I have for most of my life had trouble with the law that evidence gathered in a so-called unlawful way by the police was inadmissible in court. While serving jury duty this was especially upsetting to me. When the judge asked the list of question of the jurors to which you were to answer yes or no I was always the one answering no when the correct answer was yes. So upsetting were these laws that so favored the criminal in fact I finally took the easy way out and discovered a way not to serve jury duty: When I was questioned by the attorney’s I simply found a way to inject “I majored in Psychology”. No way did anyone want some psych nut on the jury!
I am happy to see that the Supreme Court that has really made some very bad decisions IMO is now possibly making a good one. BB
Headlines: Supreme Court Steps Closer to Repeal of Evidence Ruling
http://www.nytimes.com/todaysheadlines
“This month, Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the majority in Herring v. United States, a 5-to-4 decision, took a big step toward the goal he had discussed a quarter-century before. Taking aim at one of the towering legacies of the Warren Court, its landmark 1961 decision applying the exclusionary rule to the states, the chief justice’s majority opinion established for the first time that unlawful police conduct should not require the suppression of evidence if all that was involved was isolated carelessness. That was a significant step in itself. More important yet, it suggested that the exclusionary rule itself might be at risk”
The United States takes a distinctive approach to the exclusionary rule, requiring automatic suppression of physical evidence in some kinds of cases. That means, in theory at least, that relatively minor police misconduct can result in the suppression of conclusive evidence of terrible crimes.
Other nations balance the two interests case by case or rely on other ways to deter police wrongdoing directly, including professional discipline, civil lawsuits and criminal prosecution.
In Herring, Chief Justice Roberts seemed to be advocating those kinds of approaches. “To trigger the exclusionary rule,” he wrote, “police conduct must be sufficiently deliberate that exclusion can meaningfully deter it, and sufficiently culpable that such deterrence is worth the price paid by the justice system.”
That price, the chief justice wrote, “is, of course, letting guilty and possibly dangerous defendants go free.”
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Unfortunately, I have a little bit of personal experience in this arena which does not necessarily lead me to disagree with you, but makes me pause to weigh other considerations.
In theory, the rule is supposed to deter officials from engaging in certain activities which might violate one’s Constitutional rights.
When I first starting practicing, I worked for the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office, and tried roughly 23 jury trials to verdict in my first year. I will never forget the first time that a policeman (actually a Sheriff’s Deputy), unabashedly asked, “What do I need to say to get this guy?” There was no question that he was willing to lie to achieve what he perceived to be “justice.” In many instances, police officers want to get someone who they regard as a “bad person,” and will simply await for the fact situation which makes it easiest to prove.
I also recall one of the defendants, who I had convicted for a bank robbery some months before, suggesting to me that although he was guilty of the bank robbery, he did not do the liquor store heist for which I was prosecuting him at the time. He pointed out some very questionable behavior on the part of the arresting authorities.
Another thing. Some years after I left the office and the O.J. verdict, there was much discussion about whether the police tamper with evidence. Although people argued back and forth about Mark Furman and whether the blood evidence was tampered with, very few news outlets outside of California focused on the Rafael Perez scandal. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafael_P%C3%A9rez_(police_officer). Suffice it to say, this dirty cop implicated a large number of other cops who had planted evidence, and all sorts of other things just to get a conviction. So it was not particularly far-fetched that some jurors felt that there was a “reasonable possibility” that some tampering may have taken place in the O.J. case.”
While the “fruits of poisonous search” approach has its problems, there are some other factors. The DA who taught me trial tactics was previously in the Santa Barbara DA’s Office. At some point in the past, they filmed the activities of the officers on the scene. Something to consider. Nothing is perfect.
Oh, I must agree with you on this that so many bad guys get away with it that some cops get angry enough to go overboard. But I still feel too many criminals have walked for no really good reason. There has to be some reasonable way to handle evidence gotten by accident.
by the way, I think I must be the only human on Earth except the 12 jurors who thinks O.J. is innocent. Things simply didn’t add up to me. Like where was all the blood? A spot on a sock?
He ran because he knew he was the top and possibly only suspect. The ex husband always is. And while the cops were chasing him up and down the freeways the real killer was getting away.