Police Brutality In Wolf V. Colorado

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One of the most recent controversial topics sweeping the nation is on the topic of police brutality. Victims of police abuse tend to state that their rights had been violated. As a result, usually if there had been a violation of an individual’s rights, then the evidence seized by the police against that person becomes admissible. However, the idea of punishment for police officers who violate the rights of the people was never implemented into the Constitution. This concept was created by the Supreme Court through many cases. In the case of Wolf v. Colorado (1949), Julius A. Wolf was arrested and charged with conspiracy to perform an abortion. The officers invaded Wolf’s clinic without a warrant and obtained evidence to use against him. Wolf insisted that the police had violated his rights by doing an illegal search of his clinic …show more content…

Colorado and Unreasonable Search and Seizure in California, attorney Robert M. Desky states, “The United States Supreme Court, in Wolf v. Colorado, ' held for the first time that "the security of one 's privacy against arbitrary intrusion by the police-which is at the core of the Fourth Amendment,” Desky continues, “But at the same time the Court held that the states need not observe the federal rule which excludes from criminal prosecutions evidence obtained by illegal search. The majority opinion explained away the federal exclusionary rule as "judicial implication" based upon the Fourth Amendment, while Justice Black, in a concurring opinion, characterized the rule as a "judicially created rule of evidence," a description which seems more consistent with the Court 's suggestion that it could be changed by Congress.” According to Mr. Desky’s statement, the court believed that the exclusionary rule, which determines whether or not evidence is excluded from a trial, was left only up to the federal government and not the states. Therefore the state courts could not exclude any illegal evidence from a