THE EXCLUSIONARY RULE FRUIT OF THE POISON TREE DOCTRINE
The Exclusionary Rule is a fundamental constitutional principle ofcriminal procedure law in the United States. Generally, it prohibits thecriminal trial of any evidence seized or otherwise obtained in violation ofAmendment to the Constitution. Under the Exclusionary Rule, improperlyevidence that leads to the subsequent discovery of other incriminatingautomatically invalidates or "poisons" the newly discovered derivativesame way that a poisonous tree taints the fruits growing on any of its While it derives from the Fourth Amendment, it is not actuallyanywhere within the text of the Constitution or its Amendments. In fact,judicially created more than a century after the Constitution was ratifiedthe Fourth Amendment included within the Bill of Rights in 1791 (Tinsley). "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, house, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probab
Intheir view, enforcing the doctrine does not undermine the legitimate aimsoflaw enforcement, because exceptions built into its application alreadyprotect theadmissibility of evidence where it is warranted to further the interest ofjusticewithout threatening the rights of (even) those actually guilty of criminalconduct. Therefore, where constitutional violations are purely honest,accidental andmade in good faith, the purpose underlying the exclusionary rule is not atissue, as it isin the case of knowing or willful police misconduct (Barnett). Similarly, where police or state agents can demonstrate that thederivativeevidence discovered through the use of illegally obtained evidence wouldlikely havebeen discovered anyway by other (non constitutionally violative) means, thederivative evidence is allowed, even though it was also tainted under thenormal scopeof the Poison Fruit doctrine. Critics of the doctrine point out that thelanguage of theFourth Amendment merely prohibits the conduct of state agents to procureevidencethrough constitutionally impermissible means, but does not actually setforth anyspecific remedy or necessarily invalidate the evidence from introduction attrial. During thistime, therules of evidence in criminal cases paralleled the focus of civil courts,in that theyvalued the truthfulness and reliability of evidence sufficiently tooutweigh anyconstitutional violations inherent merely in its procurement (Tinsley). To sanction such [methods of evidence gathering] would be to affirm by judicial decision a manifest neglect if not an open defiance of the prohibitions of the Constitution, intended for the protection of the people against such unauthorized action. " (Weeks v. United States,inwhich it established a dramatic change that ultimately reshaped lawenforcement andcriminal procedure in America by making the Boyd ruling federal law. Several more recent Supreme Court decisions extended the exceptions to thedoctrine to include innocent police or state errors, such as good faithclerical errors inimproperly drafted search warrants and honest misinterpretation on the partof policeagents engaging in conduct they believe is constitutionally permissible(Jackson).
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