Question

The exclusionary rule being invoked often results in a guilty suspect going free due to police error during investigation and evidence seizure. How do you feel about this? Should the fact that the wrongfully seized evidence proves the suspect's guilt override any 4th Amendment concerns? Explain your answer.

Answer 1

I really feel disappointing when the exclusionary rule being invoked results in a guilty suspect, who is a real culprit, going free due to police error during investigation and evidence seizure. While many legal systems exclude some evidence, which are deemed irrelevant or untrustworthy but the constitutional exclusionary rule is very unusual in rejecting a highly probative evidence, often with the consequence of nullifying a meritorious prosecution. It is therefore not surprising that the exclusionary rule has occasion sustained and sometimes bitter controversy.

No, the wrongfully seized evidence proving the suspect’s guilt override is not a concern to 4^th Amendment because there are more disadvantages than advantages of abandoning the exclusionary rule because the exclusionary rule is present to ensure that the police officers are doing their jobs. It is there to prevent the extreme behavior of police and protect the people. If the police do not have a warrant stating a probable cause, then they have no right to search the place. The exclusionary rule falls in combination with the 4^th, 5^th and 6^th Amendment. The “good faith” and the “fruit of poisonous tree” also are combined with the exclusionary rule. Without the exclusionary rule, people would not have their rights and privacy as an individual. And at times it happens that an innocent person is wrongfully framed (e.g. some real criminal hiding/placing an illegal weapon in an innocent person’s place) and at that time exclusionary rule comes to that innocent person’s safety.