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Full-Text Articles in Law

Replacing The Exclusionary Rule: Fourth Amendment Violations As Direct Criminal Contempt, Ronald J. Rychlak Dec 2009

Replacing The Exclusionary Rule: Fourth Amendment Violations As Direct Criminal Contempt, Ronald J. Rychlak

Chicago-Kent Law Review

The exclusionary rule, which bars from admission evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment's prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures, is a bedrock of American law. It is highly controversial, but there seems to be no equally effective way to protect citizens' rights. This paper proposes that an admissibility standard be adopted that is in keeping with virtually every jurisdiction around the world other than the United States. Thus, before ruling evidence inadmissible, the court would consider the level of the constitutional violation, the seriousness of the crime, whether the violation casts substantial doubt on the reliability of the …


Criminal Law And Procedure, Michael T. Judge, Stephen R. Mccullough Nov 2009

Criminal Law And Procedure, Michael T. Judge, Stephen R. Mccullough

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.


How Accountability-Based Policing Can Reinforce - Or Replace - The Fourth Amendment Exclusionary Rule, David A. Harris Jan 2009

How Accountability-Based Policing Can Reinforce - Or Replace - The Fourth Amendment Exclusionary Rule, David A. Harris

Articles

In Hudson v. Michigan, a knock-and-announce case, Justice Scalia's majority opinion came close to jettisoning the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule. The immense costs of the rule, Scalia said, outweigh whatever benefits might come from it. Moreover, police officers and police departments now generally follow the dictates of the Fourth Amendment, so the exclusionary rule has outlived the reasons that the Court adopted it in the first place. This viewpoint did not become the law because Justice Kennedy, one member of the five-vote majority, withheld his support from this section of the opinion. But the closeness of the vote on …


Dangerously Sidestepping The Fourth Amendment: How Courts Are Allowing Third-Party Consent To Bypass Warrants For Searching Password-Protected Computer, David D. Thomas Jan 2009

Dangerously Sidestepping The Fourth Amendment: How Courts Are Allowing Third-Party Consent To Bypass Warrants For Searching Password-Protected Computer, David D. Thomas

Cleveland State Law Review

This Note sets forth that it is unacceptable for law enforcement to ignore the presence of passwords simply because they may not be immediately visible. Furthermore, it is contrary to the Fourth Amendment for law enforcement to rely on third parties who grant access to search the data without knowledge of the password to unlock the data. Principles hammered out over time for searches and seizures of physically locked objects can easily be transposed and extended to fit the virtual world while still providing people the protections of the Fourth Amendment.