Also known as: Weeks rule · exclusionary rule · federal exclusionary rule
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
A constitutional doctrine requiring exclusion of evidence obtained through unreasonable searches and seizures from state criminal proceedings. The rule deters police misconduct by rendering such evidence inadmissible.
Willow Walker was charged in state court after officers searched her home without a warrant and found stolen goods. The evidence was obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The court suppressed the goods because the Weeks doctrine bars use of unconstitutionally seized evidence in state prosecutions.
Wanda Weaver's apartment was searched under a warrant containing a typographical error in the address made by the issuing judge. Officers relied on the warrant in good faith. The court admitted the seized drugs because the good-faith exception prevents exclusion when reliance on the defective warrant was objectively reasonable.
Wayne Walker hid a weapon in a field after an unlawful stop. Police later obtained a warrant and searched the same field pursuant to an independent investigation. The court admitted the weapon because the prosecution proved it would have been discovered lawfully even without the initial violation.
Wilma Wright's garage was searched under a warrant later found to lack probable cause. Officers had relied on the neutral magistrate's issuance in an objectively reasonable manner. The court refused to suppress the evidence because the good-faith exception applies when the warrant is not facially deficient.
Winter Wolfe refused to answer questions in a state proceeding that would incriminate her. The state sought to compel answers under threat of contempt. The court upheld her refusal because the Weeks doctrine incorporates the Fifth Amendment privilege against the states through the Fourteenth Amendment.
In November 1959, Harold Malloy was arrested during a gambling raid in Hartford, Connecticut, on charges related to pool selling. He pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor, receiving a sentence of one year in jail and a five-hundred-dollar fine, with the jail term suspended after ninety days followed by two years of probation. Approximately sixteen months later, Malloy was subpoenaed to appear before a referee appointed by the Superior Court of Hartford County to investigate alleged gambling and other criminal activities in the county. During the inquiry, he was questioned about the circumstances of his 1959 arrest and conviction, including the identity of his employer, who paid his fine and bondsman, the tenant of the apartment where he was arrested, and whether he knew a man named John Bergoti. Malloy refused to answer any of these questions, asserting that his responses might tend to incriminate him. The Superior Court adjudged Malloy in contempt and ordered him committed to prison until he answered the questions. The Connecticut Supreme Court of Errors affirmed the contempt adjudication, holding that the Fifth Amendment privilege was unavailable in state proceedings and that Malloy had not properly invoked the state constitutional privilege. Malloy then sought federal habeas corpus relief in the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut, which was denied, and the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the dismissal. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to consider the constitutional questions presented.
View caseWillow West was interrogated in state custody without receiving warnings. Her statements were offered at trial. The court excluded them because the Weeks doctrine requires that the Fifth Amendment protections recognized in Miranda apply to state proceedings.
Petitioner Dickerson was indicted for bank robbery, conspiracy to commit bank robbery, and using a firearm in the course of committing a crime of violence. Before trial, Dickerson moved to suppress a statement he had made at a Federal Bureau of Investigation field office on the grounds that he had not received Miranda warnings before being interrogated. The District Court granted his motion to suppress, and the Government took an interlocutory appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. That court reversed the District Court's suppression order. It agreed that petitioner had not received Miranda warnings before making his statement but held that 18 U.S.C. § 3501 governed the admissibility of the statement. The Fourth Circuit concluded that Miranda was not a constitutional holding and that Congress could therefore have the final say on admissibility. Two years after Miranda was decided, Congress enacted 18 U.S.C. § 3501, which provides that a confession shall be admissible in evidence if it is voluntarily given and directs the trial judge to consider specified factors in determining voluntariness. Because of the importance of the questions raised by the Court of Appeals' decision, the Supreme Court granted certiorari.
View caseYes. The doctrine requires that evidence obtained through Fourth Amendment violations be excluded from state criminal proceedings just as it is excluded from federal proceedings.
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The exception applies when officers reasonably rely on a warrant that is later found defective due to clerical errors or lack of probable cause, provided the reliance is objectively reasonable and the warrant is not facially deficient.
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Evidence is admissible if the prosecution shows the police would have discovered it through lawful means even without the unconstitutional conduct.
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Yes. The doctrine extends the privilege to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, preventing states from compelling incriminating answers under threat of penalty.
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…recently fixed as Department of Justice policy. See Beaney, Right to Counsel 29-30, 36-42 (1955). In Mapp , which imposed the exclusionary rule on the States for Fourth Amendment violations, more than half of the States had themselves already adopted some such rule. See 367 U. S., at 651. In Gideon , which extended Johnson v.…