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Criminal Procedure • Exclusionary Rule
CRIMPRO#003
Legal Definition
The fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine is an exclusionary rule that applies to illegally seized evidence, as well as all evidence derived from police illegality. However, it does not apply to Miranda violations, unless the police acted in bad faith in obtaining the information.
Plain English Explanation
The exclusionary rule generally refers to a situation where police wrongfully obtain evidence as a direct result of violating the defendant's Constitutional rights. But what happens when evidence is obtained indirectly? How many degrees away from the initial illegal seizure will the court block tainted evidence? That is for you to argue on an exam. Like the name implies, the "fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine" bars any "fruit" of an initial illegal search or government conduct.
Hypothetical
Hypo 1: Police suspect Bob of selling drugs. One night, when Bob is out of town, police break into Bob's house without a warrant. They find no drugs, but they do find a piece of paper with an address on it and a locker combination. Police visit the address and locate Bob's locker. They enter the combination and discover a box with a piece of paper with handwritten GPS coordinates. The police enter the GPS coordinates into their phone and, after an hour drive into the middle of the desert, they arrive at the location and begin digging. There they find a large amount of cocaine. Result: Imagine if police had randomly decided to start digging around the desert and discovered Bob's cocaine based on an assumption it was out there. Courts would be okay with that. But that's not what happened here. The only reason police were digging in the specific spot was because they found those coordinates in a locker, and the only reason they knew of that locker or how to open it was because they illegally searched Bob's house. Here, the knowledge of the locker, its combination, the GPS coordinates, and the eventual cocaine stash are all fruits of the poisonous tree, which would be inadmissible in a criminal proceeding against Bob.
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