The Exclusionary Rule— Search and Seizure

1. The Exclusionary Rule— Search and Seizure

2. The Exclusionary Rule • The rule that provides that illegally obtained evidence will be excluded from use in a criminal trial.

3. The Exclusionary Rule • The rule exludes the introduction of evidence whenever police obtain the evidence in a manner that violates a person’s constitutional rights.

4. Rights Affected by the Exclusionary Rule • The Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures • The Sixth amendment right to counsel • The Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, and • The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments rights to due process of law • The protections afforded by the Miranda decision

5. An Interesting Distinction • The exclusionary rule is not truly a rule of evidence. • Rules of evidence were developed to regulate the flow of information presented in a courtroom to find the historical facts of a legal dispute.

6. The Distinction Discussedand Explained • Principles of trustworthiness, reliability, and necessity came to bear in formulating the rules of evidence. • The exclusionary rule seeks to promote a different value – to protect certain constitutional rights of individual citizens.

7. The Exclusionary Rule—Court Created • In the case of Weeks v. United States (1914), the U.S. Supreme Court adopted the Fourth Amendment search and seizure exclusionary rule for the first time. • In the case of Mapp v. Ohio (1961), the Court applied the exclusionary rule in search and seizures in state trials.

8. Mapp v. Ohio • In Mapp, the Supreme Court stated a number of justifications for the exclusionary rule, including deterrence of unlawful police conduct and the notion that the courts should not participate in such illegality by allowing the fruits of it into evidence. • “We hold that all evidence obtained by searches and seizures in violation of the Constitution is, by that same authority, inadmissible in a state court.”

9. Development of the Exclusionary Rule and Its Exceptions • According to common law, the fact that evidence was illegally obtained did not exclude it from being admitted in court against the accused. • The rule was that if evidence was relevant to the case and aided in proving an issue at trial, then the evidence should be admitted. • The courts did not concern themselves with how the evidence was obtained. • Moreover, the exclusionary rule was at one time unique to the American system of justice.

10. End of the Silver Platter Doctrine • State officers who obtained evidence illegally could hand it over to federal officers for prosecution in federal court. • The silver platter doctrine ended with the 1960 United States Supreme Court case of Elkins v. United States.

11. Elkins v. United States • The Court held that evidence illegally obtained by a state officer, was inadmissible in a federal prosecution. • The test applied is: • Evidence obtained unlawfully by a state officer is treated the same as if obtained in the same manner by a federal officer.

12. Philosophy of theExclusionary Rule • The first and most significant rationale, or justification, is the deterrence rationale—to deter police officers from disregarding the Constitution. • The second rationale is the need to maintain judicial integrity. Judges cannot be accomplices to illegality by allowing the introduction of illegally obtained evidence.

13. United States v. LeonThe Good Faith Exception • Police officers executed a warrant under a good faith belief that the warrant was supported by probable cause. • Later, it turned out that the warrant was invalid for lack of probable cause. • The Court said: “[i]n the absence of an allegation that the magistrate abandoned his detached and neutral role, [exclusion of evidence] is appropriate only if the officers were dishonest or reckless in preparing their affidavit or could not have harbored an objectively reasonable belief in the existence of probable cause.”

14. The Exclusionary Rule:The Good Faith Exception • This exception to the exclusionary rule allows the admission of evidence even if there is some technical defect in the warrant, as long as the executing officer has an objectively reasonable belief that the warrant is valid.

15. The Exclusionary Rule: The Good Faith Exception • The essential test for the good faith exception exists: • when an officer • in executing a search warrant • has an objectively reasonable belief that the warrant is valid, • then the evidence may be admissible at trial even if there is some technical defect in the warrant.

16. The Exception to the Exception • When there is a warrant and a reasonably well-trained officer realizes that the search warrant is invalid, then the “good faith” exception would not apply.

17. Maryland v. GarrisonApplication of the Good Faith Doctrine • Police obtained a search warrant for a third floor apartment of a person named McWebb. • It was unknown that the third floor had more than one apartment. • Police discovered paraphernalia in the Garrison apartment which was not included in the warrant.

