Thread: Don't rob a bank in Spain

Originally Posted by mhailey

Do you disagree with the reading of the Miranda warning, and the exclusion of evidence which was gathered by law enforcement through means which violated your 4th, 5th and/or 6th Amendment rights?

I'm still undecided on the Miranda but I think the fruit of the poisoned tree is a good idea and should be applied more liberally.
Seems to me that there tends to be a lot of cherry picking there by judges with agendas.

I was simply pointing out two major rules that are behind much of the uneducateds griping about "Can you believe that lawyer got him off on some bullshit technicality?? These lawyers just ruin the system !!"

I will give an example and we shall see if the brilliant legal minds here can come up with the right answer.

A car is pulled over for running a stop sign in a residential area.
The officer who made the stop runs the operators info and there are no warrants, license is valid, tag is good, guy was convicted of felony possession in 98 . No trouble with the law since then.

A second car arrives and they decide to go on a fishing expedition.
Operator refuses to allow the officers to search his car then the officer will call for a dog, the dog will alert (on command) and the car will be searched.


The officers search the car and find a illegal weapon.

Shazam, felony weapons charge. The guy is looking at serious time.

Does the exclusionary rule apply to this?
The dog gave a false alert.
The police were searching for drugs.
They didn't find drugs.
They found a weapon, which is not what they were after and is not what the dog smelled.
Does fruit of the poison tree apply?