4th Amendment on Life Support

The Supreme Court’s recent decision to allow evidence from an illegal stop in Utah v. Strieff has gotten the most press for Justice Sotomayor’s scathing dissent. Here from scotusblog is a good analysis of the practical application of rules in the decision:

“The opinion applies the factors from 1975’s Brown v. Illinois and concludes that suppression is unwarranted. Some will complain about how the Court applied those factors – I will do that myself below – but it’s worth pausing to note that the majority opinion did not overturn or substantially revise Wong Sun v. United States. This case instead reconciles the pre-2000 case law on the “fruit of the poisonous tree” doctrine (such as Wong Sun and Brown) with post-2000 case law (such as Hudson v. Michigan and Davis v. United States). According to today’s opinion, all of the cases are ultimately about cost-benefit weighing.”

Leave a Reply