AMERICAN EXCEPTION
Should Suspects Go Free When Police Blunder?
Bradley Harrison was driving a rented Dodge Durango from Vancouver to Toronto in the fall of 2004 with 77 pounds of cocaine in the trunk when a police officer pulled him over, found the drugs and arrested him.

A year and a half later, an Ontario trial judge ruled that the officer's conduct was a "brazen and flagrant" violation of Mr. Harrison's rights. The officer's explanation for stopping and searching Mr. Harrison--confusion about a license plate--was contrived and defied credibility, the judge said, and the search "was certainly not reasonable."

In the United States, that would have been good news for Mr. Harrison. Under the American legal system's exclusionary rule, the evidence against Mr. Harrison would have been suppressed as the result of an unlawful search.

But both the Canadian trial judge and an appeals court refused to exclude the evidence. Mr. Harrison was sentenced to five years in prison.

"Without minimizing the seriousness of the police officer's conduct or in any way condoning it," the Court of Appeal for Ontario ruled in Mr. Harrison's case in February, "the exclusion of 77 pounds of cocaine, with a street value of several millions of dollars and the potential to cause serious grief and misery to many, would bring the administration of justice into greater disrepute than would its admission."


NY Times Article

Ed: Article discusses the fact no other country has an exclusionary rule and the notion that the Supreme Court might discard the rule. Texas has its own exclusionary rule. What other states have a similar rule that would be unaffected by such a move?

The rest of the world doesn't have the exclusionary rule. But the World Court wants the U.S. to consider Medellin's claims that evidence should've been excluded because of the violation of his consular rights?

That should give you some clue about the agenda: political disagreement with the use of the death penalty as a punishment for brutally kidnapping, raping and slaying young girls. Perhaps if the World Court focused more energy on the ongoing, unlawful murders of innocent citizens throughout the world they would have more of a sense of perspective.

I think the ICJ holding was much broader than just a claim that evidence was improperly admitted:

"the remedy to make good these violations
should consist in an obligation on the United States to permit review and reconsideration of these nationals' cases by the United States courts, as the Court will explain further in paragraphs. 128 to 134 below, with a
view to ascertaining whether in each case the violation of Article 36 committed by the competent authorities caused actual prejudice to the defendant in the process of administration of criminal justice."
http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/128/8188.pdf
pg. 60 para. 121.

It's closer to the Strickland prejudice test.

Mexico actually argued that the exclusionary rule should be applied because it is "a general principle of law under Article 38 (1)(c)."
Pg. 61 para. 126-127.

As a matter of law, any such review must conclude that the notice of consular right has no relevance to the voluntariness of a confession. Texas courts have already reached that conclusion. See Sorto v. State, 173 SW3d 469 (Tex. Crim. App. 2005).

As one federal court said (quoted in Sorto):

"Prejudice has never been-nor could reasonably be-found in a case where a foreign national was given, understood, and waived his or her Miranda rights. Courts have uniformly found that no prejudice can exist in that situation, because the advice a consular official would give would simply augment the content of Miranda, which the foreign national has already waived."

So, again, what is the real agenda?

When Shari'a law becomes the predominant basis for legislation, I guess the US will have to go along, according to all the "World Courters" out there.

The US is one of the fewest, if not the only, country to exclude evidence. We are one of the fewest with an intact jury system. We are one of the fewest with as extensive a system of civil liberties and defendant's rights.

Do we really want to trade everything we have for an outside system of justice?

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So, again, what is the real agenda?

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How about wanting to protect U.S. citizens form getting messed with overseas?

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Originally posted by R_Smith:

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So, again, what is the real agenda?

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How about wanting to protect U.S. citizens form getting messed with overseas?

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If another nation like Mexico is going to "mess with" Americans in their country, do you really think they're going to do so in the name of a bunch of raping murderers? Sorry, but that playground-justice theory of geopolitics doesn't fly in the real world.

We were able to get that dude's caning sentence knocked down from six to four licks.

Perhaps we could compromise and not give all three injections. We could skip the anesthesia and the muscle relaxant and only give them Potassium chloride. Everyone wins!

I've heard the argument that the trade-off for us giving scrutiny to these guys helps ensure similar consideration for US citizens abroad. But don't we already provide greater protections to our citizens and our guests than any where else (with the possible exception of The Netherlands)? Would we really be able to force application of our procedural rules if the shoe were on the other foot? And has the world stood up to protect those guys from Blackwater? (I think that's the name, I'm so used to Jericho, I get confused.)

Does the rest of the world have a double standard when it comes to America, or is it the other way around?

Caning? Kid deserved it. I like it.

Beheading is nice and quick - messy, but everyone swears it's painless. Guillotines are cheap. Maybe we can give the condemned prisoner some nice Alice B. Toklas brownies before the event. Then he'd think it was cool.

I like what the Saudis do - You get an appeal, it all has to be decided in about 30 days, and then - off with your head.

Apparently, the prime directive applies.