Exclusionary Rule Flashcards
Exclusionary Rule Framework
Note: Pay attention to which constitution rights these limits apply to/ whose rights were violated and if it should be excluded • Require the possibility of a legality • Supreme Court o Cost Benefit analysis • Cost to exclude is usually high
Standing Violations
4TH A • Always a Standing Issue 6th and Miranda • Standing Applies Due Process • May apply
Standing:
Must have more subst’l, continuing relationship w/ areas searched, or reasonable expectation of privacy, or ownership (this alone not enough, helps though).
Note: privacy rights exist if you are guest in a host’s home.
- Possibility of standing when overnight guest
Limitations of Standing
A person no longer has standing merely because he’s legitimately on the premisis:
o Must have more subst’l, continuing relationship w/ areas searched (Rakas; Olson)
No automatic standing (although claiming ownership cannot be used against D substantively, Simmons)
o Must claim ownership; and ownership alone might not be sufficient (Rawlings)
Being a target of an investigation doesn’t necessarily give standing (Alderman)
U.S. v. Paynor:
IRS agents were told to ignore the 4th Amendment against unreasonable searches and seizures. IRS was able to search the briefcase of a bank worker in order to charge the bank customers.
• Rule: Customers did not have standing despite bad faith by the IRS.
• Expectation of Privacy:
o None in bank records handed over to a third party.
Independent Source Doctrine
If the knowledge is gained from an independent source they may be proved (at trial) like any others
• But the knowledge gained by the government’s own wrong cannot be used by it as evidence.
Independent Source Factors:
Two Searches
- Decision to seek warrant cannot be prompted by what officers found during illegal entry
- Tainted information cannot be presented to magistrate and affect his decision to issue warrant
Inevitable Discovery Factors:
One Search
- Specific plan in place that if would have continued; evidence would have been found in same condition
How to Overcome Illegality [Factors to Consider] Indepent Source
- The agents decision to seek the warrant was prompted by what they had seen during the initial entry
o If yes, not independent - The information obtained during that entry was presented to the magistrate and affected his decision
o How is information (both what was illegally scene) and not scene used to get the warrant.
o What does the warrant say?
Note:
• Even if tainted information, is it enough
Attenuation Doctrine Factors that are pertinent to Application of:
- The temporal proximity of the illegality and the acquisition of evidence
- The presence of intervening events and circumstances
- The purpose and flagrancy of the particular official misconduct.
- Provision of Miranda Warnings
- Voluntariness of the statement (REQUIRED)
a. Must have this or due process violation
b. threshold question - Live Witness [Ceccolini]
a. Intervening Factor
b. Temporal Proximity
c. [Choosing to testify is usually subject to own Free Will as one who testifies as key witness is likely one to come forward on their own]
Hudson Attenuation
Attenuation also occurs when, even given a direct causal connection, the interest protected by the constitutional guarantee that has been violated would not be served by suppression of the evidence obtained”
Good Faith Exception - Exceptions to Good Faith Exception:
- Magistrate was misled by information that the affiant knew was false or for which he had reckless disregard of its truth
- Magistrate wholly abandoned his judicial role
• Affidavit lacks any indicia of PC
o Warrant facially deficient/ “form of Warrant was improper in some respects (but see Sheppard)
Good Faith Exception – Application:
Police may rely in GF on:
- Warrants
- Statutes
- Appellate precedent
- An erroneous computer record maintained by court employees
- Erroneous computer records maintained by other police errors that are isolated, not reckless or systematic error (isolated instance of negligence)
Seibert Plurality Considerations – Miranda Exception: [Deliberate 2 Step]
- No warning that prior confession was indadmissible; telling a person that anything she says can be used against her would make her think (wrongly) that prior confession was admissible
- Completeness and detail of the question and answer in the first round of interrogation [was first confession substantially complete]
• Overlapping continuity (time, place, personell)
o Timing and setting of each statement
o Continuity of the police personnel
• Degree of which the interrogator’s question treated the 2nd round of questioning as continuous with the first.
Impeachment Exception - General Rules
Can impeach o 4 A violations o Miranda Violations o 6 A violations o Defendant statements made on cross and direct
Cannot impeach
o Defense Witness
o Due Process Violations
