Exclusionary Rule - Criticism

Criticism

The exclusionary rule as it has developed in the United States has been long criticized, even by respected jurists and commentators. Judge Benjamin Cardozo, generally considered one of the most influential American jurists whose opinions in several cases pronounced lasting principles of American law, was strongly opposed to the rule, stating that under the rule, "The criminal is to go free because the constable has blundered."

In the 1970s, Dallin H. Oaks, Malcolm Wilkey, and others called for the exclusionary rule to be abolished. By the 1980s, the exclusionary rule remained controversial and was strongly opposed by President Ronald Reagan. But, some opponents began seeking to have the rule modified, rather than abolished altogether. The case, Illinois v. Gates, before the Supreme Court brought the exclusionary rule for reconsideration. The Supreme Court also considered allowing exceptions for errors made by police in good faith. The Reagan administration also asked Congress to ease the rule. It has been proposed that the exclusionary rule be replaced with restitution to victims of police misconduct.

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Famous quotes containing the word criticism:

    Like speaks to like only; labor to labor, philosophy to philosophy, criticism to criticism, poetry to poetry. Literature speaks how much still to the past, how little to the future, how much to the East, how little to the West.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    However intense my experience, I am conscious of the presence and criticism of a part of me, which, as it were, is not a part of me, but a spectator, sharing no experience, but taking note of it, and that is no more I than it is you. When the play, it may be the tragedy, of life is over, the spectator goes his way. It was a kind of fiction, a work of the imagination only, so far as he was concerned.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    I consider criticism merely a preliminary excitement, a statement of things a writer has to clear up in his own head sometime or other, probably antecedent to writing; of no value unless it come to fruit in the created work later.
    Ezra Pound (1885–1972)