Exclusionary Rule Analysis
Exclusionary Rule Analysis The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states that “[t]he right of people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized” (U.S. Const. amend. IV). When the Fourth Amendment rights of citizens are violated, the criminal justice system enforces the exclusionary rule, which seeks to discourage law enforcement officers from using improper or illegal investigative procedures. In Mapp v. Ohio, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded that the exclusionary rule was
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The police decided to enter Jones’s apartment without a warrant to find the drugs. The action of the police officer, an official of the government, entering Jones’s apartment without a warrant violated the defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights because it was a warrantless search. The defendant had a reasonable expectation of privacy in his own apartment, and there was no emergency occurring that would have justified a warrantless search; thus the evidence obtained would be inadmissible under the “fruit of the poisonous tree” rule, which rules that evidence obtained indirectly from improper conduct should be excluded. In a similar case, Florida v. Jardines, a police officer used a police dog to confirm that the defendant had drugs on his property. The officer then used that information to obtain a search warrant to obtain the suspected drugs on the property. In that case, the Supreme Court concluded that “the use of the trained narcotics dog to investigate [the defendant’s] home was a Fourth Amendment search unsupported by probable cause, rendering invalid the warrant based upon information gathered in that search” (Florida v. Jardines). Consulting the Jardines case, the drugs seized in the illegal, warrantless search is “the fruit of the poisonous tree,” and in order for the evidence to be admissible, the officer should have obtained a search warrant before stepping on Jones’s property with the police dog, and the warrant should have been supported probable cause in order for it to be
The police decided to enter Jones’s apartment without a warrant to find the drugs. The action of the police officer, an official of the government, entering Jones’s apartment without a warrant violated the defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights because it was a warrantless search. The defendant had a reasonable expectation of privacy in his own apartment, and there was no emergency occurring that would have justified a warrantless search; thus the evidence obtained would be inadmissible under the “fruit of the poisonous tree” rule, which rules that evidence obtained indirectly from improper conduct should be excluded. In a similar case, Florida v. Jardines, a police officer used a police dog to confirm that the defendant had drugs on his property. The officer then used that information to obtain a search warrant to obtain the suspected drugs on the property. In that case, the Supreme Court concluded that “the use of the trained narcotics dog to investigate [the defendant’s] home was a Fourth Amendment search unsupported by probable cause, rendering invalid the warrant based upon information gathered in that search” (Florida v. Jardines). Consulting the Jardines case, the drugs seized in the illegal, warrantless search is “the fruit of the poisonous tree,” and in order for the evidence to be admissible, the officer should have obtained a search warrant before stepping on Jones’s property with the police dog, and the warrant should have been supported probable cause in order for it to be