The Exclusionary Rule and Two Exceptions to the Exclusionary Rule - Essay Example

Fourth Amendment: The Exclusionary Rule and Two Exceptions to the Exclusionary Rule al Affiliation Fourth Amendment: The ExclusionaryRule and Two Exceptions to the Exclusionary Rule Sometimes, police officers illegally seize evidence for use against the persons they have arrested. Their act of taking the evidence may be in violation of the constitution. For this reason, the behaviors of the law enforcement officers need to be checked to ensure that they constitutionally get evidence for use against the defendants. Consequently, the Supreme Court established Exclusionary Rule to the Fourth Amendment to punish irresponsible police officers that unlawfully acquire evidence. However, the Supreme Court carved out several exceptions to this rule. Two of these exceptional doctrines include the Good Faith and the Doctrine of Inevitable Discovery. The exclusionary rule prevents the government from applying most evidence collected in violation of the U.S. Constitution (Doyle & Library of Congress, 2008). The rule applies to evidence gathered from an unreasonable seizure or search in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The fourth amendment held little value to criminal defendants for more than a century after being ratified. It was because an evidence gotten by law enforced in violation of the reasonableness or warranty requirements was still admissible during the prosecution of the defendant. The Supreme Court altered the Fourth Amendment jurisprudence when it made its decision in Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383. Weeks engaged the appeal of a defendant who had been convicted according to the evidence that a federal agent had seized in the absence of a warrant or other justification for the Constitution. The Supreme Court reversed the defendants conviction, hence establishing the exclusionary rule. The Supreme Court made the rule to become applicable to the states in Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 (1961). The exclusionary rule was established to bar the misconduct of the police. It allows the court to get rid of incriminating evidence from being introduced at trial if there is proof that the police procured proof in contravention of a constitutional provision. The exclusionary rule enables defendants to challenge the introduction of evidence by making a pre-trial motion to suppress the evidence. If the court permits the introduction of proof at trial and the jury votes to convict, the defendant can challenge the tribunal’s decision denying the motion to suppress on appeal. However, if the defendant is successful on appeal, the Supreme Court has decided that double jeopardy principles do not restrict the defendant’s retrial since the error of the trial court did not touch on the question of innocence or guilt. Nevertheless, it would be significantly harder to acquire a conviction in the second trial if the prosecution find that the evidence suppressed by the exclusionary rule is relevant. The “fruit of the poisonous tree” doctrine is a companion to the exclusionary rule. The principle asserts that a court may not allow into trial evidence that itself was gathered in violation of the law. Additionally, any additional evidence seized from illegal search is not admissible (Doyle & Library of Congress, 2008). For instance, suppose the police arrest a defendant for kidnapping crime and the defendant confess that he committed the crime. If, subsequently, a court rules that the arrest violated the Constitution, the confession will also cease being admissible in any prosecution of the accused. The Supreme Court carved out an exception to the Exclusionary rule by creating the “Good Faith” exception doctrine. According to Davis, the exclusionary rule is restricted so as, not to prevent the application in the prosecution’s case-in-chief of evidence seized by police. For the doctrine to prevail, the police should have acted in reasonable reliance on a warrant that a detached and neutral magistrate issued, but ultimately found to be unsupported by probable cause (2010). The good-faith exception bars the admissibility at trial of evidence seized pursuant to an unconstitutional search and seizure. The evidence gotten illegally is admissible if police officers have a good faith and reasonably believes that they were doing as per legal authority. For example, if the police depended on a warrant that is later proved to be legally defective. Additionally, evidence of an arrest based on computer errors or statutes that do not require probable cause but are later overturned (so long as it is not clearly unlawful). The good faith exception allows the court to put into consideration the mental state of the police officers. So far, the exceptional rule has been confined to legislatures’ or judges errors. For instance, if the judge errs in issuing a warrant, the law enforcement officer is not responsible if she reasonably believed the validity of the order. The rationale behind this alteration is that the exclusionary rule is established as a last resort to punish officers for acting unlawfully. The higher courts have ways of correcting judges and legislatures who make mistakes. Hence, the rationale behind the exclusionary rule cannot be applied. Apart from saving evidence from exclusion, the court can apply the doctrine of good faith to protect officers and their agencies from incurring civil liabilities. If the Supreme Court has not clearly established the law in prohibiting certain actions, officers enjoy the right to qualified immunity from suit. They do not have to stand trial. The court cannot apply the good faith doctrine merely because a police was not aware of a tribunal ruling that particular misbehavior go against the Fourth Amendment. Rather, the court must first be satisfied that the officer had a subjectively reasonable belief that he was acting lawfully. Additionally, the court must be convinced that the police had an objective good faith in holding that belief. A mistake in a view based on a lack of awareness