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¶ … Exclusionary Rule
Criminal Justice
The Exclusionary Rule is a significant and difficult to consider and discuss. The Exclusionary Rule is a rule that holds law enforcement accountable to the legal system and the justice system. The Exclusionary Rule essentially mandates that all evidence to be permissible in a court of law must be obtained legally and through actions of relevant law enforcement agencies lawfully. This rule may seem like it is in favor of criminals or alleged criminals, but in a system, there need to be checks and balances. The American justice system is predicated on an attitude of "guilty until proven innocent" not, "when they seem fairly guilty they probably are." The Exclusionary Rule holds the police accountable for their actions. Frankly, there is evidence and a long history of corruption within law enforcement in the United States. This corruption sometimes has to do with evidence tampering; sometimes it is something otherwise. The point is, there are enough corrupt cops already...
I think there are a number of both corrupt and dedicated cops who put their lives in risk for living that already do whatever they can to obtain evidence. If the rule did not exist, cops would clearly have the power to do whatever they wanted in order to produce evidence in investigations against alleged criminals.
Those who are critical of the American legal and justice systems may contend that even with the Exclusionary Rule, law enforcement finds ways to enter legally inadmissible evidence into investigations, some of which lead to convictions. Without the Exclusionary Rule, other fundamental aspects of the American justice system would rapidly decay and/or become completely hollow. What would the Bill of Rights mean without the Exclusionary Rule? How would the courts be able to perform due process without this rule? Due process and the Bill of Rights, and perhaps other aspects of the Constitution would become hollow or moot…
Exclusionary Rule excludes tainted evidence from some criminal proceedings, the rationale being protection of 4th, 5th and 6th Amendment rights by control of law enforcement behavior. However, there are a number of exceptions to the Rule for various reasons, as well as alternative remedies for law enforcement's unconstitutional actions. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court created the Exclusionary Rule for several well-founded reasons. Analysis of the Rationale and Purpose of the Exclusionary Rule,
The U.S., however, is the only industrial democracy, common law or otherwise, in which courts must throw out tainted evidence in criminal trials. The U.S. Supreme Court decisions establishing and expanding on this principle have collectively come to be known as the "exclusionary rule." Although the rule had its origins in arguments about the morality of obtaining a conviction while relying on improperly obtained evidence, its primary modern justification
For example, one provision of the Patriot Act "permitted law enforcement to obtain access to tapping stored voicemails by obtaining a basic search warrant rather than a surveillance warrant," even though "obtaining the former requires a much lower evidentiary showing" and wiretapping more accurately seems to mirror surveillance technology, rather than single-incident searches of the premises for specific items (Fourth amendment, 2009, Wex Law). Another provision of the Patriot
An exception to this is a search conducted by officer acting in objective "good faith" and wit the inclusion of a warrant obtained on the basis of probable cause. A further provision holds that, if a jury has reasonable reason to believe that the evidence was obtained in violation of the Article, it should disregard the evidence obtained. The Texas Penal Code works in tandem with the exclusionary rule, in
Exclusionary rule exists to protect the rights of citizens to due process when accused or suspected of criminal activities. There are therefore certain constitutional specifications according to which incriminating information can be seized. Without adhering to these specifications, seized items cannot be allowed as evidence against an accused person in a criminal trial. There are, however, certain exceptions to the exclusionary rule, including fleeing suspects and the good faith exception. In
The Court cited language from Boyd in support of its proposition. The Boyd Court had held that the Fourth and Fifth Amendments "apply to all invasions on the part of the government and its employees of the sanctity of a man's home and the privacies of life. It is not the breaking of his doors, and the rummaging of his drawers, that constitutes the essence of the offence; but