It’s not a straw man, it’s the main point of the exclusionary rule. Evidence collected in violation of the accused’s constitutional rights is not admissible in criminal cases. The point is not to keep police from torturing people - that’s **your **strawman. If evidence is collected through illegal searches or seizures, or by denying him his right to counsel, or denying his right against self-incrimination or any other violation of his constitutional rights then we do our best to protect his constitutional rights by ensuring that evidence can’t be used to his detriment in criminal court. It’s the next best thing to going back in time and stopping his rights from being violated in the first place.
When you say you think they’re exaggerating do you mean you don’t believe that “fruit of the poisonous tree” is an actual extension of the exclusionary rule? It’s rooted in Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States (1920). No comment on how the Supreme court managed to extend the exclusionary rule 41 years before it was created out of nothing in 1961.
The exclusionary rule was first applied in the context of unlawful searches contrary to the Fourth Amendment in Weeks v. United States in 1914. This was a federal prosecution in the federal courts.
The significance of Mapp v. Ohio was that it held that the exclusionary rule also applied in the state courts, for breaches of the 4th Amendment by state police. That was a major expansion of the application of the rule, but was not the invention of the rule.
Postscript: in reading the wiki article on Mapp, I just learnt that Don King was the anonymous informant in that case, whose tip led to the unlawful search. Learn something new every day.
Sure, a cop who knowingly, willfully, and grossly violates the law and civil rights should be individually punished, and there are civil and criminal ways of punishing the cop (assuming the knowing and willful part can be proved).
But what about a police office who just makes a honest mistake and has a valid warrant but goes to the wrong house. That kind of mistake shouldn’t be a criminal offense for the officer, right?
On the other hand, we certainly don’t want to allow cops to bust into a house without a warrant just by claiming it was a mistake.
So what we do (or at least did before the current Court got a hold of it) is to not punish the police for mistakes, but not let them benefit, either. That way police have an incentive to make sure that their warrants are indeed valid, etc., but don’t have to worry about being personally liable for honest mistakes. And, importantly, courts don’t have to worry about whether a mistake was truly an honest mistake or not.
Police officers are indemnified. As long as they are doing their job within the scope of their duties and in a reasonable manner, they cannot be personally sued for anything. If the result of their actions lead to a lawsuit, the police department assumes the responsibility and pays any restitution or fines. So an officer who searchs a house illegally due to an honest mistake will not personally be sued.
Exactly, and thanks for making that clear.
I was trying to point out that the current combination of indemnity for honest mistakes combined with the exclusionary rule keeps an incentive for the police officer to not make mistakes, while also keeping the officer from severe liability when the officer does make an honest mistake.