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The Exclusionary Rule: Enforcing The Fourth Amendment

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The Exclusionary Rule: Enforcing the Fourth Amendment
This section begins by explaining that in 1914, the court reexamined their previous ruling as to whether or not one could submit evidence to a court that had been illegally seized (Ingram, 2009). One specific case that the textbook references in relation to this is the case of Weeks v. the United States. In this particular case, the police had seized evidence that they had taken from the defendant’s residence without a proper search warrant. This evidence was then used against the defendant in court and he was convicted as a result. During the trial, Weeks attempted to get the court to reconsider the use of the illegally obtained evidence, but they denied his plea.
After being convicted Weeks filed an appeal with the United States Supreme Court, because he believed that what had happened to him was a violation of his Fourth Amendment right and that his conviction should be overturned (Ingram, 2009). Eventually, the courts did conclude that the police had violated the constitutional rights of the …show more content…

At times the individual can go free due to the police not following correct procedures when obtaining evidence. If the court did allow illegally obtained evidence to be used within the court, then the Fourth Amendment would hold no power (Ingram, 2009). However, some argue that evidence should be able to be used against the accused if the accused can file a suit against the law enforcement official who violated their rights in the first place (Ingram, 2009). This is an interesting point and I do not personally agree with it. I believe that if we allow police procedures to have loopholes then we may lose order. If we let one person’s rights be violated, even if they are a known criminal, then where would we draw the line? Would it eventually get out of hand? I believe that it is

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