Fourteenth Amendment – Due Process Flashcards
Connelly (1986)
Due Process Voluntariness: Tripping schizophrenic randomly walks up to a cop and confesses to murder because he thinks he hears God’s voice telling him to. Police methods of eliciting confessions that would overbear one’s will violates Due Process. Thus, there is no Due Process Voluntariness violation without State action, and the mental state (e.g., intoxication) of a D doesn’t affect the voluntariness of a confession––unless known and taken advantage of by a cop.
Spano (1955)
Due Process Voluntariness: Police methods of eliciting confessions that would overbear one’s will violates Due Process, evidenced by some type of threat and/or coercion to induce confession. D’s lawyer arranges D’s surrender to the cops, who know that D’s not bright and use that fact to keep him from his laywer. D’s cop friend, Bruno, then manipulates him into a confession.
McNabb (1943)/Mallory (1957)
Due Process Voluntariness: For federal cases, the Supreme Court, as having the power to impose procedural measures, holds that unnecessary delays lead to a confession by D prior to standing before a magistrate, the court can suppress the confession because cops are abusing the system. McNabb: 2 Ds arrested for murder, left in a cell for 14 hours, and questioned for two days until confessing, then brought before a magistrate. Mallory: Commissioners were available to arraign, but D was interrogated for hours until confessing to rape.
Mapp v. Ohio (1961)
Due Process Exclusionary Rule: The exclusionary rule applies to evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment’s search and seizure clause in all State prosecutions. Since the Fourth Amendment’s right of privacy has been declared enforceable against the States through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the same sanction of exclusion is also enforceable against them––ensuring (1) JUDICIAL INTEGRITY. The purpose of the exclusionary rule is (2) DETERENCE of illegally obtaining evidence and to compel respect for the constitutional guarantee in the only effective manner. Otherwise, a State, by admitting illegally obtained evidence, disobeys the Constitution that it has sworn to uphold. Cops were looking for a bombing suspect and evidence of the bombing at D’s house, who called her lawyer and was advised to ask for a warrant. Cops returned with what purported to be a search warrant (none found on record) that D grabbed and clutched to her breasts, forcibly entered the residence, and conducted a search in which obscene materials were found locked in a trunk. (Originally a 1st Amendment cert., but reconsider Wolf v. Col.––which held the Federal Exclusionary Rule was judicially implied, not constitutionally––and embrace both dissents, via 14th Amendment Due Process Clause, that the 4th Amendment Exclusionary Rule is a constitutional privilege giving to the individual no more than that which the Constitution guarantees––as to do other would sever the 4th Amend. From its conceptual nexus.)
Rakas v. Illinois (1978)
Due Process Exclusionary Rule: A party seeking relief must allege such a personal stake or interest in the outcome of the controversy as to assure the concrete adverseness which Article III of the Constitution requires. Thus, a person whose rights under Fourth Amendmentwere violated by a search or seizure, but who is not a D in a criminal action in which the illegally seized evidence is sought to be introduced, does not have standing to invoke the exclusionary rule to prevent use of that evidence in that action.Fourth Amendmentrights are personal rights which, like some other constitutional rights, may not be vicariously asserted. Cops stopped a car matching description of a getaway car in a robbery. Ds were passengers; neither owned the car. A shot gun and ammunition were found in the car. Ds’’ motion to suppress was denied for lack of standing.
Wong Sun (1963)
Due Process Exclusionary Rule: The exclusionary prohibition extends as well to the indirect as the direct products of unlawful searches, and has traditionally barred from trial physical, tangible materials obtained either during or as a direct result of an unlawful invasion. It follows that the Fourth Amendmentmay protect against the overhearing of verbal statements as well as against the more traditional seizure of “papers and effects.” Similarly, testimony as to matters observed during an unlawful invasion has been excluded in order to enforce the basic constitutional policies. Thus, verbal evidence which derives so immediately from an unlawful entry and an unauthorized arrest is no less the “fruit” of official illegality than the more common tangible fruits of the unwarranted intrusion. Either in terms of deterring lawless conduct by federal officers, or of closing the doors of the federal courts to any use of evidence unconstitutionally obtained the danger in relaxing the exclusionary rules in the case of verbal evidence would seem too great to warrant introducing such a distinction.Ds arrested after a suspect was caught with heroin, and had led the feds to the first D as his source. They challenged evidence, including the heroin surrendered to the police and the statements made orally by the second D in his bedroom at the time of his arrest, and a pretrial unsigned confessions of both Ds. Convictions vacated and granted new trial.
Murray (1988)
Due Process Exclusionary Rule: Information which is received through an illegal source is considered to be cleanly obtained when it arrives through an independent source. The independent source doctrine applies also to evidence initially discovered during, or as a consequence of, an unlawful search, but later obtained independently from activities untainted by the initial illegality. The inevitable discovery doctrine, with its distinct requirements, is in reality an extrapolation from the independent source doctrine: Since the tainted evidence would be admissible if in fact discovered through an independent source, it should be admissible if it inevitably would have been discovered. Two agents trailing D forced entry into a warehouse containing the petitioner’s vehicle. They discovered marijuana. Subsequently, they returned with a warrant.
