The fact that the American system of justice has this exception is a good thing.
As part of an on-going series on the United States’ justice system The New York Times recently ran an article titled “American Exception: U.S. Is Alone in Rejecting All Evidence if Police Err.”[1]
As the article points out:
“The United States is the only country to take the position that some police misconduct must automatically result in the suppression of physical evidence. The rule applies whether the misconduct is slight or serious, and without regard to the gravity of the crime or the power of the evidence.”
And this rule, I say, is a great thing.
Why?
Because it implicitly recognizes a fundamental truth: in a free society individuals, not the government, are the sovereign rulers.
Governments exist to serve the interests of the individuals they represent, not the other way around.
But, governments have a tendency to forget their place.
As Ludwig Von Mises wrote:
“The aim of all struggles for liberty is to keep in bounds the defenders of peace, the governors and their constables. The political concept of the individual’s freedom means: freedom from arbitrary action on the part of police power.”[2]
He means the political concept of the individual’s freedom in a Western context and more specifically, an American one: if there is one idea that separates America from Europe it is the American claim that the sovereignty of the individual, any individual, is more important than the sovereignty of the state.
“Give me liberty or give me death” was not just a catchy slogan but a moral claim to their own lives made by people sick of living under the arbitrary police powers of the English monarchy.
So the fact that all evidential “fruit” resulting from a tainted investigative “limb” is thrown out in American courts should come as no surprise.
The most interesting part of the article for me was the following passage:
“The Supreme Court has in recent years whittled away at the exclusionary rule by limiting its applicability and creating exceptions to it. Chief Justice John G. Roberts and Justice Scalia, neither of whom is enamored with citing foreign law, each noted in recent decisions that the American approach in this area is unique and has been universally rejected elsewhere.”
So what?
The American approach to many things is unique and rejected everywhere else.
What the rest of the world does or does not do is not standard for determining the “rightness” of American laws.
The Constitution of the United States of America is.
And thankfully, that document places a premium on the liberty of the individual.
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/19/us/19exclude.html
[2] Ludwig Von Mises. The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality. (New York: D. Van Nostrand Company, 1956), p. 90.
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