Exclusionary Rule

Question 1

Should items taken from an individual’s home by a federal official without a warrant be used at trial?

Answer 1

No. Items taken by a federal official from an individual’s home when no warrant has been issued are seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment and must be excluded from evidence. The Fourth Amendment’s protections against unreasonable searches and seizures would be unenforceable if evidence obtained in violation of the amendment were still permitted to be entered into evidence. Accordingly, prejudicial error was committed by including the unlawfully obtained evidence at trial

Question 2

Is evidence obtained through unreasonable search and seizure admissible in state court?

Answer 2

Yes. (in a majority of states) but not in federal court

Due process encompasses an evolving set of fundamental rights that changes with the advancing standards of a free society. Nevertheless, there is no question that the right to privacy and freedom from its arbitrary invasion by federal or state police is fundamental. Thus, the protections of the Fourth Amendment are incorporated against the states. An unreasonable search or seizure by a state officer violates the Due Process Clause, but that does not necessarily mandate exclusion of evidence.

Question 3

May law enforcement procure physical evidence through forcible extraction of a defendant’s stomach contents?

Answer 3

No. Such conduct shocks the conscience and violates the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Question 4

Is evidence obtained through unreasonable search and seizure admissible in state court for state offenses?

Answer 4

No. (overturning wolf v colorado)

Evidence obtained illegally by state officials is inadmissible in state court. When the government invades a person’s privacy in violation of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution, any evidence obtained by that invasion is unconstitutional. Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616 (1886).

The right to privacy is just as important as any other fundamental right, and there is no reason it should be afforded less protection in state courts. Therefore, evidence obtained through unreasonable search and seizure is inadmissible in state courts.

Question 5

Is evidence obtained in reasonable, good-faith reliance on a facially valid search warrant subject to the Fourth Amendment’s exclusionary rule if the warrant is later deemed defective?

Answer 5

The exclusionary rule is not itself a constitutional right but is a judicial remedy intended to deter police from infringing on this constitutionally protected right by prohibiting the introduction of evidence that is obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The rule developed because an individual’s constitutional rights are prioritized over efficient law enforcement. However, when the police reasonably rely on a facially valid search warrant, there is no improper police conduct to deter and therefore no Fourth Amendment interests are advanced by excluding the evidence.

Question 6

Does the exclusionary rule apply if the officer conducting the allegedly unconstitutional search acted in objectively reasonable reliance on a warrant that is subsequently determined to be invalid?

Answer 6

he exclusionary rule, which excludes evidence obtained in violation of an individual’s constitutional rights, is in place to deter law enforcement from conducting illegal searches. The rule should not be applied where law enforcement acts reasonably, in reliance on a magistrate or judge.

Question 7

Does the exclusionary rule apply to evidence obtained in a search carried out pursuant to a statute subsequently found to be unconstitutional?

Answer 7

No. similar to Leon — the exclusionary rule is in place to deter law enforcement misconduct, not to deter lawmakers conduct. Law enforcement cannot be expected to analyze the constitutional implications of enacted laws unless a law is clearly unconstitutional; rather, their job is to follow the laws that the legislature passed.

Question 8

Does the exclusionary rule apply to evidence obtained in a search carried out as a result of a clerical mistake of a court employee?

Answer 8

Does the exclusionary rule apply to evidence obtained in a search carried out as a result of a clerical mistake of a court employee?

Question 9

Where police personnel act negligently and make an administrative error that leads an officer to reasonably believe an arrest warrant exists, is evidence obtained pursuant to the unlawful arrest admissible at trial?

Answer 9

Yes. If police reasonably believe that an arrest warrant exists but one in fact does not exist, the evidence acquired pursuant to the unlawful arrest is admissible if the faulty information is the result of police negligence and not deliberate police action.

Question 10

Is a search conducted in objectively reasonable reliance upon binding appellate precedent that has since been overruled subject to the exclusionary rule?

Answer 10

No. The Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. To deter deliberate disregard of Fourth Amendment rights, this Court has developed the exclusionary rule, which precludes prosecutors from introducing evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Because this is a court-created remedy, courts should only apply the exclusionary rule where the deterrent effect of the rule outweighs the social cost of suppressing potentially reliable evidence.

same as others applying exclusionary rule wouldn’t deter this type of police behavior because they weren’t acting in bad faith

Question 11

Does a passenger in a car belonging to someone else have a legitimate expectation of privacy in the car or in items found in the car that do not belong to him?

Answer 11

No. The fact that a search is directed at obtaining incriminating evidence against an individual does not alone give that person standing to challenge the constitutionality of a search or seizure and invoke the exclusionary rule. Rather, Fourth Amendment rights are personal rights, and an individual may not assert a constitutional violation based solely on the search or seizure of a third person’s premises or property.

