Yuriy Petruncio

11/1/23

Introduction to Law and Justice

Lecture Notes

The Structure of American Courts: Federal Court System

The United States has a dual court system.

 Federal Court System

District Courts

Federal Trial Courts

94 District Courts in total

Magistrate judges

Each state has one.

District courts never cross state boundaries

The local flavor of law

Federal circuit court of appeals

13 federal circuit courts in total

11 allocated to states.

D.C. Circuit

Federal Circuit (specific subject matter)

Multiple states clustered into single circuits.

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United States Supreme Court

 Federal court of last resort for federal legal issues

 Discretionary Docket

 Writ of certiorari

 Rule of four

 Nine justices

 Chief justice

 Eight associate justices

Focus: Legal Policy – not individualized justice

The court typically hears around 80 cases per year

 Only constitutionally created court (Article III).

- All other courts created through acts of congress.
- Judiciary Act of 1789
- Court of Appeals Act of 1891

Judge takes them self of a case because of potential bias

Recuses from a case

When judges tie, 4-4 split, if a judge recuses from the case and they have an even number of judges.

If Supreme Court ties, the lower courts decision stands.

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State system look a lot like federal system

State system mirror the federal system with a variety of differences

Because of the diversity between states, it is best to talk about a “general model” for state courts

What characteristics are generally present in state court systems:

Workhouses of the American criminal justice system

Typically, a system with four tiers of courts:

Trial courts of limited jurisdiction

Trial courts of general jurisdiction

Intermediate appellate courts

Courts of last resort

Which court, what name

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Courts of Limited Jurisdiction

Deal with less-serious offenses and civil cases

May be responsible for issuing warrants (search and arrest) and conducting preliminary stages of felony
cases
Handle specialized civil cases including: juvenile delinquency, family law, and probate

Limited jurisdiction courts are generally very informal

No right to trial

No records of proceedings (only via judgment)

Appeals are done trial de novo – means you get a flattened court

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Courts of lower limited jurisdiction do their work very very fast because they have so many cases going
on – highly overworked, understaffed.

Original jurisdiction for felony cases

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State Appellate Courts

Small or less populated states may have only one level of appellate courts

Intermediate Appellate Courts (courts of appeals)

Hear felony appeals of right – a requirement by law that they must hear a host of cases

Criminal claims there was an error In their trial and it must be reviewed

Appeals that state legislatures permit all criminal defendants as a matter of law

Court of Last Resort (State Supreme Court)

Courts of last resort when it is an issue of state law

Courts of last resort in states with intermediate appellate courts hear cases on a discretionary basis

Typically review death penalty appeals

Only option after state supreme courts is U.S. Supreme Court

If defendant makes argument

Juvenile death penalty

Juvenile targeted elderly woman and sexually assaulted and then drowned her

This qualified under Missouri law that the juvenile shall face the death penalty. Constitutional, but got it
appealed up to supreme court.

State issue

Courts of last resort in states with intermediate appellate courts hear cases on a discretionary basis

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Overview of the criminal process

Major elements in the criminal process:

Commission of a crime

Reporting of a crime

Investigation

Decision to arrest

Pretrial proceedings

Jury and jury selection

Trial

Sentencing

Appeals

This course primarily focuses on the legal aspects

Pretrial process to Appeal

Note: Law and Justice 300 discusses the entire process

11/2/2023

Pretrial Process

Begins with a complaint or arrest

Booking

- Official entry in police blotter: name, arrest time, offense, fingerprints, and photographs

Initial Appearance

- Typically takes place in court of limited jurisdiction

Suspect is informed of:

- Constitutional rights
- Nature of charges – what they are currently arresting you for and the charges you may face
- Ball is either granted or denied and amount of bail is determined

Initial appearance – without general delay, suspect is brought to court.

Defendant is legally innocent. Bail is ability to go back into the community noted that they will come
back to court hearings and so on.
Bail bonds service, you pay a proportion, and they pay the rest but they keep the money. Instead you can
pay the bail money and you get all of it back.

Some states have made bail bond practices, illegal.

Important takeaway:

Initial appearance – if bail is going to be allowed and price of bail

Preliminary Hearing

- Magistrate determines if there is probable cause to “bind over” the defendant for trial
- Trial date is set and defendant is notified of pending charges
- Preliminary hearing is a formal adversarial proceeding
- This is “critical stage” and triggers 6th Amendment rights

Filing of Formal Charges

 Two mechanisms:
- Prosecutorial information – documenting everything they have so far and connect it to
charges, the judge is sent the information and the judge either approves or denies.
-
- Grand Jury

Grand Jury

Convince 23 people that crimes have been committed and they go through with charges.

