The exclusionary rule is a legal principle in the United States, under constitutional law, which holds that evidence collected or analyzed in violation of the defendant's constitutional rights is sometimes inadmissible for a criminal prosecution in a court of law. This may be considered an example of a prophylactic rule formulated by the judiciary in order to protect a constitutional right. However, in some circumstances at least, the exclusionary rule may also be considered to follow directly from the constitutional language, such as the Fifth Amendment's command that no person "shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself" and that no person "shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law".
"The exclusionary rule is grounded in the Fourth Amendment and it is intended to protect citizens from illegal searches and seizures." The exclusionary rule is also designed to provide a remedy and disincentive, which is short of criminal prosecution in response to prosecutors and police who illegally gather evidence in violation of the Fifth Amendment in the Bill of Rights compelled to self-incrimination. The exclusionary rule also applies to violations of the Sixth Amendment, which guarantees the right to counsel.
Most states also have their own exclusionary remedies for illegally obtained evidence under their state constitutions and/or statutes, some of which predate the federal constitutional guarantees against unlawful searches and seizures and compelled self-incrimination.
This rule is occasionally referred to as a legal technicality because it allows defendants a defense that does not address whether the crime was actually committed. In this respect, it is similar to the explicit rule in the Fifth Amendment protecting people from double jeopardy. In strict cases, when an illegal action is used by police/prosecution to gain any incriminating result, all evidence whose recovery stemmed from the illegal action—this evidence is known as "fruit of the poisonous tree"—can be thrown out from a jury (or be grounds for a mistrial if too much information has been irrevocably revealed).
The exclusionary rule applies to all persons within the United States regardless of whether they are citizens, immigrants (legal or illegal), or visitors.
Read more about Exclusionary Rule: History of The Rule, Limitations of The Rule, Criticism
Other articles related to "exclusionary rule, rule":
... The exclusionary rule as it has developed in the United States has been long criticized, even by respected jurists and commentators ... principles of American law, was strongly opposed to the rule, stating that under the rule, "The criminal is to go free because the constable has blundered." In the ... Oaks, Malcolm Wilkey, and others called for the exclusionary rule to be abolished ...
... Ohio (1961), the Supreme Court created the exclusionary rule, which generally operates to suppress - i.e ... The exclusionary rule generates substantial social costs, which sometimes include setting the guilty free and the dangerous at large." In United States v ... Leon, the Supreme Court clarified that the exclusionary rule "operates as a judicially created remedy designed to safeguard Fourth Amendment rights generally through its ...
... Justice Stevens took issue with the notion that the exclusionary rule served to deter only police misconduct ... Because the Fourth Amendment constrains the power of the sovereign, the exclusionary rule — the remedy for violating the Fourth Amendment — should "impose costs on that sovereign, motivating it to train ... To say that the exclusionary rule did not apply in this situation was, therefore, not entirely accurate for Justice Stevens ...
... the case were too vague to definitively rule on the question ... grounded the entrapment defense, like the exclusionary rule, in the court's supervisory role over law enforcement ... And like the exclusionary rule, they would have had judges, not juries, decide whether a defendant had been entrapped as a matter of law ...
... witnesses because "the damage to that institution from the unprecedented extension of the exclusionary rule outweighs the benefit of any possible incremental deterrent effect." The issue. 897 (1984), the Supreme Court, applying the "good faith" rule, ruled that evidence seized by officers relying in good faith on a warrant was still admissible ... United States (2009), that the exclusionary rule does not apply to evidence found due to negligence regarding a government database, as long as the arresting police officer relied on that database in "good faith" and ...
Famous quotes containing the word rule:
“It seems to be a rule of wisdom never to rely on your memory alone, scarcely even in acts of pure memory, but to bring the past for judgment into the thousand-eyed present, and live ever in a new day.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)