The Exclusionary Rule Essay, Research Paper
The Exclusionary Rule
The Effect of the Fourth Amendment is to put the
courts of the United States and Federal officials, in the
exercise of their own power and authority, under
limitations and restraints as to the exercise of such power
and authority, and to forever secure the people, their
persons, houses, papers and effects against all
unreasonable searches and seizures under the guise of law
(Ronald 605). The Constitution does not tolerate
warrantless, therefore illegal, police searches and
seizures–unless there is probable cause. The rights which
the Fourth Amendment states were strengthened when the
Supreme Court preceded the Exclusionary Rule, and
therefore, the rights of the people were strengthened as
well.
The Exclusionary Rule, first preceded in 1914, is
the understanding, based on Supreme Court precedent, that
incriminating information must be seized according to
constitutional specifications of due process, or it will
not be allowed as evidence (Schmalleger 273). Even the
guilty have a right to claim innocence. Hence, this right
would be worthless if incriminating evidence was allowed to
be obtained, distributed, and used illegally. Furthermore,
according to the Supreme Court, “If letters and private
documents can thus be seized and held and used in evidence
against a citizen accused of an offense, the protection of
the Fourth Amendment declaring his right to be sure against
such searches and seizures is of no value, and, so for as
those thus placed are concerned, might as well be stricken
from the Constitution” (Ronald 605). If that “tainted
violence” can be used in court, then the 4th Amendment
offers no real protection to a person accused of a crime
(Magruder 524). The exclusionary rule was intended to put
teeth into the 4th Amendment, and it has (Magruder 524).
The Court further built upon the rules concerning
evidence in 1918, with the Fruit of the Poisoned Tree
Doctrine-a legal principle which excludes from introduction
at trial any evidence later developed as a result of an
originally illegal search or seizure (Schmalleger 274).
The Fruit of the Poisoned Tree Doctrine was enforced after
the case of Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States in
1918. Frederick Silverthorne and his sons were accused of
avoiding payment on federal taxes. They were asked to hand
over their company’s books. The Silverthornes refused,
citing their Fifth Amendment privilege against self-
incrimination (Schmalleger 274). Shortly thereafter, some
federal agents ignored their rights and without warrant,
seized the wanted books anyway. Since this was an
unconstitutional act, the Silverthorne’s lawyer testified
and asked for the books to be returned. The prosecutor
granted his request, and the books were returned.
Expecting all incriminating evidence to have
descended, the Silverthornes where testified in trial.
Much to their surprise, however, the prosecution had made
photocopies of the books they seized, and used them as
evidence against the Silverthornes. Hence, they were
convicted in federal court. They appealed their conviction
and their appeal reached the Supreme Court. The Court
ruled that just as illegally seized evidence cannot be used
in a trial, neither can evidence be used which derives from
an illegal seizure (Schmalleger 274). The conviction of
the Silverthornes was overturned and they were set free.
The illegal evidence reproduced from materials obtained by
an illegal seizure dismissed the whole case because the
prosecutors did not follow the Fruit of the Poisoned Tree
Doctrine. “Think of it this way: If you have a box full
of apples, and then you put a rotten one in the bunch, they
will all become rotten at some point. Hence, all the
evidence–fruit–obtained from an illegal mean–poisoned
tree–is not admissible even if the evidence itself is
good” (G mez interview). Even if a case is developed on
years of police research, it may be dejected if that
research and the evidence it revealed was obtained
illegally.
Like the Constitution, however, the exclusionary
rule is not written in stone. It can be amended and
exceptions can be installed to it. In the case of United
Sates v. Leon in 1984, the exclusionary rule was first
modified with “the good faith exception to the exclusionary
rule.” This exception states that law enforcement officers
who conduct a search, or seize evidence, on the basis of
good faith (that is, where they believe they are operating
according to the dictates of the law) and who later
discover that a mistake was made (perhaps in the format of
the application for a search warrant) may still use, in
court, evidence seized as the result of such activities
(Schmalleger 277). In the Leon case, the officers involved
acted upon probable cause, a legal criterion residing in a
set facts and circumstances which would cause a reasonable
person to believe that a particular other person has
committed a specific crime (Schmalleger 277). The suspect,
Leon, was accused of trafficking drugs. He was placed
under surveillance, which showed evidence of large amounts
of hidden drugs. This lead the investigators to apply for
a search warrant. They believed that they were in
compliance with the Fourth Amendment requirement that “no
warrants shall issue but upon probable cause” (Schmalleger
277). Although Leon was convicted of drug trafficking, a
later ruling in a federal district court resulted in the
suppression of evidence against him on the basis that the
original affidavit, or document demonstrating the probable
cause, prepared by the police had not, in the opinion of
the court, been sufficient to establish probable cause
(Schmalleger 277). Shortly after, the government
petitioned the Supreme Court to decide if the evidence
gathered by the officers may still be admissible in trial.
