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Exclusionary Rule Need Not Be Applied In Federal Habeas Reviews Of State Convictions, Jann Johnson

Mercer Law Review

In Stone v. Powell, the U.S. Supreme Court held that if a state "has provided an opportunity for full and fair litigation of a Fourth-Amendment claim, a state prisoner may not be granted federal habeas-corpus relief on the ground that evidence obtained in an unconstitutional search or seizure was introduced at trial."

Respondent Powell was convicted of second-degree murder in a California state court. A police officer had found the murder weapon on Powell during a search incident to his arrest for violation of a vagrancy ordinance, and the officer's testimony was admitted at trial over Powell's objection. Powell …