Also known as: rule of exclusion · exclusion rules · exclusionary rules · exclusionary rule
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
A judicially created remedy that bars the admission at trial of evidence obtained through violations of constitutional rights. The doctrine applies in criminal proceedings to deter official misconduct by removing the incentive to conduct unlawful searches, interrogations, or other constitutional violations. Courts have recognized several exceptions when the deterrent purpose would not be served.
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State police enter Ralph Richardson's home without a warrant and seize documents. At his state trial for fraud, the prosecutor offers the documents. The court must exclude them because the exclusionary rule applies to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment and bars evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
Detective Ortiz relies on a dispatcher's report from an outdated database showing an active warrant for Ronald Reed. Officers arrest Reed and seize his laptop containing evidence of theft. The court admits the laptop because the officers acted in objectively reasonable reliance on the warrant information despite the isolated clerical mistake.
Officers unlawfully search Riley Rivera's car and find drugs. The prosecution shows that a routine inventory search would have occurred minutes later at the impound lot and would have revealed the same drugs. The court admits the evidence under the inevitable discovery exception.
Officers obtain a warrant for Raymond Ramos's storage unit based on an affidavit later found to lack probable cause. They seize falsified records during the search. The court admits the evidence because the officers reasonably relied on the warrant issued by a neutral magistrate.
Prosecutors introduce Ruby Rivera's recorded statement to police accusing Renata Russo of assault. Russo had no prior opportunity to cross-examine Ruby. The court excludes the statement because it is testimonial hearsay admitted without satisfying confrontation requirements.
After receiving Miranda warnings, Ralph Richardson remains silent during questioning. At trial he testifies to an alibi. The prosecutor seeks to use the silence to impeach. The court bars the use because post-Miranda silence cannot be used against the defendant.
The exception applies when officers reasonably rely on a warrant issued by a neutral magistrate even if the warrant later lacks probable cause. Suppression is required only if the officers' reliance was unreasonable because the warrant was facially deficient, the magistrate abandoned neutrality, or officers misled the magistrate with false information.
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…recently fixed as Department of Justice policy. See Beaney, Right to Counsel 29-30, 36-42 (1955). In Mapp , which imposed the exclusionary rule on the States for Fourth Amendment violations, more than half of the States had themselves already adopted some such rule. See 367 U. S., at 651. In Gideon , which extended Johnson v.…
…to establish reliability. This is not to deny, as The Chief Justice notes, that "[t]here were always exceptions to the general rule of exclusion" of hearsay evidence. Post , at 73. Several had become well established by 1791. See 3 Wigmore § 1397, at 101; Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 13, n. 5. But there is scant…
…to that very formal category. But the English cases that were the progenitors of the Confrontation Clause did not limit the exclusionary rule to prior court testimony and formal depositions, see Crawford, supra, at 52 , and n. 3. In any event, we do not think it conceivable that the protections of the Confrontation Clause can…
…capable of preventing the jury from considering the prejudicial evidence, does as a matter of form provide a way around the exclusionary rules of evidence that is defensible because it “probably furthers, rather than impedes, the search for truth . . . .” Nash v. United States , 54 F.2d 1006, 1007. Insofar as this implies the…
…Amendment in such cases, and that the two guarantees of personal security conjoined in the Fourteenth Amendment to make the exclusionary rule obligatory upon the States. We relied upon the great case of Boyd v. United States , 116 U. S. 616, decided in 1886, which, considering the Fourth and Fifth Amendments as running "almost…
Yes. The fruit-of-the-poisonous-tree doctrine requires suppression of evidence discovered by exploiting an earlier illegality unless the government shows an independent source, attenuation, or inevitable discovery. A warrant obtained primarily from information gained in an unlawful search does not purge the taint.
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Attenuation occurs when the warrant is an intervening circumstance that breaks the causal chain. Courts weigh temporal proximity, the presence of intervening circumstances, and the purpose and flagrancy of the misconduct. A preexisting valid warrant discovered during an unlawful stop typically dissipates the taint if the officer's conduct was not flagrant.
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Yes. A statement obtained without Miranda warnings is inadmissible in the case in chief but may be used for impeachment if it was voluntary. The exclusionary rule for Miranda violations is not absolute and permits limited defensive use to test credibility.
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