- Grand Juries typically consist of 23 people

- Proceedings are not open to the public
- Only members of the grand jury, district attorney, and witnesses are present
- Only hear evidence presented by the state
 - Purpose is not to evaluate guilt
- Only to see if there is enough evidence to go trial
- Check on prosecutorial power

Very rare when grand juries do not issue a true bill

- Question: is this really a check on prosecutorial power?

Grand jury allows prosecutors to charge. In order to proceed there needs to be initial charges

Arraignment

Go through list of charges and plead guilty or not guilty.

- Formal hearing before a felony court

- Defendants are advised of their rights and informed of the charges against them

- Defendant enters a plea

- Guilty – they know what they are being charged with, and they must be personally willing –
sentencing is next step
- Not guilty – proceed on track to get ready for trial
- Standing mute (court enters a plea of “not guilty”) – either doesn’t respond, or doesn’t respond
appropriately – some defendants are in such shock that they cant say anything so functionally
they plea not guilty
- No contest (nolo contendere) – accept legal responsibilities – they say I realize the prosecutor
has a lot of evidence and information on me, I realize they might convict me, I am willing to
allow you to punish me, but im not saying I did it. They don’t admit guilt. – main reason you’d
do this is civil litigation. Dean could sue for medical bills, etc.
- Alford plea – factionally not guilty

Claim guilty, you can get sued for financial fees. If you plead no contest, there is no criminal conviction.
People suing you spend more money trying to sue you so there is a better chance you win.
OJ Simpson won the criminal case, but lost the civil case. Civil case brought from attorneys documenting
in court. Simpson was acquitted of a double homicide but had to pay liabilities. OJ Simpson plead no
contest which meant no guilty but made the other side suing him would have to spend more money on
lawyers and whatnot.

11/3/2023

Jury Selection

Juries play a major role in the U.S. Justice System

- Historically were composed of “knowledgeable witnesses” – they switched because of biases

- This practice has changed towards a model of “disinterested parties”

- Judges are finders of fact while judges are finders of law

- Juries often composed of 12 members

- Can be smaller, however limitations will apply

- Verdicts do not have to be unanimous if the jury consist of 12 members

Changed over covid

- Juries must be selected from the community where the crime took place

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 The selection of juries is a major element of the trial system

- Voir dire -- a preliminary examination of a witness or a juror by a judge or counsel.

- Selection process where judges and attorneys measure the impartiality of the potential jurors

- Attorneys are planning strategically to make the most sympathetic jury possible
- Two major tools to exclude jurors

- Challenges for cause – these are unlimited attempts to get a jury member out – tell the judge
why there is a bias in the jury member, judge accepts or denies for the removal of the jury
member.

- Peremptory challenges – need no justification – you have a limited amount of these. Number is
set by local court. You have a finite number. Prosecutor and defense are trying to get any jury
members that might have some type of prejudice biasing against them.

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11/6/23

The Trial

There are several parts to the trial:

Opening statements – rational argument and develop a theme together for why justifications fit
together. Opening theme.
Prosecution’s case-in-chief – Prosecution always goes first. The prosecutors have the burden of
proof on their shoulders. Get rid of any unreasonable doubt. Funnel information to the jury
through the rules of evidence.
Defense’s case-in-chief – diminish the witnesses reliability.
Closing statements – rest your case
Jury instructions – given to jury via the judge. Judge will tell the jury what the law is to inform
them and to aim the jury decision based on law. Jury instructions are very critical for those who
are not informed in law. – attorney could ask judge to alter language on the jury instruction
paper.
Jury deliberation – Put into a room together to go over all of the evidence together and come up
with a verdict. Judge could talk to the jury if they cant come up with a verdicf. Judge could
determine a hung jury if they cant come up with a verdict which means that the individual is not
convicted. Could get charged again. Defense attorney can ask judge to ask each jury member
what verdict they came up with.
Trial verdict – if individual is found innocent they cant be charged again

11/7/2023
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- If found not guilty, defendant is set free and protected by the double jeopardy clause
 - If the defendant is found guilty, sentence must be imposed:

- Judges impose sentence after a presentence investigation report (PSI) has been issued by
probation and parole

- In death penalty cases, a jury must sentence the defendant (Ring v. Arizona, 2002)

- Types of sentences include: incarceration, suspended sentence, probation, fines, etc

Community service, anger management, fines, rehabilitation.

