Title: It's Time to Confess That Brown V. Illinois Isn't Working: Purging the Taint from the Supreme Court's Attenuation Jurisprudence
Abstract: [O]urs is an accusatorial and not an inquisitorial system--a system in which State must establish guilt by evidence independently and freely secured and may not by coercion prove its charge against an accused out of his own mouth. (1) I. Introduction A confession can often be most powerful piece of evidence in a criminal case. As United States Supreme Court has acknowledged, the introduction of a confession makes other aspects of a trial in court superfluous, and real trial, for all practical purposes, occurs when confession is (2) Given influential role that a confession plays in determining outcome of a criminal case, legal system should be especially concerned with analyses court employs in deciding whether to admit a confession into evidence. (3) In particular, court must be concerned about possibility that a confession may be false, in which case admission of confession will very likely produce a wrongful conviction. (4) Apart from false confession concern, court should also be concerned about fairness of way in which confession was obtained. The latter concern has been subject of many Supreme Court cases, most important of which was Brown v. Illinois, (5) Brown and its progeny provide proper framework for an attenuation analysis, which courts use to decide whether statements obtained subsequent to an illegal arrest should be excluded from trial. (6) In assessing whether a statement made after an illegal arrest has been purged of taint of that arrest, and is therefore admissible, court considers whether Miranda warnings were issued, temporal proximity between arrest and statement, whether any intervening circumstances occurred during that time, and flagrancy and purposefulness of police misconduct. (7) This note dissects Brown framework and examines how subsequent Supreme Court jurisprudence has modified this framework. (8) Next, note analyzes how lower federal courts have applied attenuation analysis, highlighting consequences of Supreme Court's inconsistent language with respect to Miranda factor, which has produced varying results among lower courts. The note also discusses difficulties of applying framework in other contexts that do not involve an illegal arrest. (9) Next, note discusses divergent interpretations of police misconduct factor by federal courts. (10) Finally, note recommends that courts apply Brown framework as a threshold Miranda inquiry and then a three-factor balancing test. The note also recommends that courts adopt a broad view of police misconduct factor in order to give effect to policies underlying attenuation doctrine. (11) II. SUPREME COURT JURISPRUDENCE A. Introduction to Exclusionary Rule The exclusionary rule is a judicially created doctrine that precludes government from using at trial evidence obtained as a result of a violation of defendant's search and seizure rights. (12) Although Fourth Amendment states that [t]he right of people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, (13) Amendment does not specify any mechanism to enforce that right. (14) Accordingly, Supreme Court adopted exclusionary rule in order to provide a remedy for Fourth Amendment violations. (15) The exclusionary rule does not apply automatically, however, in every case that involves a Fourth Amendment violation. In order for exclusionary rule to apply, evidence at issue must be product of a Fourth Amendment violation. (16) Additionally, there are several exceptions to exclusionary rule, including independent source doctrine, inevitable discovery doctrine, good faith exception, and attenuation doctrine. …
Publication Year: 2014
Publication Date: 2014-12-22
Language: en
Type: article
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