was their only chance to have their client exonerated. I have witnessed several interdiction stops that led to large money and drug seizures be dismissed because the judge ruled that the stop was illegal.

More than a century since the Fourth Amendment, its value was hardly recognizable by the criminal defendants since evidences seized by law enforcement in violation of warrant and probable cause requirements was justifiable during the defendant prosecution. The penalty for improperly search and seizure that the evidence is obtain will be excluded from the court case, better known as the exclusionary rule. Between the dawn and the intermediate of the 20th century, the exclusionary rule obstruct illegal seized evidence from the federal courts, all of sudden, in 1961 the well-known case that revolves around the exclusionary rule, Mapp v. Ohio, was applied to state courts and as a result, federal supervision under states’ search and seizure guideline

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.