what is your opinion about the exclusionary rule?

Question

Hey guys, i'm writing a paper on this for my criminal justice course and just wanted other people's opinions on this. Do you feel that its establishment (to keep illegally searches by police and prosecution from happening) has been distroyed with all of the ammendments and doctrines to go along with it?Or just your general opinions.

thanks!

Answer 1

I would agree with the officer above. Miranda warnings are alive and well. Searches are actually very easy to get permission from most defendants. Most of them think, 'if I say sure, search, the cop will think I have nothing to hide, and won't search'. Whoops, wrong again.

If an officer walks up to you, and asks if he can talk (or she) to you, you have the right to refuse, you can just walk away. He can follow you. If you run, he can run with you. If you toss something away, he now can stop you. If what you tossed is illegal to possess, whoops, you got caught.

And the rights are protected. In fact, it use to be the police could keep questioning you after you invoke your rights and then, while the statements do not come it at trial in the prosecutor's case in chief, they could come in if the defendant testified, to use to impeach him/her. That practice stopped when the invocation could be a request for an attorney, and that takes it up a notch.

We had a case where the suspect was being questioned, he asked for his attorney, and they kept questioning him, and he confessed to 7 unsolved home burglaries. All of them were lost, since he had invoked and as pointed out above, fruit of the poisonous tree keeps the police from using illegally obtained information to then get a warrant, or such.

Lastly, as to your question, until there is a better method to keep the bad cops honest, or to penalize them in some way, the exclusionary rule if the best we have. Some have said, sue them in civil court, but the reality, a police officer gets information illegally, that breaks up a drug ring. No jury would find for the defendant hurt by it. It would not work.

Answer 2

I hope people get it before trying to answer this.

The "Fruit of the poisonous tree" is alive and well. When a "bad" search is performed, the evidence is not admitted. Its that simple.

What amendments and doctrines, that lessen the effects of it, would you speaking of?

Probable cause? Exigent circumstances? These are there to protect the people from the criminal. Would you give the criminal 100% protection and carte blanche to run rampant in the community committing crimes. If the long arm of the law can articulate why they believe they needed to search without a warrant, then let the judges decide.

Answer 3

If you handle your investigation right from the start you will not have to many problems with this. obtain and gather your facts and evidence in accordance with the law, you should have been taught the proper procedures and do not take short cuts. I have a degree in criminal justice( law enforcement ) and if I have a question bout anything I ask a Superior immediately. There is nothing worse than having a case thrown out because of bad police work and your reputation will suffer and you may loose your job.

Answer 4

In response to your actual question, I believe the exclusionary rule is an innapropriate response to police misconduct and Great Britain gets by fine without it.

While sanctions should be in place to punish and prohibit police misconduct, the idea that a piece of evidence ceases to be evidence simply because of the manner in which it was obtained is ludicrous.

If an innaropriate aquisition of evidence is accidental, it should be admitted at trial, but if the innapropriate or illegal aquistion of evidence is intentional then the officer should face criminal penalties, but the evidence should still be admissable because the method of aquiring the evidence does not alter it's probative value.

This concept would punish police misconduct without rewarding criminals.

Answer 5

The Fourth Amendment is one of the most essential amendments on the books, and is probably one of the most scrutinized right of interpretation that exists.

The inspiration and implementation of the fourth, and the right to dispute its' interpretation time and time again just shows that law will never be perfect, but will allow room for argument (debate).

Case laws over the decades have attuned these rights to afford the public more and more safeguards by evidently defining the rights of Search and Seizure. Some of these cases that you may refer to are here:

http://www.flexyourrights.org/fourth_amendment_supreme_court_cases

Best of luck with your CJ course. You picked a very vital area to discuss - excellent question!

Answer 6

Disclaimer: I spent most of my adult life as a Republican. I thought of myself as a "Reagan conservative," i.e., in favor of a strong defense, engagement in world politics, personal liberty and fairly strict interpretation of the Constitution, especially with respect to limits on federal power. A Thomas Paine Republican, maybe. Now, after being labeled a "RINO" (Republican In Name Only) because I won't line up with the neo-conservatives that have taken over the party, I don't know who I stand with.

I think that the Patriot Act is one of the most odious pieces of legislation ever passed. The idea that an American citizen can be arrested on American soil and held indefinitely, without bail and without criminal charges filed and without habeus corpus protections, illustrates what our federal government is capable of if left unchecked. Essentially, under the Patriot Act, all it takes is an accusation to have someone locked up without trial and without counsel.

I am not in favor of "coddling criminals" but I am afraid of what a government can do with unfettered power. I grew up during the cold war and my father, step father, my uncles and my father in law all fought in the Second World War. The opponents in those conflicts all stomped on personal liberties of their own citizens - they created gulags and holocausts because there were no meaningful checks on power.

Consider what Tomas Paine said: "He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself."

In other words, we must demand the highest standards from our prosecutors and our government, or we must accept the risk that we will get no standards at all.

So I vote YES to the exclusionary rule.

Answer 7

It's ego-busting to learn that the Exclusionary Rule has nothing to do with the Line Item Veto.

Maybe the word 'handcuff' applies to both.

Answer 8

Yes, just another right gone.

Result? Bigger government that has turned against us.

BS.