about legal stipulations for valid searches and seizures, or based on inadequate training does not qualify as good faith. Just as a defendant’s ignorance of the law does not qualify as an excuse for going against the law, a police’s ignorance is not an excuse for violating a statute. The designing of the “good faith” exception dates many years back in history (Davis, 2010). Consider the case of United States v. Leon (1984). It was established that police got information from an informant who had unproven reliability. They applied the information to secure a warrant, which they used to search Leon’s house and find drugs. Leon brought a pre-trial motion to suppress the evidence since the warrant affidavit was not sufficient to create probable cause. However, the police officers believed that they had acted according to their legal mandate by relying on the validity of the search warrant. The court reasoned that provided the officers have a good faith belief that a magistrate duly issued a search warrant based on sufficient probable cause, evidence seized pursuant to the warrant is admissible. The court decided that the aim of the exclusionary rule is to deter the police misconduct. The rule is not there to punish errors of magistrates since they are neutral and have no stake in the outcome. For this reason, exclusion would prevent their errors. Exclusionary rule should not bar law enforcement activities that are objectively reasonable (Savage, 2009). However, good faith is exempted in the event of dishonest affiant, non-detached or non-neutral magistrate, bare bones affidavit, and a facial deficiency of warrant ( such as, not particularized enough). An appropriate exclusion must be such that the deterrence benefits of suppression outweigh the rule’s substantial costs. The outcome of this cost-benefit analysis turns on the “flagrancy of the police misconduct” at issue. Another exceptional law to the exclusionary rule is the Inevitable Discovery exceptional doctrine. The exception allows the use as evidence of illegally seized items, which the police would have inevitably discovered constitutionally (Shively, 2008). The exception gives room for admission of evidence, even though, the officers got in violation of the constitution. Some courts demand the prosecution to demonstrate that the officers were in the act of actively pursuing a lawful search that would have resulted inevitably in the discovery of the evidence at the time that they illegally seized it. That way, the inevitable exception will successfully achieve its assertion. On the other hand, some courts do not require active pursuit of an alternative legal discovery means at the time of the illegal discovery. Neither do they demand that it be police who are hypothesized to be the ones to come inevitably across the evidence. The aim of the exclusionary rule is to prevent unlawful officers’ actions by depriving them of any benefit derived from such activities. The presence of the statute thus creates some caution and care in preparing a lawsuit action that might otherwise be lacking. Even though the rule helps in deterring police misconduct, it may result in suppression of extremely incriminating evidence from appearing before the trial. The court can thus find itself in a dilemma when dealing with a motion for exclusion of evidence. It has to choose whether it should allow the controversial evidence or exclude the evidence and set the guilty person free. A court may reasonably decide to go with the former choice in circumstances where potential danger of releasing the criminal outweighs the police misconduct. In the case of Nix v. Williams, 467 U.S. (1984), it was established that a girl aged ten years was abducted and murdered. Williams surrendered to the police and was arrested. In the event of transporting Williams to Des Moines, he made statements to the officers in the absence of the attorney. He then leads the police officers to the body since one of them demanded so. They found the girl’s body two miles away from the nearest search team. William moved to suppress the evidence of the body as fruit of unlawful interrogation. The trial court turned down the motion, and William was convicted of a first-degree murder. Although the statements that William made in the absence of the attorney were not permitted, the girl’s body, medical, chemical and photographic tests information was allowed. The court held that even if the defendant had not made statements to the officers, the girls body would have been found within a reasonable time, and that evidence could still be admissible (Shively, 2008). The case shows the inevitable discovery doctrine, which asserts that if the search team will inevitably discover the evidence, the means by which the police seized the evidence is not necessary. Under the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule, the defendants can be free from accusations if police seized evidence in violation of the constitution. Police are barred from presenting evidence, which they illegally seized, in proceedings against the accused if a timely motion is made to suppress or exclude the evidence. However, the good faith doctrine permits the admissibility of the evidence if the police reasonably obtained it with a real intention of carrying out their legal duties, and the judge was neutral in administering the search warrant. Additionally, there is an Inevitable Discovery Exception- the illegally seized evidence is admissible in case the court rules that the evidence would have otherwise been constitutionally discovered. Reference Davis, R. (2010). The good faith exception in a computerized society: State court reactions to U.S. v. Leon and Arizona v. Evans. The Justice Professional, 21(3). Doyle, C., & Library of Congress. (2008). Exclusionary rule: Brief overview of the federal fourth amendment rule & related matters (2nd ed.). Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress. Savage, D. (2009, April 20). Who’s Policing the Fourth Amendment? ABA Review, pp. 1-2. Shively, B. R. (2008). The Inevitable Discovery Doctrine. Law, 12(4), 23-26. Read More