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Appeals

- There are two different methods of a appealing:

- Direct appeals—directly challenge the defendants conviction
- Indirect appeal—challenge the state’s power to incarcerate the defendant
- Habeas corpus is an indirect appeal
- Requires the person to whom it is direct to either produce the person named in the write
or release that person from custody
- Recent legislation has significantly limited the use of habeas corpus petitions in the
United States

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Everything here and after is going to be on the next exam

Courtroom Actors

 There are three major courtroom actors we need to focus on:

- Judges
- Prosecutors
- Defense Attorneys

Note: These are not the only important actors in the courtroom workgroup

- Clerk
- Bailiffs
- Probation officers
 - Court Administrators
- Secretaries
- Court Reporter
- Clerk of court

11/8/2023

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Judges

 Role and function of judges

Serve as referees

Enforce the court rules

Instruct the jury on the law

Determine the law (decisions of law)

Determine the facts (only in bench trials)

 Selection method for judges

- Appointment
- Election
- Merit system

RETENTION ELECTION

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Prosecutors

- Often considered the most powerful individual in the criminal justice system
- Massive range of power: from the arrest to post conviction release
- Massive power of discretion and decisions are rarely reviewable
 - U.S. Attorney General is the head prosecutor for the U.S. and head of the Department of Justice

- 1789 Judiciary Act provided for a U.S. attorney for each district court

- U.S. District Attorneys are political actors appointed by the president and confirmed by the
Senate

- However, Assistant U.S. Attorneys are not appointees

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- State prosecutors
- Typically elected
- State Attorney General is often the top legal official at the state level
- Deals mostly with civil cases involving the state
- Most criminal justice functions are carried out by local prosecutors (county or municipal)
- Prosecute cases in the name of the people
- Like the federal system, assistant attorneys at the local level process the majority of cases.

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11/13/2023

Defense Attorneys

 Role and Conflict of Defense Attorneys:

- Defense attorney is to see that the rights of the defendant have been preserved.
- Defense attorneys are officers of the court and member of the courtroom workgroup
- Blumberg’s law as a “confidence game”

 Three primary methods of appointing defense attorneys:

- Court appointed systems
- Contract systems
- Public defender systems
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Function of Criminal Law

- Criminal Law (substantive law) is the law of crimes

- Defined by statue
- Enforced by the government
- Purpose is to protect the public from harm
- Avoid harm by forbidding conduct
- Punish harmful acts that have occurred

EXAM 3

If exam 3 is better than exam 1 or 2

He will replace the lower of those two scores with exam 3

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11/14/2023

What is a crime?

- “[A]n intentional act in violation of the criminal law committed without defense or excuse, and
penalized by the state” (Tappan 1947, 100)

- Walsh and Hemmens have five major components:

- An act in violation

- Of a criminal law for which

- A punishment is prescribed

- The person committing this action must have intended to do so

 - And must have done so without any legally acceptable defenses or justifications

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Sources of Criminal Law

- Where does criminal law come from?

- Constitutions: Federal and State

- Not a typical sources of criminal law

- Statutes: Federal and State

- Primary source for criminal law

- Primarily at the state level; however, federal criminal law is expanding rapidly

- Common Law
- Most states have moved away from common law crimes towards codification in state criminal
statutes

One crime that is outlined in the constitution is treason, other crimes shouldn’t be looked for in
constitution.

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Limitations on Criminal Law

 Variety of restrictions on the power of government when enforcing criminal laws:

 - Substantive due process – in procedural due process, there are substantive rights. – right to
privacy, freedom of movement
- Overbreadth doctrine
- Void for vagueness
- Fair notice – some type of awareness or announcement of new law. Law cant be passed in secret
and then punish citizens.
- Equal protection
- Procedural due process
- Cruel and unusual punishment
- Ex post facto laws
- Bills of attainder

Elements of the Criminal Offense

 Elements of a crime (also called corpus delicti)

- Actus Reus
- Mens Rea
- Concurrence
- Causation
- Harm

- State must demonstrate each element beyond a reasonable doubt in order to secure a
conviction.

