Mitchell Slatton
Into to Courts JPP 104
April 16, 2015
Should the Exclusionary Rule be Abolished?
Who is being punished with the exclusionary rule, society or the police? For years people have argued if the exclusionary rule is significantly helping the rather obvious criminal. By abolishing the exclusionary rule people will argue that it violates our fourth amendment right that protects us from unreasonable search and seizures. The exclusionary run is said to protect us against policeman misconduct, however, Policeman as professionals should be trusted to be fair without lots of rules being forced upon them. The exclusionary rule protects guilty people rather than innocent ones, there are other ways to protect people who are wrongfully searched or whose rights are violated. The exclusionary rule should be abolished.
The exclusionary rule prohibits the prosecutor from using illegally obtained evidence during a trial. Before the exclusionary rule was established in 1914 in a case of Weeks v. United States any evidence, however obtained was admissible in a court of law. With the exclusionary rule establish in 1914 it wasn’t until 1949, in a case of Wolf v. Colorado did the Supreme Court take its first steps in connecting this rule to our fourth and fourteenth amendments. The mandate did not come until 1961, in…show more content… Exclusionary evidence is often called or compared to, “fruit of the poisonous tree.” The poisonous tree refers to the illegally obtain evidence and the fruit derivative evidence or knowledge gained from the illegal act. There are a few exceptions to the exclusionary rule: If the officer is acting in good faith, there was an independent source of knowledge, the evidence was inevitably going to be found, or that enough time has passed and the evidence could be once more admissible in the