Exclusionary rule and the fruit of the poisonus tree Essay

Exclusionary rule and the fruit of the poisonus tree - Essay Example Such illegally obtained evidence was henceforth banned form use in Federal courts. Justice William Day wrote the unanimous opinion, saying that the Fourth Amendment essentially embodies the old English common law principle that ‘a man’s home is his castle’, and that it was intended to â€Å"forever secure the people, their persons, houses papers, and effects, against all unreasonable searches and seizures under the guise of law.†2 Justice Day continued with what may be one of the most damning indictments of illegal police conduct as he argued that â€Å"the tendency of those who execute the criminal laws of the country to obtain convictions by means of unlawful searches or enforced confessions . . . should find no sanction in the judgment of the courts which are charged at all times with the support of the Constitution and to which people of all conditions have a right to appeal for the maintenance of such fundamental rights.†3 The vital element of this argument is that just because the police and prosecutors had routinely performed illegal searches and â€Å"pressured† (some would say tortured) suspects into giving confessions, the mere fact that the illegality was widespread and of long duration provided no defense. Interestingly, Day’s argument was essentially the opposite of William Rehnquist’s argument for keeping the Miranda rights. Renquist argued that while the constitution may not guarantee or require such rights, the fact hat they had become part of the overall fabric of the legal system in particular and of American society in general they had become an essential fabric of the legal landscape.4 While the actual reasoning behind the exclusionary rule may be somewhat hazy at times, especially in these early cases when it was being initially being developed, and before its progeny had fleshed out the whole, its institution seems to have been catalysed by a view of