FANS of television shows such as “Law and Order” are familiar with the so-called “exclusionary rule”: when police obtain evidence of a crime through illegal means, the evidence is usually inadmissible in court. This rule, an outgrowth of the Fourth Amendment bar on “unreasonable searches and seizures”, deters police from violating citizens’ constitutional rights when undertaking criminal investigations. But the rule just became something closer to a suggestion: on June 20th the Supreme Court divided along gender lines in a 5-3 decision that introduces a loophole in rules for obtaining evidence that were developed more than 50 years ago.
The case, Utah v Strieff, involves a dodgy drug bust. Responding to an anonymous tip that drugs were being sold from a house in South Salt Lake City, Utah, detective Doug Fackrell started keeping an eye on the property. He didn’t see much from his unmarked car, but he did notice—in the several hours he spent watching over the course of a week—people visiting the home and then quickly leaving.
Without keeping track of how long one such visitor spent at the house, Mr Fackrell decided to stop the man, Edward Strieff, for questioning. The detective discovered, after a colleague ran his name through a database, that Mr Strieff had an open warrant for a traffic violation. Mr Strieff was...Continue reading
Source: United States http://ift.tt/28SqTDF
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