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Why throw out illegally gained evidence? Because it's pretty much the only censure a judge can do, and it's a damn powerful one. Yes, evidence laundering is a p

Why throw out illegally gained evidence? Because it's pretty much the only censure a judge can do, and it's a damn powerful one. Yes, evidence laundering is a problem when it come to warrantless surveillance, but simply throwing up your hands and saying "Well, I guess anything taken from any method and without court approval is okay. I guess judicial oversight is an antiquated 18th century idea," isn't the answer.

themartorana 11y ago
I think you misread me. Parent to my original post said information indicating evidence was ill-gotten would be thrown out, not the evidence itself. That makes it impossible to argue the evidence was obtained illegally. As far as I can figure it would lead to what you're talking about, which is madness, so I was asking why a judge would not allow proof evidence was obtained illegally. (Basically, I totally agree with you and am confused as to why a judge would not be.)
- ghkbrew 11y ago
  I think what he meant was that proof that a particular piece of evidence was illegally obtained is likely to necessarily be illegally obtained as well. Thus it will be thrown out itself before it can used to get the original evidence thrown out. Or at least that's my interpretation of the comment in question. I have no idea how true it is.
  - jonathankoren 11y ago
    Yeahs don't understand what that means. Part of the introducing evidence into court is to describe its provenance. If the chain of custody breaks, then the defense can easily attack it as being tampered with. The only way evidence of a coverup could be illegally obtained would be if the defense somehow placed an illegal wiretap on the police department or prosecutor's office, which seems really implausible.
- jonathankoren 11y ago
  No. The evidence itself, and all evidence derived from that evidence is thrown out. You conduct an illegal search that finds the murder weapon at the suspects house, you don't get to enter the murder weapon into evidence. You don't get to introduce that the weapon had the victims blood on it, because the only way you know that is that you got the weapon illegally. You don't get to introduce that the weapon had the suspectms fingerprints on it for some the same reason.

themartorana 11y ago

I think you misread me. Parent to my original post said information indicating evidence was ill-gotten would be thrown out, not the evidence itself. That makes it impossible to argue the evidence was obtained illegally. As far as I can figure it would lead to what you're talking about, which is madness, so I was asking why a judge would not allow proof evidence was obtained illegally. (Basically, I totally agree with you and am confused as to why a judge would not be.)

ghkbrew 11y ago
I think what he meant was that proof that a particular piece of evidence was illegally obtained is likely to necessarily be illegally obtained as well. Thus it will be thrown out itself before it can used to get the original evidence thrown out. Or at least that's my interpretation of the comment in question. I have no idea how true it is.
- jonathankoren 11y ago
  Yeahs don't understand what that means. Part of the introducing evidence into court is to describe its provenance. If the chain of custody breaks, then the defense can easily attack it as being tampered with. The only way evidence of a coverup could be illegally obtained would be if the defense somehow placed an illegal wiretap on the police department or prosecutor's office, which seems really implausible.
jonathankoren 11y ago
No. The evidence itself, and all evidence derived from that evidence is thrown out. You conduct an illegal search that finds the murder weapon at the suspects house, you don't get to enter the murder weapon into evidence. You don't get to introduce that the weapon had the victims blood on it, because the only way you know that is that you got the weapon illegally. You don't get to introduce that the weapon had the suspectms fingerprints on it for some the same reason.