Actus Reus (Criminal Act)

- Three types of guilty acts

- Voluntary acts – if having a seizure and accidentally bite someone, you cant get charged because
it wasn’t voluntary

 Possession

- Actual Possession – you know what it is, you have control of it.
 - Constructive Possession – You don’t actually have actual possession, but you can control who
has the thing.
- Mere Possession – When you have the illegal item on your person, you don’t have any idea what
it is. Some states don’t criminalize it. Homeless person borrows jeans from shelter and is
searched by police and there is drug in there pocket that they didn’t know of, could still get
charged depending on state.

- Omission to act

-failure to perform a legal duty – failure to pay taxes, could be criminal offense. If a student comes up
and tells Dr. Stotter about a sexual assault charge, he is legally required to tell authorities or he could be
prosecuted.

-failure to prevent serious harm when a special relationship exists – Parent of a newborn has
responsibility to protect a child. Could be charged for neglect. You have a duty to care for an elder who
cant care for themselves anymore.

Mens Rea (Criminal Intent)

- Guilty Mind – Inferred from the circumstances surrounding the criminal act

- Model Penal code has four levels:

-Purposeful – done for a purpose. Killing someone for a reason.

- Knowing – it’s the goal. When someone engages in something knowingly. the goal is not kill the person.
Knowing your pretty sure of the outcome.

- Reckless – Engaging in something where you may not know the outcome but you know the danger.
There is risk, something bad may happen, something bad may not happen.

- Negligent – You are unaware of the danger of the situation and the outcome. You let your son mix
bleach with ammonia without knowing that it creates mustard gas and your kid dies. You didn’t know
but you should’ve known, because it’s common sense. Prosecutor has to convince jury that defendant
should have known because everyone knows.

- Actual terms vary from state to state

Concurrence

 The union of the criminal act and the criminal intent

- Actus Reus + Mens Rea
- Unites the act and the mental state

 The mental component of the crime must trigger the criminal act
- Note: temporal order is critical!

11/17/2023

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Harm

- Result of the criminal act

- Some form of injury must exist

- Injury to the individual

- Physical Injury

Mental Injury

Injury to society

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Causation
 - Criminal act must cause the harm

- Two major types of causation

- Factual causation – actual injury

- Often called “but for” causation

- Often much easier to demonstrate

- Legal causation – primary cause of injury, throughout different events in the day

- Often referred to as proximate causation

- Typically, more abstract and difficult to demonstrate in court

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Liability Without Fault

- Typically the state must demonstrate each element of the corpus delicti. However, some
exceptions do exist

- Liability without fault is one major exception

- With these crimes, the state does not have to demonstrate the element of men’s rea.

- Two major categories:

- Strict liability – cashier gets in trouble for selling to minor.

- Vicarious liability (only in civil law cases) – site the store for cashier selling to an underage
person.
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Inchoate Crimes

- Inchoate crimes are crimes that occur in preparation for an offense

- Key: can people be criminally liable when the crime has not yet taken place?

- Three major types:

- Attempt – tries to commit a crime, but is unsuccessful.

- Solicitation – getting someone to engage in criminal activity. Person doesn’t even need to
commit a crime, solicitation for just asking someone to help you engage in criminal activity.

- Conspiracy – a group of individuals planning to engage in a crime. The minute police see your
planning a crime, its conspiracy.

- Overt acts are checkpoints along the pathway to engaging in criminal offense.

- Some crimes may be punishable even though they were factually impossible

Parties to a Crime

- Doctrine of Complicity – more than one person can be held criminally liable for a criminal
activity

- All criminal elements must be present

 Common law has four parties to a crime:

- Principles in the first degree – person who did the murder. Also others in the same room.
 - Principles in the second degree – getaway drivers, deterring people away from murder. Didn’t
directly commit crime but helped to commission it.
- Accessories before the fact – Not actively doing anything while the crime is happening. Lending
support to the commission of the crime with tools, information, or gear. Have to be aware that
they are facilitating in a crime.
- Accessories after the fact – individuals who try to help someone who committed a crime, to hide
or escape.

 Principles are in person. Accessories are not in person.

- Modern criminal laws have streamlined parties by making principles in the second degree and
accessories before the fact into accomplices.

Defenses to criminal liability

- Defense is a response by the defendant that allows them to avoid criminal liability
- Alibi – people who you were with when the crime was committed, so they can testify that you
were with them when the crime was committed in a different place so it couldn’t have been you.
- Affirmative defense --

- Shifts the burden of production an persuasion to the defense (however, at the preponderance of
the evidence standard)

- Two major types:

- Justification

- Excuses

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Justification Defenses
 - Justifications defenses admit the acts, but claims that under the circumstances, the acts were
not criminal

- Four major types of justification defenses:

- Self-defense – protecting yourself from imminent harm

- Consent – ask neighbor to borrow car and they let you, no crime committed. If you take the car
without asking, that’s theft. Some situations where consent doesn’t make you innocent. Cant
consent to letting someone murder you.

