Legal Updates

MAJOR SUPREME COURT CASE ON SUPPRESSION OF EVIDENCE
Aaron Nisenson, General Counsel, I.U.P.A.

The Supreme Court issued a major decision, holding that evidence seizedin a search that violated the "knock and announce" rule did notneed to be suppressed at trial. Hudson v. Michigan (Docket No.04-1360).

In the case, while the officers had a warrant to search thesuspect's home, the prosecution conceded that the officers violated theknock and announce rule by waiting only three to five seconds between knockingand entering.
Previously, the exclusionary rule would have applied andresulted in the exclusion of the evidence seized in the search. However, inthis case the majority ruled that suppression of the evidence was notrequired.

The vote in the case was five to four, with Scalia authoring the majority opinion, Kennedy authoring a concurring opinion, and Breyer authoringthe dissent. Both majority opinions cited the improvement in police trainingand discipline and the availability of civil liability as deterrents tounconstitutional acts by officers.

Kennedy's concurring opinion most succinctly explains the Court'sholding

Our system, as the Court explains, has developedprocedures for training police officers and imposing discipline for failures toact competently and lawfully. If those measures prove ineffective, they can befortified with more detailed regulations or legislation. Supplementing thesesafeguards are civil remedies, such as those available under 42 U.S.C. § 1983,that provide restitution for discrete harms. These remedies apply to allviolations, including, of course, exceptional cases in which unannouncedentries cause severe fright and humiliation.

Suppression is another matter. Under our precedentsthe causal link between a violation of the knock-and-announce requirement and alater search is too attenuated to allow suppression. Cf. United States v. Ramirez, 523 U.S. 65, 72, n. 3, 118 S.Ct. 992,140 L.Ed.2d 191 (1998) (application of the exclusionary rule depends on theexistence of a "sufficient causal relationship" between theunlawful conduct and the discovery of evidence).
When, for example, a violationresults from want of a 20-second pause but an ensuing, lawful search lastingfive hours discloses evidence of criminality, the failure to wait at the doorcannot properly be described as having caused the discovery of evidence.

An interesting issue is whether this portends a whole scale revision ofthe exclusionary rule. Kennedy, whose vote was needed for the majority, saidno and limited his concurrence: "the continued operation of theexclusionary rule, as settled and defined by our precedents, is not in doubt.Today's decision determines only that in the specific context of theknock-and-announce requirement, a violation is not sufficiently related to the laterdiscovery of evidence to justify suppression."

However, Scalia's four vote majority and Breyer's four votedissent, both made many of their points in much broader terms, debating theunderlying need for the exclusionary rule -- a debate that could be extended in future decisions.

 

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