What happens when a police officer makes an unlawful stop, learns that the suspect has an outstanding warrant, and conducts a search incident to arrest? Should any evidence found subsequent to this ...
Although the U.S. Supreme Court speaks of the need for straightforward, bright-line rules to govern criminal procedure, its decisions often do not yield the desired results. This is not a criticism of ...
In 1949, Justice Frank Murphy dissented in the case of Wolf v. Colorado, passionately defending the exclusionary rule. He warned that "only by exclusion [of evidence] can we impress upon the zealous ...
Under the inevitable discovery exception to the exclusionary rule, evidence is admitted, even if it's the fruit of an unconstitutional search, if the government would have discovered the evidence ...
For people who care about civil liberties, it was definitely not a good thing when the Roberts Court decided to hear an exclusionary rule case this term. As Adam notes below, the Court's Wednesday ...
The vote came during consideration of the "Exclusionary Rule Reform Act of 1995," a law that would allow police to search your home without a warrant so long as they acted in "good faith," and was ...
In a divided opinion, the Tennessee Supreme Court has adopted a good-faith exception similar to one set forth by the United States Supreme Court in Herring v. United States, which held “that when ...
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds recently signed into law legislation allowing for greater use of audio evidence gained by surveillance systems. Under previous Iowa law, using audio evidence could destroy the ...
Does the U.S. Constitution forbid the government from using illegally obtained evidence against a criminal suspect in court? The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that it does. In the landmark 1914 case of ...
Dahda v. United States arguably poses a clash between two of the Supreme Court’s recent passions: strict adherence to statutory texts and cutting back on the exclusionary rule. This tension is unusual ...
In this case, the Minnesota Supreme Court is considering the scope of a crucial doctrine that protects criminal defendants from being convicted based on evidence obtained in violation of their ...