The Court decided: “When law enforcement officers have
acted in objective good faith or their transgressions have
been minor, the magnitude of the benefit conferred on such
guilty defendants offends basic concepts of the criminal
justice system” (Schmalleger 277). Due to this, Leon’s
conviction was reinstated.
It is no doubt that over the past few decades more
and more justice agencies have become dependent upon
computer technology for record management and other
purposes (Schmalleger 282). Hence, the likelihood of
computer-generated errors will vastly grow When this trend
continues. Computer-generated errors have become the base
of another exception to the exclusion rule, the “computer
errors exception.” It was first created in the 1995 case
of Arizona v. Evans. Mr. Isaac Evans was stopped for
driving the wrong way on a one-way street. With a computer
check reporting an outstanding arrest warrant, he was taken
into custody. Shortly after, Evans was convicted due to
the police finding marijuana in his car. After his arrest,
however, police learned that the arrest warrant reported to
them by their computer had actually been quashed a few
weeks earlier but, through the clerical oversight of a
court employee, had never been removed form the computer
(Schmalleger 282). The Court later decided that the
officers who made the arrest cannot be held accountable for
their unintentional disobedience of the exclusionary rule.
They were simply acting in good faith according to the
information that was provided to them at the time. Isaac
Evans was convicted nonetheless.
The Supreme Court’s articulation of the
exclusionary rule came in Weeks v. United States, 1914.
This was the first landmark case concerning search and
seizure and it changed to Fourth Amendment forever. The
defendant, Mr. Freemont Weeks, was convicted for selling
lottery tickets through the US Postal Service. The
evidence against him included various letters and documents
that had been seized from his house during a warrantless
search (Ronald 604). When Weeks moved for a return of the
property due to the violation of the Fourth Amendment in
the officers’ part, only the non-incriminating evidence was
given back. Hence, Weeks was convicted. However, shortly
after, he appealed his conviction and it reached the
Supreme Court. There, his lawyer reasoned that if some of
his client’s belongings had been illegally seized, then the
remainder of them were also taken improperly (Schmalleger
273). The Supreme Court reversed: “The United States
Marshal could only have invaded the house of the accused
when armed with a warrant issued as required by the
Constitution, upon sworn information and describing with
reasonable particularity the thing for which the search was
to be made. Instead, he acted without sanction of law,
doubtless prompted by the desire to bring further proof to
the aid of the Government, and under solor of his office
undertook to make a seizure of private papers in direct
violation of the constitutional prohibition against such
action. Under such circumstances, without sworn
information and particular description, not even an order
of court would have justified such procedure, much less was
it within the authority of the United States Marshal to
thus invade the house and privacy of the accused” (Ronald
605). The Court held that the seizure of items from Week’s
residence directly violated his constitutional rights and
that the government’s refusal to return Week’s possessions
violated the Fourth Amendment (Oyez). Thus, the Supreme
Court overturned Week’s earlier convictions and the
exclusionary rule was established.
However, the Weeks case made the exclusionary rule
pertinent to only the federal government. It was not until
Mapp v. Ohio that it also became applicable to the States.
Miss Mapp and her daughter by a former marriage lived on
the floor of the two-family dwelling (Case 1). Police
officers had been on her trail because she was suspected of
obscuring, in her house, a man wanted for information on a
recent bombing, and for the possession of lewd books and
pictures, which was unconstitutional (Supreme 1081).
When the officers insisted on entering her home for
investigation, she refused, asking them to get a warrant
first. The officers advised their headquarters of the
situation and undertook surveillance of the house (Case
1). Some three hours later, a larger amount of officers
arrived at the scene. When they asked her to come out once
again and she repeatedly refused, one of the doors in her
house was forcibly opened and the policemen commenced their
illegal search in the house. Miss Mapp’s lawyer arrived
shortly after but the officers, having secured their own
entry and continuing their defiance of the law, would
permit him neither to see Miss Mapp not to enter the house
(Case 1).
