Data Bases • Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism? Links • Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com Free Essays • Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • My Term Papers • Get Free Essays • Essay World • Planet Papers	Search Lots of Essays Back to Subjects - Political Science Exclusionary rule Exclusionary rule In order for the rights listed in the Constitution to have substance, there must be enforceable remedies imposed on the government for violations of those rights. In 1914, the U.S. Supreme Court, in the landmark case of Weeks v. United States,2 introduced the exclusionary rule as a remedy for violations of the Fourth Amendment.3 The Weeks Court felt that the only effective way to enforce the Fourth Amendment right to be secure from unreasonable searches and seizures was to adopt a rule that evidence seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment could not be used by the government against a defendant at trial. The Weeks Court further stated that a court should not sanction illegal government conduct by admitting into evidence the fruits of that illegal conduct. Later, in Silverthorne Lumber v. United States,4 the Supreme Court not only prohibited introducing into evidence those items directly seized during an illegal government search but also any evidence indirectly derived from that search. Originally, the exclusionary rule announced in Weeks did not apply to the states because at that time the Supreme Court limited the application of the Fourth Amendment to the Federal Government. Then, in 1949, the Supreme Court decided Wolf v. Colorado,5 wherein the Court applied the Fourth Amendment to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment due process clause. The Court considered the prohibition against unreasonable searches or seizures to be a right basic to a free society and implicit in the concept of ordered liberty. The Wolf Court, however, did not view the exclusionary rule as a necessary component of due process and refused to apply the exclusionary rule to the states as a remedy for a violation of the Fourth Amendment.6 In 1961, the Supreme Court decided Mapp v. Ohio,7 which in part overruled Wolf and applied the exclusionary rule to the states. The Mapp Court viewed other remedies, such as criminal sanctions, as being ineffective in ensuring compliance with the Fourth Amendment.8 Although the Mapp Court stated that the exclusionary rule was an essential part of both the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, subsequent Supreme Court decisions have abandoned that position. For example, in United States v. Leon 9 the Supreme Court stated that "[t]he Fourth Amendment contains no provision expressly precluding the use of evidence obtained in violation of its commands, and an examination of its commands and purposes makes clear that using fruits of a past unlawful search or seizure 'works no new Fourth Amendment wrong'"10 In United States v. Calandra,11 the Supreme Court stated: The purpose of the exclusionary rule is not to redress the injury to the privacy of the search victim....Instead, the rule's prime purpose is to deter future unlawful police conduct and thereby effectuate the guarantee of the Fourth Amendment against unreasonable search and seizures: 'The rule is calculated to prevent, not to repair.'...In sum, the rule is a judicially created remedy designed to safeguard Fourth Amendment rights generally through its deterrent effect, rather than a personal constitutional right of the party aggrieved.12 Although the exclusionary rule most often is applied to violations of the Fourth Amendment, it has been applied to other constitutional violations as well.13 The Supreme Court consistently has recognized that the inflexible application of the exclusionary rule would generate disrespect for the law and impede the administration of justice.14 With that in mind, and because the exclusionary rule is not considered a constitutionally required remedy, courts have carved out a number of exceptions and limitations to the rule, where to otherwise apply the rule would go beyond the limited goal of simply deterring illegal police conduct.15 For instance, most courts will not suppress evidence found during an illegal search when the evidence is also located through some independent lawful means. In Segura v. United States,16 officers illegally entered the defendant's premises without a warrant. The Supreme Court ruled that the evidence seen in plain view during the illegal entry should not have been suppressed because it ultimately was seized later during the execution of a valid search warrant. The warrant was based on information independent of the information acquired during the illegal entry. The primary purpose of the exclusionary rule is to deter illegal police conduct by excluding from evidence the fruits of that conduct. The exclusionary rule puts the government in the same position it would have been had there been no illegal conduct in the first place. The inevitable discovery exception ensures that the exclusionary rule does not go beyond that limited goal of deterring illegal police conduct by allowing into evidence those items that the police would have discovered legally anyway. Bibliography: Word Count: 772
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