Question 12

Do a court’s supervisory powers permit the court to exclude evidence at the request of a party who was not the victim of the challenged practice?

Answer 12

No. A court’s supervisory powers do not permit the court to exclude evidence at the request of a party who was not the victim of the challenged practice. Only the direct victim of an illegal search or seizure has standing to challenge admission of evidence obtained from the search. And a court may not use its supervisory powers to effectively extend standing to a non-victim third party.

Question 13

Does a driver of a rental car who is not named on the rental agreement but who is in lawful possession of the car have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the car?

Answer 13

Yes. A reasonable expectation of privacy instead comes from lawful possession and control of property and the right to exclude others from it. The Court notes that possession and control of a property must be lawful, otherwise there is no reasonable expectation of privacy.

Question 14

Whether a State may enforce the terms of an international treaty against a foreign national when it gained jurisdiction over that person by means other than those prescribed by the treaty.

Answer 14

A State may enforce the terms of an international treaty against a foreign national even when it gains jurisdiction over that person by means other than those prescribed by the treaty. This is true regardless of whether the foreign national’s home government objects to the State’s exercise of jurisdiction.

Question 15

Are incriminating statements made following an unlawful arrest admissible in court if the suspect was given the Miranda warnings?

Answer 15

No. Miranda warnings alone do not guarantee admissibility for statements made following an unlawful arrest. The exclusionary rule protects Fourth Amendment rights by barring admission of all evidence derived from police error or misconduct as “fruit of the poisonous tree.” Under Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471 (1963), statements made following an illegal arrest may be admissible if those statements are “sufficiently…act[s] of free will to purge the primary taint.”

Question 16

Is evidence obtained through illegal police conduct admissible if the evidence is far removed from the illegal police conduct? (Wong Sun)

Answer 16

Yes. Evidence that has been acquired through illegal police conduct is admissible if it has been so far removed from the illegal action so as to dissipate the taint of illegality. In this case, the police violated Wong Sun’s constitutional rights when they arrested him. However, his subsequent unsigned confession is admissible because after his unlawful arrest, Wong Sun was released and returned voluntarily a few days later when he was interrogated by the agents. Therefore, the connection between his unlawful arrest and his statement had become so attenuated as to dissipate the taint of illegality.

Question 17

Can the police seize a suspect and bring him to the police station based only on reasonable suspicion?

Answer 17

No. In order to lawfully bring a suspect into formal police custody and interrogate him at the police station, the police must have probable cause. The rule in Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1969), that the police may stop and search a citizen on the street based on reasonable suspicion, does not extend to situations where the suspect is brought into the police station.

In Terry, because the intrusion into a citizen’s privacy is limited in terms of scope and timing, a balancing of the government’s interest and a citizen’s interests was appropriate. However, bringing someone to a police station where they are not free to leave, and subjecting them to formal interrogation, is a far greater intrusion and demands probable cause to be reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.

Question 18

Is evidence discovered because of an unlawful arrest inadmissible unless the causal connection between the unlawful arrest and the evidence obtained can be sufficiently attenuated?

Answer 18

Yes. Evidence is sufficiently attenuated from a prior unlawful arrest if

(1) substantial time passes between the unlawful arrest and the discovery of the evidence;

(2) there is an intervening event; or

(3) the unlawful arrest was not made in purposeful and flagrant violation of the criminal defendant’s constitutional rights.

Absent attenuating circumstances, tainted evidence must be suppressed, and any conviction based on tainted evidence must be vacated.

Question 19

Does a person who places his or her property into a bag belonging to someone else have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the bag?

Answer 19

For a defendant to challenge the legality of a search and seizure of his property, under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, the defendant must show not a mere ownership interest in the property but a violation of a legitimate expectation of privacy in the area searched by police.

In determining whether a defendant has a legitimate expectation of privacy in an area from which his property is seized, the Court looks at the totality of the circumstances surrounding the seizure.

Ownership of the seized property, the control or lack thereof exercised by the defendant over the area from which the property is seized, and a defendant’s expectation or lack thereof that the area will be free from government intrusion are all factors in making this determination.

Question 20

Does an unlawful arrest made without a warrant but with probable cause in a suspect’s home require exclusion of statements the suspect subsequently made outside the home?

Answer 20

No. The Fourth Amendment was not intended to grant criminal suspects immunity from prosecution based on statements made outside the home when police have probable cause. Payton does not prevent admission of all evidence obtained after an illegal arrest, only that produced as a direct result.

