Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• MCGLYNN, MEGAN

Titel

Competing Exclusionary Rules in Multistate Investigations: Resolving Conflicts of State Search-and-Seizure Law

Ist Teil von

• The Yale law journal, 2017-11, Vol.127 (2), p.406-463

Ort / Verlag

New Haven: The Yale Law Journal Company, Inc

Erscheinungsjahr

2017

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

EBSCOhost Business Source Ultimate

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• The judiciary has long struggled to resolve conflicts of state search-and-seizure law. The issue arises when a search occurs in one state, but the defendant is prosecuted in another. For example, suppose a crime is committed in State A. In the course of investigating an entirely different crime, State B officers perform a search and uncover evidence of the State A crime. The search was unlawful and the evidence would be excluded under State B's constitution, but the search was lawful under State A's constitution. Should the evidence be admitted because forum law applies or excluded because the law of the situs of the search applies? What if State A officers perform a search in State B for a case tried in State A? State courts have developed at least five distinct approaches, each with its own assumptions and methodology, to resolve these and other search-and-seizure conflicts of law. None is conceptually sound or pragmatically appealing. Courts should instead adopt a novel law-of-the-officer approach. They should first interpret the state constitutions at issue to determine whether more than one constitution reaches the facts of the case. If so, courts should apply the state law of the police officer who performed the search. This two-step approach both capitalizes on the latest insights from the conflict-of-laws literature and comports with the most common purposes behind state exclusionary rules. Most importantly, it maximizes the deterrent value of exclusion by ensuring predictability and simplicity.