As much as I’d like to have that protection, it doesn’t appear supported by the text of the 4th amendment. I can see possible other interpretations, but the courts don’t seem to follow that route.
How have courts interpreted “papers, and effects”?
Took the words out of my mouth.
ETA: I’d also like to add there is a good faith exception to illegal search and seizure so the bad guys do not walk on a technicality. Seems ok in light of that to balance it with any illegal search and seizure is FOTPT…period.
I didn’t even have a warrant!
Do you feel that your rights are violated if your materials at someone else’s place are searched or confiscated as evidence when there is a warrant, but the warrant is completely unrelated to your evidence? (That is, police are investigating another crime and happen upon your evidence at that house.)
From the standpoint of your evidence in this hypothetical, is there a difference between a search with warrant and one without a legal warrant? In either case, you had given the police no probable cause to search your stuff.
There is a difference.
One is legal.
One is illegal.
A search with a warrant is by definition not an “illegal search and seizure”. The police are legally allowed to search the house. Your stuff there is then not privileged. It’s at the other house, the police are legally searching that house. Bad luck for you.
I’m assuming your answer is the same if there is no warrant, but the homeowner consents to a search.
So, though YOU have given no probable cause to the authorities, your stuff can be searched and used as evidence, as long as it’s at someone else’s place and there’s a legal warrant, even if the warrant is unrelated. Even if the 4th amendment protection is extended beyond one’s property, a person’s stuff STILL seems to have greater protection when on one’s own property (one can prevent searches on his own property by keeping his nose clean, but have no control over searches on others’ property).
Since you already have diminished rights on stuff not in your place of residence, why not just keep it simple and say it only applies to stuff in your residence?
And I think I know one answer, which it deprives us of another opportunity to punish the police for an unlawful search.
This is where I think we diverge – I don’t see this as a particular punishment against police (DAs and society are more affected). Because of this and because it seems to be the main enforcement arm of the 4th am., I don’t think it’s particularly effective in maintaining 4th am. rights. It seems particularly ineffective against preventing searches as harassment when no evidence is expected to be found.
I think a $1,000 fine levied against any officer (payable by the officer, not the department or union) engaged in unlawful search, regardless if evidence is found, would be far more effective than (or in conjunction with) the exclusionary rule. Not sure who would investigate the claims.
OK.
A burglar breaks into your house, and while he’s there, comes across your child porm collection. “Hey, I’m a thief, but I ain’t no kiddy fucker,” he self-righteously says. He calls the police and reports his findings.
Suppress? Or no?
The thing is, complete inadmissibility of the evidence is a very good deterrent. It makes the search pointless and, overwhelmingly, police don’t get their rocks off doing pointless things.
However, a $1,000 fine requires a conviction. Even without your problem of who investigates, how often do you think jury nullification would be a problem here?
I’m on the no side. The level it would have to get to for me to contemplate suppression is if the police were to make an announcement that they would not prosecute burglars in situations where they provided evidence of more serious crimes. Such a blanket policy would be tantamount to making the buglar an agent of the state, bringing in the 4th Amendment protection.
There might also be a problem with the perfectly legal existence of legal defense funds, mightn’t there? It would be the work of a moment for such a fund to be set up (and fully funded) to “defray the costs of Officer McSnooperson’s legal troubles.”
P.S. my post #59 is feeling neglected and unimportant. 
I didn’t think of legal defense funds. I thought if the fine were low enough to be handled by an administrative judge, you wouldn’t run into big jury trials, but $1000 would really bite into a cop’s wallet. I doubt many would pay directly into a LDF for Snoopers, but I could see the union chipping in, and it would be difficult to stop that.
So two questions:
[ol]
[li]If the exclusionary rule is such a deterrent, why does it seem to get invoked so often (at least on law & order :D)[/li][li]What protections/recourse are there for a citizen searched illegally but for whom no evidence is collected?[/li][/ol]
BTW, my neglected post #58 sheds no tears for your #59.
The first one, I dunno, because I don’t watch L&O. I’ll note two observations, though: [ol][li]It has not been established that Law & Order is an accurate/realistic representation of the American justice system.[/li][li]There might exist some attorneys, IRL and on cop shows both, who consider vigorous pursuit of their clients’ interests to require them to attempt exclusion of all evidence, just on general principles.[/li][/ol]
The second one, I dunno, 'cos I’m not a lawyer. But harrassment under color of authority might be an actionable civil tort.
At the risk of walking into a trap 
I would say do not suppress. The burglar is not an agent of the government, and unless it can be shown that the police have a wink and a nudge deal with criminals to do this sort of thing, then I think it is a legitimate bust.
I guess the difference in my mind is the fact that the exclusionary rule is there to prevent government abuses of the 4th amendment. If the police illegally search the neighbor’s home and find something, then the evidence is out to deter their malfeasance. If a burglar illegally enters your home, then that is just bad luck for you, but excluding the evidence wouldn’t really serve a deterrent on the police.
So what happens when the officer gets a “Christmas Bonus” of $1000 next year?
I know that the courts don’t follow this route. But we are debating whether they should or not. I would contend, like others, that my “effects” are protected wherever they might be.
Clearly that can’t be true. If I leave them in a public place I wouldn’t expect them to be protected. If they’re in my car and a cop spots them when doing a scan of the car during a DUI stop I wouldn’t expect them to be protected. There are places where things are not protected. The question is where do we draw the line.
Absolutely. The “abuse rights now, get sued later” model of Rehnquist strikes me as ineffectual for multiple reasons.
I’m also more than a tad amused to see the use of the (unwritten) privacy right to defend the exclusionary rule.
Suppress. It is illegally obtained evidence.
Consider this:
Let’s say you call me and I record our conversation without your knowledge or consent (an act that I think is illegal in Illinois anyway). You confess some crime to me and then I run to the police with my evidence. Is that admissible? I do not think so. If not a phone conversation then assume I personally bugged your house and want to take what I learn to the police. That ok?
Now, let’s change your hypothetical a bit. Let’s say the thief is also a kiddie porn aficionado and steals the kiddie porn collection along with your stereo. The police catch the thief and find the kiddie porn stolen from the house. In that case it is fine to go after the original owner of the kiddie porn.
I thought it was rhetorical.
“Profit” is not used in a monetary sense here but rather to mean “to derive benefit”.
The police like catching people. It is what they do. It behooves them to do their job. If the populace is happy bad people are going to jail the mayor is happy, the chief of police is happy, the sheriff is happy, the DA is happy, the Governor is happy, your local representative is happy (all political creatures who benefit from a population that is happy with them). Since shit rolls downhill the rank and file police are happy. It also makes police work easier if you can ignore the hassles of filling out paperwork for a warrant and so on.
Not sure if you mean is it admissible or should it be admissible. Assuming you do mean the first, I am pretty damn certain it is admissible. You are also liable for punishment for taping the conversation, of course.
If you mean should it be, again, I don’t see why not. The purpose of the exclusionary rule is to remove the incentive for violations of the constitution. There is no violation of the constitution against anyone when one private individual tapes the conversations of another private individual. Hence there is no reason to invoke the exclusionary rule.