EVIDENCE-POLICE REGULATION BY RULES OF EVIDENCE

Authors

John Barker Waite, University of Michigan Law SchoolFollow

Abstract

The judicial rules of Evidence, said their great expounder, "were never meant to be an indirect process of punishment." Yet twice the Supreme Court has promulgated new rules of evidence for precisely that purpose. The rule that evidence is inadmissible, regardless of its relevance and materiality, if it was obtained by unreasonable search was first suggested by Justice Bradley, who wrote the majority opinion in Boyd v. United States in 1886. The other rule was voiced in 1943 by Justice Frankfurter, writing the majority opinion in McNabb v. United States. And each rule demonstrates the inherent evil of judicial legislation which is based upon incomplete information and is formulated without realization of its probable effects.

Recommended Citation

John B. Waite, EVIDENCE-POLICE REGULATION BY RULES OF EVIDENCE, 42 Mich. L. Rev. 679 (1944).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol42/iss4/7