Exclusionary Rule Abolishment - Essay Example

According to Wikipedia online, define Exclusionary rule is a legal principle in the United States, under constitutional law that holds that evidence collected or analyzed in violation of the defendant’s constitutional rights is inadmissible for criminal prosecution in a court of law.

The exclusionary rule can be seen as a prophylactic Rule formulated by the judiciary to protect a constitutional right of the person. It also desires to provide a remedy and disincentive short of criminal prosecution, for prosecutors and the police who illegally gather evidence in violation of the fourth and fifth amendments in the Bill of Rights.

It was applied in 1955 in California supreme court in a case between people V. Cahan, so by almost 1960, 22 states in the USA adopted the rule, this is California, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennesse, Washington, Texas, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming, Michigan.

Also sate like Alabama, Maryland, and South Dakota, have applied the rule only on narcotics and firearms evidence.

A case of People V. Albea (1954) ruled that testimony from a witness found in the course of an unlawful search without a warrant cannot be admitted in court in Illinois.

Therefore if we look at the applications of the Exclusionary rule, it applied only to evidence obtained through unauthorized search and seizing under the Fourth Amendment of the American Constitution.

And exclusionary Rule has a limitation because does not apply in a civil case or a grand jury proceeding.

Also, the Exclusionary Rule does not bar the introduction of all evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth, Fifth, or Sixth Amendments in case of Criminal cases. See Hudson V. Michigan, 547. U.S. 586, 126 S. Ct. 2159 (June 1, 2006), Justice Scalia writes for US Supreme Court.

Suppression of evidence, however, has always been our last resort, not our first impulse. The exclusionary rule generates "substantial social costs", United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 907 (1984), which sometimes includes setting the guilty free and the dangerous at large. We have therefore been "cautious against expanding" it, Colorado v. Connelly, 479 U.S. 157, 166 (1986), and "have repeatedly emphasized that the rule's 'costly toll' upon truth-seeking and law enforcement objectives presents a high obstacle for those urging [its] application", Pennsylvania Bd. of Probation and Parole v. Scott, 524 U.S. 357, 364-365 (1998) (citation omitted). We have rejected "indiscriminate application" of the rule, Leon, supra, at 908, and have held it to be applicable only "where its remedial objectives are thought most efficaciously served," United States v. Calandra, 414 U.S. 338, 348 (1974) -- that is, "where its deterrence benefits outweigh its 'substantial social costs,'" Scott, supra, at 363, (quoting Leon, supra, at 907). Whether the exclusionary sanction is appropriately imposed in a particular case is an issue separate from the question of whether the Fourth Amendment rights of the party seeking to invoke the rule were violated by police conduct

I would not support the abolished of Exclusionary Rule in the United States because without it police will act in an unprofessional manner, that with result in an invasion of the privacy of American citizens. Because it protects innocent people from wrongful searches or whose rights are violated by law enforcement.

Therefore the Exclusionary Rule should remain as part of constitutional law in American to protect its citizen from unlawful invasion by security agents.