Nix v. Williams (1984)
Due Process Exclusionary Rule: Cases implementing the exclusionary rule begin with the premise that the challenged evidence is in some sense the product of illegal governmental activity. However, if the prosecution can establish by a preponderance of the evidence that the information ultimately or inevitably would have been discovered by lawful means, the evidence should be received. Inevitable discovery involves no speculative elements but focuses on demonstrated historical facts capable of ready verification or impeachment and does not require a departure from the usual burden of proof at suppression hearings. D arrested for the murder of a 10 year old girl whose body he ditched along a gravel road. Cops started searching for the body during which, in response to a cop’s appeal for assistance, D made statements to the police (without an attorney present) that lead to the body. D was only read his Miranda rights after he was arrested.
Harris v. New York (1971)
Due Process Exclusionary Rule: Miranda bars the prosecution from making its case with statements of an accused made while in custody prior to having or effectively waiving counsel. It does not follow from Miranda that evidence inadmissible against an accused in the prosecution’s case in chief is barred for all purposes, provided of course that the trustworthiness of the evidence satisfies legal standards. Every criminal defendant is privileged to testify in his own defense, or to refuse to do so. But that privilege cannot be construed to include the right to commit perjury. The shield provided by Miranda cannot be perverted into a license to use perjury by way of a defense, free from the risk of confrontation with prior inconsistent utterances. A defendant’s credibility can be appropriately impeached by use of his earlier conflicting statementsDuring cross-examination at his trial, D was questioned regarding specified statements made to cops after arrest, which partially contradicted D’s direct testimony, and so the state sought to impeach D. However, the State made no effort to use the statements in its case in chief, conceding that the statements were inadmissible under Miranda. Court allowed.
Patane (2004)
Due Process Exclusionary Rule: Miranda protects against violations of theSelf-Incrimination Clause, which is not implicated by the admission into evidence of the physical fruit of a voluntary statement. Both Miranda andSelf-Incrimination Clauseprimarily focus on the criminal trial, forbidding compelling D to testify against himself, and so cannot be violated by the introduction of nontestimonial evidence obtained as a result of voluntary statements. The Miranda rule does not require that the statements taken without complying with the rule and their fruits be discarded as inherently tainted. Unlike theFourth Amendment’sbar on unreasonable searches, theSelf-Incrimination Clauseis self-executing..D was arrested at his home when he called his ex-girlfriend in violation of a restraining order. Cops began reading D his rights, which he interrupted, saying that he knew his rights. D then admitted to possession of a firearm.
Leon (1984)
Due Process Exclusionary Rule: TheFourth Amendmentcontains no provision expressly precluding the use of evidence obtained in violation of its commands, and the use of fruits of a past unlawful search or seizure works no new Fourth Amendmentwrong. The wrong condemned by theFourth Amendmentis “fully accomplished” by the unlawful search or seizure itself, and the exclusionary rule is neither intended nor able to cure the invasion of D’s rights which he has already suffered. The rule thus operates as a judicially created remedy designed to safeguardFourth Amendmentrights generally through its deterrent effect, rather than a personal constitutional right of the party aggrieved.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 balancing approach that has evolved in various contexts, including criminal trials, forcefully suggests that the exclusionary rule be more generally modified to permit the introduction of evidence obtained in the reasonable good-faith belief that a search or seizure was in accord withthe Fourth Amendment. If the purpose of the exclusionary rule is to deter unlawful police conduct, then evidence obtained from a search should be suppressed only if it can be said that the law enforcement officer had knowledge, or may properly be charged with knowledge, that the search was unconstitutional underthe Fourth Amendment. In short, where the officer’s conduct is objectively reasonable, excluding the evidence will not further the ends of the exclusionary rule in any appreciable way; for it is painfully apparent that the officer is acting as a reasonable officer would and should act in similar circumstances. Excluding the evidence can in no way affect his future conduct unless it is to make him less willing to do his duty.A search warrant was issued to search D’s house wherein a large quantity of illegal drugs was found, but the affidavit upon which the search warrant was issued was found to be insufficient on its face.
Herring (2004)
Due Process Exclusionary Rule: The exclusionary rule is not an individual right and applies only where it results in appreciable deterrence. judicial precedent repeatedly rejects the argument that exclusion is a necessary consequence of aFourth Amendmentviolation. Instead, case law focuses on the efficacy of the rule in deterringFourth Amendment violations in the future. In determining whether the exclusionary rule applies, the benefits of deterrence must outweigh the costs. Judicial precedent has never suggested that the exclusionary rule must apply in every circumstance in which it might provide marginal deterrence. To the extent that application of the exclusionary rule could provide some incremental deterrent, that possible benefit must be weighed against its substantial social costs. The principal cost of applying the rule is, of course, letting guilty and possibly dangerous defendants go free, something that offends basic concepts of the criminal justice system. The rule’s costly toll upon truth-seeking and law enforcement objectives presents a high obstacle for those urging its application. When police act under a warrant that is invalid for lack of probable cause, the exclusionary rule does not apply if the police acted in objectively reasonable reliance on the subsequently invalidated search warrant. Case law (perhaps confusingly) calls this objectively reasonable reliance good faith. The exclusionary rule does not apply when a warrant was invalid because a judge forgot to make clerical corrections to it. D inquired about an impounded truck. Clerk requested a routine check for outstanding warrants, which he has, so cops searched the truck, finding guns and meth. Within minutes of initially reporting an outstanding warrant, Dale County officials called back to inform that they had inaccurately reported an outstanding warrant due to a clerical error.