18. Maryland v. GarrisonApplication of the Good Faith Doctrine • Police were in the wrong apartment, didn’t know it, and seized items not mentioned in the warrant. • The Court upheld the search because the officers executed the search warrant under a good faith, though mistaken, belief that they were acting within the scope of the warrant.

19. The Exclusionary Rule:The Impeachment Exception • The exception to the exclusionary rule that allows the prosecution to use evidence illegally seized from the accused in violation of his or her Fourth Amendment rights for the limited purpose, at trial, of impeaching the accused during direct examination or cross-examination.

20. Search And Seizure • The Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures, and provides that no warrants for search and seizure shall be issued without probable cause.

21. Subjects of the Search • The search for and seizure of evidence is not confined to physical, tangible objects. • The object of a search or seizure may be the fruits of a crime, materials used in a crime, evidence of a crime, weapons, contraband, or a person.

22. Search and SeizureDistinctions • A search is one act and a seizure is another: It is possible to conduct a search and not make a seizure, or there may be a seizure without a search. • It is quite possible to have authority to search, but not to seize; or, authority to seize but not to search. • The legality of a seizure of an object is usually dependent upon the legality of the search, but an illegal seizure may stem from a legal search.

23. Historically–What Is a Search? • A person was deemed to have Fourth Amendment protection in his or her home or other areas in which the person had a property interest. • If the police intruded onto such property, even slightly, a search occurred.

24. Katz v. United States (1967)A Change in the Meaning of “Search” • Katz was convicted of transmitting wagers in interstate commerce through the use of a telephone booth. • FBI agents had attached an electronic listening device to the booth and recorded Katz’s conversations. • The recordings were used as evidence at trial. • On appeal, the Supreme Court ruled that a search could occur without a physical entry.

25. Katz v. United States • The Fourth Amendment protects people, not places. • What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection. . . . • But what he seeks to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public may be constitutionally protected. . . .

26. The Reasonable Expectationof Privacy Test • The test is whether: • The person alleging that a search occurred has exhibited an actual, subjective, expectation of privacy in the place searched. • The person's expectation is one that society is prepared to recognize as reasonable or legitimate. If both are present, then there is a search.

27. Search Issue:The False Friend Doctrine • What a person willingly reveals to another, on the assumption that the other is a friend, is thereby revealed to the world if the so-called friend turns out to be no friend at all.

28. Hoffa v. United StatesFalse Friend Doctrine • A government informant attended meetings between Jimmy Hoffa, who was on trial for perjury, and Hoffa’s attorney. • During the meetings, Hoffa talked freely about his actions. • The informer relayed the information to the FBI and it helped convict Hoffa. • On appeal, the Supreme Court relied upon an “assumption of the risk” theory to conclude that there was no search in this situation.

29. Search Issue:Open Fields Doctrineand Curtilage • People do not have a legitimate expectation of privacy in open fields even if law enforcement officers trespass upon private property in order to observe the open fields.

30. Hester v. United StatesOpen Fields Doctrine • Federal officers had gone past “No Trespassing” signs onto private property where they saw marijuana growing. • The marijuana was growing in fields that were not visible unless one entered the private property. • The officers walked around a gate and through a private woods in two separate instances. • The Court concluded, under the open fields doctrine, that people do not have a legitimate expectation of privacy in open fields.

31. Curtilage Distinguished From Open Fields • In Oliver v. United States, the Court distinguished open fields from the curtilage, i.e., the land immediately surrounding and associated with the home.

32. Technologically Enhanced Activities • In Smith v. Maryland, the Court found that the installation and use of a pen register (a device that records the numbers dialed by a telephone) by the telephone company was not a search under the Fourth Amendment. • United States v. Karo involved a beeper in a chemical container, but the police used it to monitor the suspect's movements within private houses as well as public places. The Court found this monitoring to be a search since the property monitored had been removed from public view.

33. Technologically Enhanced Activities • While pointing a flashlight at night to illuminate an area open to public view does not trigger Fourth Amendment issues, there are a variety of devices that could, ranging from parabolic microphones to electronic tracking devices.

34. United States v. Knotts • Using visual as well as electronic monitoring, the officers were able to locate the suspects via their possession of the “beeperized” container even though they lost visual contact with the suspects.