Nothing in the case law suggests that a warrantless arrest somehow renders keeping the suspect in custody after removal from the home unlawful. This Court refused to suppress an in-court identification following an illegal arrest in United States v. Crews, 445 U.S. 463 (1980), reasoning that the identification did not result from violation of the defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights. Evidence that was not obtained as a product of an illegal arrest is not tainted by violation of the Fourth Amendment, and courts need not perform attenuation analysis to admit it.

Question 21

Does a violation of the knock and announce rule mean that the evidence found pursuant to the subsequent search must be excluded at trial?

Answer 21

No. If the police fail to properly follow the knock and announce rule, the evidence they find may still be admitted at trial. The purpose of the knock and announce rule is to protect lives and prevent injury to people and property. However, once a warrant has been issued, an individual has no more privacy in the evidence described in the warrant. Therefore, the exclusionary rule is not a proper remedy if the police fail to properly knock and announce their presence because the individual’s interests that have been violated have nothing to do with the search and seizure of evidence.

Question 22

Should the exclusionary rule be applied more reluctantly when the evidence in question is a witness’s live testimony rather than physical evidence?

Answer 22

The admission into evidence of an unreasonably seized inanimate object instantly brings that object to the trier of fact’s attention, and the object speaks for itself. However, the reliability of live testimony depends on whether the witness testifies under coercion that directly results from the unreasonable seizure or for reasons that have little to do with the original seizure.

Question 23

Is unconstitutionally seized evidence admissible if lack of flagrant impropriety, lack of temporal proximity, or an intervening circumstance attenuates the chain between police misconduct and the seizure?

Answer 23

Yes. The attenuation exception to the exclusionary rule admits evidence seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment if lack of flagrant impropriety, lack of temporal proximity, or an intervening circumstance attenuated the chain between police misconduct and the seizure. Attenuation is one of several exceptions when the exclusionary rule’s beneficial effect in deterring police misconduct is outweighed by the social cost of suppressing critical evidence pointing to a defendant’s guilt.

Question 24

Does the independent-source doctrine apply if police officers were subjectively motivated to obtain a search warrant by what they learned during an original warrantless search of the premises, even if the warrant application does not rely on information gained during the original search?

Answer 24

No. Under the independent-source doctrine, the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule does not generally require suppression of evidence seized from premises pursuant to a search warrant, despite an earlier unconstitutional search of the same premises, if the warrant application was based entirely on an independent source of probable cause.

The exclusionary rule should not place police officers in a worse position than they would have been before an unconstitutional search occurred, and excluding evidence seized pursuant to a valid warrant based on an independent source of probable cause generally would do so.

Question 25

Does the impeachment exception to the exclusionary rule apply to the testimony of defense witnesses other than the defendant?

Answer 25

No. The exception discourages a defendant from perjuring him or herself while not discouraging the defendant’s honest testimony. Extending the impeachment exception to testimony of other defense witnesses would not significantly increase the chances of getting to the truth, but would severely undermine the exclusionary rule.

Question 26

Must a search warrant be voided and any evidence obtained by the warrant excluded from admission at trial when a defendant shows that an affidavit in support of the warrant contains an intentional or reckless false statement and when the affidavit does not support a finding of probable cause in the absence of the false statement?

Answer 26

The Warrant Clause of the Fourth Amendment requires warrants to issue only upon a finding of probable cause supported by oath or affirmation. This requirement does not mean that every allegation of fact set forth in an affidavit must be correct, but it does require that the affiant actually believe the allegations to be correct. The state argues that applying the exclusionary rule to deter false swearing in affidavits is not justified for the same reasons that we have declined to apply the exclusionary rule in other cases. The exclusionary rule is not a personal constitutional right and it will not be applied when its deterrent effect upon unlawful police conduct is outweighed by the public interest in a fair determination of guilt or innocence. The state also notes that the truthfulness of allegations in an affidavit will often be beyond the control of the affiant, as they may come from hearsay or anonymous informants. These are important considerations, but they do not justify an outright ban against challenges to the veracity of an affidavit.

Question 27

Does a lineup violate the Due Process Clause if, on the facts of the case, the procedure was not so unfairly suggestive as to make an irreparable misidentification highly likely?

Answer 27

No. Under the Due Process Clause, a lineup will only be deemed unconstitutional if the procedure used was so unfairly suggestive as to create a significant likelihood of an irreparable mistaken identification. Under Stovall v. Denno, 388 U.S. 293 (1967), any assertion that a particular lineup procedure violates due process must be evaluated in light of the totality of the circumstances. An unfair lineup may lead to witness misidentification that cannot be corrected later.