Miss Mapp continued to protest this illegal act and
demanded to see the search warrant. One of the officers
help up a fake one, which was snatched from his hand by her
and placed in her bosom. As a result, there was a big
struggle and she was handcuffed. Afterwards, she was
forced upstairs where the investigators searched her
closets, dressers, rooms, the rest of the second floor,
the child’s room, the living room, the kitchen, and a
dinette. During that widespread and illegal search, the
materials which she was suspected of holding were found,
and she was convicted.
Prior decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court had led
officers to expect that the exclusionary rule did not apply
to agents of state and local law enforcement (Schmalleger
275). Nonetheless, Mapp’s conviction was overturned by the
precedent-setting decision that the officers were acting
against the Fourth Amendment’s guarantee that the
exclusionary rule should be applicable to the States:
“…nor shall any State deprive any person of life,
liberty, or property, without due process of law, nor deny
to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection
of the laws.” (Schmalleger 275). The majority court’s
opinion, as Mr. Justice Black states, was that the
constitutional basis of the rule announced by the Court in
the present case was the Fourth Amendment s ban against
unreasonable searches and seizures considered together with
the Fifth Amendment’s ban against compelled self-
incrimination (Supreme 1081). Thus, the exclusionary rule
was made applicable to the States.
The exclusionary rule’s precedent brought forth two
argumentative problems, however. One of these problems if
that the present appeals system, focusing as it does upon
the “rules of the game,” presents a ready-made channel for
the guilty to go free (Schmalleger 273). “If you think
about it, the evidence needed to prove a person guilty of a
crime is, to my understanding, enough the confirm the
person’s culpability, and that person should be punished
nonetheless. It shouldn’t matter whether or not the
arresting officer(s) acted unconstitutionally, in which
case, both the criminal and the officer both should be
punished. A person’s “guilt” can never be decreased
because of the misconduct of another (G mez interview).
Weeks, Mapp, and the Silverthornes are all examples
of this problem. The evidence used to incriminate them,
whether obtained legally or illegally, prove that they are
guilty of disobeying the law in one way or another. Even
if the police knowingly violate the principles of due
process, which they sometimes do, our sense of justice is
compromised When the guilty go free (Schmalleger 273).
As police officers, it is their duty to make sure
that the guilty are punished. The exclusionary rule
somewhat gets in the way of this responsibility. Of course
officers should not take advantage and act recklessly, “but
desperate times do call for desperate measures (G mez
interview).
Despite these problems, the exclusionary rules has
obviously had some positive effects and changes on
society. The Fourth Amendment is a very important and
critical one in maintaining citizens’ property and privacy
theirs and the exclusionary rule has established real value
to it. The Exclusionary Rule has been justified in part on
the ground that it is essential to prevent the fourth
amendment from becoming “a form of words, valueless and
undeserving of mention in a perpetual charter of
inestimable human liberties” (Ronald 604).
Also, the Weeks, Mapp, and Silverthorne cases are
all examples of the exclusionary rules protection against
police misconduct. “Just because they’re the boys in blue
does not mean that they can be the boys who abuse (G mez
interview).” As an American citizen, and thanks to the
exclusionary rule, one has the right to object against
illegal searches and seizures. The exclusionary rule
defends this.
In conclusion, the exclusionary rule totally
revolutionized the power and rights against invasion of
privacy and police misconduct. Whether criminal or non-
criminal, guilty or innocent, American citizens have the
right to not have themselves, or their property illegally
searched or seized.
Works Cited
Court Cases [online]. Available at
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/cases/historic.htm
FindLaw Search Engine [online]. Available at
http://www.FindLaw.com
G mez, Paola. Personal Interview. 7 Dec., 1998
Magruder, Frank A. American Government. New
Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1993: 524-525
Oyez Oyez Oyez: Weeks v. United States – Abstract
[online]. Available at
http://oyez.nwu.edu/cases/cases.cgi?command=
show&case_id=437&page=abstract
Ronald J. Allen, Richard B. Kuhns,
William J. Stuntz. Constitutional Criminal
Procedure. An Examination of the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth
Amendments and Related Areas. Third Ed. Canada: Little,
Brown & Company, 1995
Supreme Court Reporter, The. Lawyer’s Edition:
1081-1101
Schmalleger, Frank. Criminal Justice Today. An
Introductory Text for the 21st Century. Ed. 5 New Jersey:
Prentice Hall, 1999: 272-293