Posted on 07/18/2008 12:03:59 PM PDT by reaganaut1
...
The United States is the only country to take the position that some police misconduct must automatically result in the suppression of physical evidence. The rule applies whether the misconduct is slight or serious, and without regard to the gravity of the crime or the power of the evidence.
“Foreign countries have flatly rejected our approach,” said Craig M. Bradley, an expert in comparative criminal law at Indiana University. “In every other country, it’s up to the trial judge to decide whether police misconduct has risen to the level of requiring the exclusion of evidence.”
But there are signs that some justices on the United States Supreme Court may be ready to reconsider the American version of the exclusionary rule. Writing for the majority two years ago, Justice Antonin Scalia said that at least some unconstitutional conduct ought not require “resort to the massive remedy of suppressing evidence of guilt.”
The court will soon have an opportunity to clarify matters. The justices will hear arguments on Oct. 7 about whether methamphetamines and a gun belonging to Bennie Dean Herring, of Brundidge, Ala., should be suppressed because the officers who conducted the search mistakenly believed he was subject to an outstanding arrest warrant as a result of the careless record-keeping of another police department.
Elsewhere in the world, courts have rejected what the Ontario appeals court in Mr. Harrison’s case called “the automatic exclusionary rule familiar to American Bill of Rights jurisprudence.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Well... than go ahead and start arresting everyone who says something bad about the government on the charge that it’s “Hate Speech”.
than = then
“The United States is the only country to take the position that some police misconduct must automatically result in the suppression of physical evidence.”
That’s because America tends to believe in these things called “rights” for all citizens regardless of what they may have done.
Ping
A mechanism to keep LEO’s sharp, effective and on the straight and narrow. Sure, let’s get rid of that, right?
If there is no writ you must aquit.
I'll believe in that when I hear that Lon Horiuchi is in prison for murder.
Is Scalia going to recite “foreign law?”
Don’t blame LH, blame the agency he worked for and his superiors for the fact they should not have even been there.
If this happens there will be zero incentive for law enforcement to care about any of our constitutional rights. Why bother with a search warrant at all?
How sad that our Justices are so ignorant.
I hope not. Strange words coming from him.
Scalia has a point. Why do people doing bad things get a pass because of a LEO mistake? I understand the need to protect against police abuses but do we let the child molester, islamic terrorist, rapist or other criminal go and feel superior about it because someone errs?
It is already the law in Georgia that an officer may rely on the reports of other police departments (and transmissions on the radio) as "probable cause" for a warrant.
The key is the reasonable reliance on what appears to be accurate information.
If that becomes the law in Alabama (and nationally), it won't change Fourth Amendment law very much.
Yes, because as a matter of public policy the system of incentives currently in place offers the greatest level of protection to the most people.
What happens if the police purposely blunder, to get someone they know or like off? This is a problem, esp in small towns. I know.
The rule is idiotic, and has in some cases led to violent criminals going free and killing/maiming/raping again. If there is police misconduct, punish the misconduct (in the case described, it was not the officers who conducted the search, but the staff responsible for the sloppy recordkeeping.
They do not care now. Dock their pay, and then you'll see full compliance.
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