- Necessity (Choice of Evils) – Man is out camping and is almost about to die. He finds a cabin with
shelter, warmth, and food. He cant get in, so he decides to break the door down. Can argue in
court that it was necessary for him to do in order to survive.

- Execution of public duties

- Key: A successful justification defense removes all criminal liability

11/21/2023

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Excuse Defenses

- Excuse defenses acknowledge the commission of the act and the criminal nature of the act

- However, they focus on reasons that the individual is not responsible for the i

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- There are a variety of excuse defenses used in modern courts:

 - Duress
- Situations involving the threat of serious imminent harm to oneself
- The criminal act under duress must be less than the injury

- Intoxication – not cognitive when under the influence.

- Voluntary—varies by state, goes out and drinks and things escalate and person receives charges
that are mitigated because they were under the influence.

- Involuntary—often a perfect defense, didn’t have a choice to not engage in substance. No

mental intent to actually engage in what they had.

-age – those who are younger have a lessened ability to make good decisions. So punishment is
mitigated.

- many states recognize that person below a certain age cannot form men’s rea

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Insanity Defense

- Insanity is not the same thing as mental illness

- Mentally ill is a medical diagnosis where as insanity is a legal state

- Four primary tests for legal insanity:

- M’Naughten rule (right-wrong test) – can you tell the difference between right and wrong.
- Durham rule (products test) --
- Irresistible impulse test – cant control their behavior. Mental defect impairs them form controlling their
behaviors.
- Substantial capacity test – aware of the severity of the situation.

- It is worth noting that individuals successful under the insanity defense are typically sent to a
mental institution rather than released
 - Recent studies indicate that, on average, individuals sent to mental institutions are confined for
durations longer than the sentence they originally faced.

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Procedural Defenses

- There are a variety of procedural defenses that can be used to avoid criminal liability

- Due process

- Double jeopardy

- Speedy trials

- Use of illegally obtained evidence

- Entrapment – when police entice someone to engage in a crime. Cant ma

- Notice significant overlap with procedural law (Chapter 6)

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11/27/2023

Monday

Criminal Law: Types of Crimes

Four major categories of crime:
Crimes against the person
Crimes against property
Crimes against society
Crimes against morality

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Homicide

- homicide is the killing of another human being

- Homicide is a broad term

- Raises a variety of legal, ethical, and moral questions:

- what is human?

- When is someone dead?

- Which types of homicide deserve punishment?

- Three forms of criminal homicide

- Murder

- Manslaughter

- Negligent Homicide

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Murder

 Common Law Definition: the killing of another person with malice aforethought

- Model Penal Code: Killing that occurs

 Purposefully – have a goal you want to achieve

 Knowingly – high probability that what your doing will result in death. Shoot up and it
accidentally hits someone by ricocheting off something, you didn’t know that would happen
 Recklessly under circumstances exhibiting extreme indifference to human life
- first degree murder—deliberate and premeditated

- Second degree murder—killing that are intentional, but not premeditated

- Felony Murder

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Manslaughter

 Voluntary Manslaughter – self-defense

- Intentional killing which occurs with:

- Mistaken Self-defense

- adequate provocation (heat of passion) – something that set that event off – catching your wife
cheating and killing them both.

- Must be defined by state/federal law

- Involuntary Manslaughter – someone engaging in reckless behavior that results in someone’s death.

- Unintentional killing which occurs as a result of a reckless act

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Negligent Homicide
  Unintentional killing

- Should have known about substantial risk of death

- Conduct deviated from ordinary level of care owed to others

- Example: Negligent Driving

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Assault and Battery

 Common Law:

- Assault is attempt or threat to inflict immediate harm

- Battery is unjustified offensive physical conduct

 Modern assault and battery

- Assault and battery have been merged as “assault”

- Aggravated assault is defined as “an unlawful attack by one person upon another for the purpose of
inflicting severe or aggravated bodily injury” (FBI, 2005)

- Key: aggravated assault is serious injury or assault with an item

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11/28/2023

Burglary

- Historically, the dwelling has been afforded significant protections by the law

- Seventeenth Century: burglary was defined as the breaking in and entering of the dwelling of another
at night with the intention of committing a felony once inside.

