Article III of the Constitution establishes the federal judiciary. Article III, Section I states that "The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish."
Probable Cause
Totality of the circumstances approach to establishing probable cause (abrogating the "two prong" test established in Aguilar, 378 U.S. 108 (1964) and Spinneli, 393 U.S. 410 (1969).
In the Gates case the police initiated their investigation based solely on a letter they received from an anonymous source that alleged that the Defendants were distributing narcotics. The letter contained detailed information about the Defendant's Modus Operandi, but nothing substantial in terms of the actual selling of the narcotics. After the police independently corroborated the information contained in the letter concerning the Defendant's travel habits, they obtained a warrant to search their residence and car. The lower courts granted Defendant's motion to exclude the evidence and the Supreme Court reversed.
Search Warrants
“no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” (Emphasis added.) Groh v. Ramirez, 540 U.S. 551, 557 (2004)
The Exclusionary Rule and Fruits of the poisonous Tree Doctrine
This is the seminal case that created the "Exclusionary Rule." Note that this rule is not contained within the Fourth Amendment, in essence, it is a rule born from the Court's need to provide law enforcement with an "incentive" to comply with the requirements of the Fourth Amendment. Between 1914 and 1961, see Mapp below, the rule only applied to Federal prosecutions.
Extending the exclusionary rule established in Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383 (1914) to the states through the 14th amendment, and abrogating the rule in Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U.S. 25 (1949), which did not require the States to follow the exclusionary rule from Weeks.
Extends the exclusionary rule to also include the "fruits" of illegal searches, even though the evidence itself was not the subject of the search.
Exceptions to the "Fruit of the Poisonous Tree" Doctrine
Independent Source Doctrine
Segura v. United States. Seminal case for the Independent Source Doctrine.
In Murray, narcotics agents illegally entered a warehouse suspected of containing narcotics. During the entry, they discovered bales of what appeared to be marijuana, but left the marijuana undisturbed and subsequently departed the warehouse. Some eight hours later, while conducting surveillance on the warehouse, the agents acquired a legal search warrant, but did not use the information about what they previously saw in their application for the warrant. The District Court and the Court of Appeals applied the independent source doctrine based on the fact that the agents used information independent of their observations to establish probable cause in their warrant application. In the Supreme Court, the case turned on the question about what information was actually used to secure the warrant. The Court concluded that if the information was genuinely independent from the initial observations, then the independent source doctrine should apply. The Court held that only the District Court could make that factual finding and remanded the case for further proceedings, Murray v. United States, 487 U.S. 533
Inevitable Discovery Doctrine
Nix v. Williams. In this case, the Court extrapolated the "Inevitable Discovery" Doctrine from the Independent Source Doctrine. In Nix, the police conducted an unlawful interrogation of the defendant which resulted in the defendant telling the police where they could find the body of the person the defendant was suspected of killing. While the defendant was being interrogated by the police, there was an independent search being conducted by the police in the same area where the body was ultimately found. The court applied the Inevitable Discovery Doctrine to this case because they held that even if the police had not called off the search after receiving the information from the defendant, the body would have been found and the evidence obtained from the body would have led back to the defendant. The rationale in Nix is that the police should not be put in a worse place than they were had they not conducted the illegal interrogation. By suppressing the evidence, the police would have been worse off, since they would have found the evidence anyway.
Attenuation Doctrine
Wong Sun v. United States. In Wong Sun, the defendant was illegally arrested and charged with a narcotics violation. He was subsequently released on his own recognizance. A couple of days after his release, the defendant voluntarily went to the police station and voluntarily provided a statement which contained information that the prosecution used to convict him of the narcotics violation. The Court ruled that when evidence is obtained under circumstances that are so remote from the illegal activity (the arrest), that the collection of the evidence (his statement) is sufficiently attenuated to remove the taint of the illegal arrest.
