5 ms·
How far does the "fruit of the poisonous tree" doctrine go? If someone is caught using illegal evidence, and then let go because of that, can the police follow
by ikeboy 11y ago
How far does the "fruit of the poisonous tree" doctrine go? If someone is caught using illegal evidence, and then let go because of that, can the police follow them around to see if they commit more crimes, or is that all poisoned (because if the original evidence hadn't been obtained, they would never have found this person to follow)? Would they need to wait until the person came up in an entirely unrelated lead? Would they be able to add the information "person was previously let go on technicality for crime X" to a database which generates leads when cross-referencing other data (e.g. people in proximity to a crime, which might be crossed with known criminals? (I don't know if this is actually done))
- greenleafjacob 11y agoThe doctrine is subject to four main exceptions. The tainted evidence is admissible if: > the chain of causation between the illegal action and the tainted evidence is too attenuated; or
- ikeboy 11y agoWhat does that mean practically?
- fiatmoney 11y agoWhatever they want it to.
- ikeboy 11y agoThey is the courts, and the criteria sound like they come from precedent, so I want to know what cases created that precedent to know how it should be interpreted.
- fiatmoney 11y agoYou're missing the point. "Too attenuated" presumably does have case law, as do things like "substantially related to a compelling government interest" or "probable cause". Those have magnificent, overflowing volumes of decisions enumerating whether they apply to particular circumstances. And yet, oddly enough, it works better to reason backwards from the desired conclusion in a particular case to the most convincing reasoning that could support it, than the reverse.
- ikeboy 11y agoYou're saying that cases are decided by the judges' views, a not uncommon position. However, there are limits to how far this goes: if a case is clearly against precedent and the judge is made aware of that, they'll usually not deviate. If you disagree, feel free to present reasoning or evidence: mere assertion won't help.
- fiatmoney 11y agoCertainly, precedent helps. Who sets precedent? Higher courts. How do they decide how to rule? See parent. Who enforces their precedents against themselves? Well, no one. A precedent goes against what you wish to conclude? Distinguish why it doesn't apply in these circumstances, depending on how much you fear being overruled. Keep doing that, until it swallows the rule, if you wish the rule to go away. In things like evidentiary rulings, you can always distinguish the circumstances, until you go from "a man's home is his castle" to "I smelt marijuana & kicked the door down". In practical & long terms, for issues of government power in particular, predicting how a court will rule is not best done by looking at plausibly applicable precedent.
- ikeboy 11y agoSupreme court does overturn precedent occasionally, but this is extremely rare. Most of the time cases never get to the supreme court because they've already been ruled on in other cases. Do you have any particular evidence that courts frequently ignore precedent in favor of their own wishes?