- UCR: “The unlawful entry of a structure to commit a felony or theft” (FBI, 2005)

- Today burglary can occur during the day

- Note: entry alone is not burglary—must have unlawful entry with internet to commit another crime
when inside.

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Larceny and Theft

- Under common law, theft/larceny was, “the unlawful taking and carrying away of another’s personal
property with the intent to permanently deprive the rightful owner of its possession.”

- This definition was problematic and too narrow:

- Taking element (addressed direct and indirect control)

- Carrying away (asportation—even slightly)

- Personal property (personal and real property are covered)

- UCR: “The unlawful taking, leading, or riding away of the possession or constructive possession of
another” (FBI 2005, 49).

- Larceny is graded depending on method of taking and the value of the property taken

- Grand theft vs. petty theft (felony and misdemeanor)

Look at city ordinances for what price determines what type of theft.

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Robbery

- “The taking or attempted taking of anything of value from the care, custody, or control of a person or
persons by force, threat of force, violence, and/or putting the victim in fear” (FBI, 2005).

- In short—larceny by force

- Typically classified as a violent crime

- Often very serious penalties (below murder and rape)

- The threat of force significantly escalates the crime severity

- Extortion: a taking of property accomplished by the threat of future harm to person, property, or
reputation.

Individual has to be aware of robbery. A person who executes a pickpocket, will not be charged with
robbery but something else.
11/29/2023

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Crimes Against Public Order and Morality

- Crimes against public order are those in which the injury is to the peace and order of society

- Disorderly conduct
- Unlawful assembly
- Vagrancy

- Crimes against morality are those in which the moral health of society is injured

- Adultery

- Prostitution

- Obscenity

- There is a significant moral, ethical, legal, and political debate that surrounds these two
categories of crime.

Next Chapter

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Goals of Lecture

- Give students an introduction to criminal procedure (law of arrest, search, and seizure)

- Show students the evolution of several lined of legal doctrine

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Disclaimer

- This lecture is not legal advice

- This lecture focuses on the larger questions of jurisprudence (“the big picture”).

- In doing such, it does not discuss the variation in state law

- In general, refrain from asking a variety of “what if” questions (… or

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Exclusionary Rule

- Boyd v. United States (1886)

- Boyd was forced to produce papers that revealed a conspiracy to defraud – his personal diary, court
threw the diary out and didn’t use it because of his 4th amendment right.

- Court overturned and remanded the case

- The court reasoned that Boyd was compelled to be a witness against himself (5th Amendment Right)

- Adams v. New York (1904)

- Arrested for possessing illegal lottery tickets

- Argued that Boyd applied and illegally seized evidence should not be used in court

- Court ruled that Boyd did not apply

- Court found that there are other mechanisms to hold police accountable
 - Civil remedies – sue the officer for using illegally obtained evidence.

- Criminal remedies

- “…evidence is evidence”

- Adams stands for the “evidence is evidence” era of the exclusionary rule – meant that even though
police screwed up, evidence will still be used to charge someone.

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Exclusionary Rule

- Weeks v. United States (1914)

- Weeks was convicted for operating illegal lotteries

- Two warrantless searches of his house yielded evidence that was used against him in court

- The court ruled that evidence seized in an illegal manner cannot be used by the trial court to determine
guilt in federal cases

Got rid of evidence is evidence – Exclusionary Rule served as a incentive for police to not illegally obtain
evidence because it will not be used in court and will be a waste of time.

- Key: Birth of modern exclusionary rule and end of the “evidence is evidence” approach

- Key: Limited only to federal cases in

- Silver Platter Doctrine – federal hands it down to states so that they can prosecute evidence obtained
illegally.

- Fruit of the Poisonous Tree Doctrine – everything after the first violation is poisonous meaning that
other evidence cant be used.
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Exclusionary Rule

- Wolf v. Colorado (1949)

State case

- Wolf was convicted of performing illegal abortions

- Wolf was convicted based on evidence taken from his office during a warrantless search

- The court ruled that the Fourth Amendment applied to the states:

- While the court extended the Fourth Amendment to the states, it did not define a remedy

- States may use the exclusionary rule; however, they are not bound to it

- Key: Wolf applied the Fourth Amendment to the states; however, it did not extend the exclusionary rule
to the states

- Selective states had started applying the exclusionary rule, however, the court noted that it was not
wide spread in the individual states

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12/1/2023