35. A Concern of Technology • Technologically enhanced police activities could be subject to a principle other than the information gained by the officers — whether the technique used is so readily available that it can be said that there is no reasonable privacy expectation against its use by the public at large.

36. Aerial Surveillance:Navigable Airspace? • Navigable in a non-obtrusive manner, such aerial surveillance, not enhanced technologically, does not constitute a search even though the observations were of activities taking place within the curtilage of private dwellings.

37. Miscellaneous Matters Pertaining to Defining What a Search Is • If the information obtained was available to the public, then the Court has concluded that there is no search. • Whether police conduct constitutes a search may depend upon such factors as the quantity or quality of information the conduct reveals. • The information revealed was very limited in nature, and the information would only disclose the presence or absence of contraband, which cannot be legally possessed.

38. Garbage and Privacy • When one places garbage for collection in containers out on the street, there is no legitimate expectation of privacy. • The Supreme Court concluded that garbage was outside the curtilage and concluded that the Fourth Amendment does not protect information knowingly exposed to the public.

39. What Is a Seizure? • Seizure of Property • Seizure of a Person

40. Seizure of Property • A seizure that occurs when there is some meaningful interference with an individual's possessory interest in that property. • Destruction of the property, taking the property from the person's possession, or preventing persons from entering or leaving their home constitute meaningful interferences with individuals' possessory interests.

41. Seizure of a Person • A seizure of a person occurs when: • (1) by means of physical force or show of authority, the person's freedom of movement is restrained; and, only if, • (2) in view of all of the circumstances surrounding the incident, a reasonable person would not have believed he or she were not free to leave.

42. Florida v. BostickStandard of Seizure • Officers boarded a bus during a stopover for a random check. • Officers questioned Bostick and received permission to search his luggage in which they found narcotics. • On appeal, the Court held that Bostick was not seized and the correct standard is whether “a reasonable person would feel free to decline the officers’ requests or otherwise terminate the encounter.”

43. Ways of Making a Reasonable Search and Seizure • Searches and seizures made pursuant to a search warrant. • Warrantless searches and seizures that have been declared reasonable via a “well delineated exception” to the warrant clause. • Less intrusive searches and seizures, which are made on less than probable cause, such as searches and seizures under the Terry doctrine, based on a “reasonable suspicion.”

44. Exceptions to the Warrant Clause • The six “well delineated” exceptions to the warrant clause are: • (1) search incident to a lawful arrest (SILA); • (2) consent; • (3) vehicle and container searches; • (4) inventory searches; • (5) exigent circumstances searches; and • (6) plain view searches.

45. Search Pursuant toa Search Warrant • The framers of this constitutional provision realized that there would be times when reasonable searches and seizures would be necessary and expedient for the protection of the people— when a crime has been committed and the perpetrator of that crime has attempted to conceal himself or the fruits of the crime.

46. Critical Point! • These requirements specifically prohibit general warrants, preventing a “general, exploratory rummaging in a person's belongings.”

47. Definition of Search Warrant • A search warrant is a written order, issued upon probable cause by a neutral and detached magistrate, in the name of the people, to a peace officer directing the officer to search a particular person or place, and to seize specifically described property and bring it before the magistrate.

48. Grounds for Issuinga Search Warrant (1) property that is the fruit of a crime, such as stolen or embezzled property; • (2) property that is an instrumentality of a crime, meaning that the property was used as the means of committing a crime, such as a gun used in a robbery; • (3) property that is evidence of a crime, tending to show that a felony has been committed or that a particular individual has committed a felony, such as a bloody shirt;

49. Grounds for Issuinga Search Warrant • (4) property that is contraband, meaning any property that is unlawful to produce or possess, such as narcotics; or • (5) persons for whom there is probable cause to believe they have on their person one of the types of property named in the first four categories, or for whom there is a warrant for their arrest.

50. Procedure to Obtain a Search Warrant The Officer’s Role: • The officer must be able to show that there is sufficient reason, or probable cause, to believe that one of the foregoing grounds for the issuance of a search warrant exists. • This belief must be based on facts articulated in a written and sworn application for a warrant, known as an affidavit.