Except in Indiana.

Now, I think everyone realizes that it’s not completely effective. And there are more dodges around it than a week full of indoor PE class. But it’s what we’ve got for now.

So if the cops beat a confession out of someone, we shouldn’t exclude that evidence, but just punish the cops? Or they get a confession after refusing a suspect a lawyer? How about if a cop just decides he doesn’t like a guy, and illegally monitors him 24/7 until he catches the guy at something?

Of course the exclusionary protects the innocent; part of its purpose is that it does deter police misconduct. It also protects the rights of all citizens. A fundamental principle of constitutional governance is that it doesn’t matter if you reach the “right” result if you throw out all rights along the way. And even if the evidence is allowed in, the suspect still may not actually be guilty. All violations of constitutional rights during an investigation must still be judged by the presumption that the suspect is innocent, after all.

I agree that cops should be punished more. But I would rather have thousands go free than to allow people to be thrown in jail by cops shredding their rights, innocent or not. If a fundamental right is violated along the way, any allegedly incriminating result is and should be excluded. Any other way ignores Constitutional rights and renders them all-but meaningless.

Cops have actually gotten much better with bright-line rules. For example, criminal procedure professor called Miranda “the great gift to police.” They say some magic words, and any subsequent statements are almost certainly admissible. If anything, the biggest reason these exclusionary rule cases are appealed so much is because all the exceptions make the line between legal and illegal even more blurry.

“Maybe if the law said that any illegal actions a citizen took (like say, assault and battery) that resulted from an officer’s violation of their civil rights were all excluded…that might be something.”

It is not a crime to resist an unlawful order or arrest by the police. Except apparently nowadays if the cops break down your door in the middle of the night.

But what about all the innocent, likely brown or black people Daugherty also pulled over on a hunch?

How does the exclusionary rule directly benefit innocent minorities pulled over by the cops? The short answer is: it doesn’t. All the exclusionary rule does for them is say that the nonexistent evidence of the crimes they didn’t commit gets thrown out. Whoopee.

People saying that the exclusionary rule only benefits the guilty are exactly correct. And Timothy is right…the only attention it draws is people griping (often with some good points) about guilty people getting off.

If cops break the rules to get crooks, both parties are guilty. The answer is not to let BOTH guilty parties go free…it’s to punish both guilty parties. I realize this is difficult to implement, but we as citizens need to push for it.

At the very least, the exclusionary rule is not sufficient, since it does little/nothing to protect innocent citizens, who often have no recourse. Maybe if the law said that any illegal actions a citizen took (like say, assault and battery) that resulted from an officer’s violation of their civil rights were all excluded…that might be something.

Police taser mentally handicapped teenager…

Very well said Matto!

And that’s a job that’s automatically corrupting–once the county is expecting a certain amount of traffic fine revenue, the police have an incentive to find ways to fine people. Thus, you get traffic lights set with short yellow light times, sudden hard-to-see drops in speed limit to facilitate speed traps, speed limits set 10-15MPH under the normal prevailing speed of traffic, etc. The police are given an incentive to try to game the rules to get more revenue. The same thing happens with parking enforcement.

Obviously, no-trial property seizures are another, much worse, step along the same lines. To the extent the police have the job of raising revenue, they have incentives to do things that are absolutely not in keeping with their job of keeping the peace and neutrally enforcing the laws.

With the gigantic universe of factors that can constitute reasonable suspicion for a stop, a cop who is so stupid or lazy as to not be able to articulate one (or uses one that’s falsifiable) just doesn’t get to have his arrest lead to a conviction.

As has been covered here previously – he could have used “driver failed to make eye contact with me as he drove past” or “driver looked at me suspiciously” (admittedly that was a roadblock situation).

Furtive movements are always good (see Louisiana link). Improper lane usage is suitably vague.

On a related note: I recall a 60 minutes piece from 20 years ago on asset forfeiture that featured a similar stretch of highway in Louisiana. They obtained a nice, white Lincoln Continental and drove it down the stretch of highway. They made it 5 miles before passing a deputy. He pulled out after them and pulled alongside. Then tailgated. Then pulled in front and slowed down. Then went back behind and pulled them over.

His excuse? “Improper lane changes”. The hidden cameras showed that they had not changed lanes during their entire trip down the highway.

They were prompted to do the story by a lady with a similar white Lincoln. She’d recently bought it used. When they stopped her they found a hole in the trunk. So they confiscated the car and sold it at auction under asset forfeiture. (they put drugs in holes, doncha know.)

“drug mules who’ve been paid a pittance to risk transporting a half-kilo of heroin down a known drug corridor”

I was all set to ask for a complete list of these ubiquitous corridors.

Upon reflection, a better question: What interstates are not drug corridors?

An auspicious reform of the rule, which I saw proposed elsewhere, would involve applying it to sentencing rather than guilt, by, say, cutting in half a sentence of a defendant who suffered a 4th Amendment violation.

Auspicious for whom? I tire of these state fellators.

My version of reform would mandate actual penalties for constitutional violations for the offenders, not half of a cage sentence for the wronged.

The negotiations start at tar and feathers.