If you are charged with a crime, the government needs to provide the evidence to convince a jury you actually did the crime. Defense attorneys rigorously scrutinize the evidence against their clients, and there are tools we can use to get evidence thrown out if the government is trying to use illegal evidence in your case.
The main method for throwing out illegal evidence in any criminal case is called “suppression.” With suppression, the judge can block evidence from being entered on the record if the police obtained it through illegal means, including if they violated your rights to get the evidence. However, suppression is only available in certain instances.
Contact our Utah criminal defense lawyers at Overson Law by calling (801) 758-2287 for help with your case today.
What is Evidence Suppression in Utah Criminal Cases?
If the police come knocking on your door without a warrant, search your house, and seize evidence to use against you, should they be allowed to use it against you in a criminal case? The unanimous answer from courts is typically no – and the power used to block this evidence from being used against you is called “suppression.”
Judges can “suppress” evidence by ordering it kept out of the case. This tool is available to punish police and prosecutors who violate the defendant’s rights by blocking them from benefiting from their illegal actions. It also helps stop police from potentially seizing evidence illegally, as they know they will not be able to use it once the defendant’s Utah criminal defense lawyer finds out it was seized illegally.
This power to suppress is called the “exclusionary rule,” and it comes from a 1961 U.S. Supreme Court case called Mapp v. Ohio. This rule isn’t found in the U.S. Constitution, but it flows from the protections against unreasonable search and seizure found in the 4th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
When Can Illegal Evidence Be Suppressed in a Utah Criminal Case?
Evidence suppression is permitted when the evidence was obtained illegally. What is “illegal” changes depending on the specific facts in the case and the source of the rule deeming the actions “illegal,” but illegal evidence is usually blocked on the following grounds:
4th Amendment Violations
The 4th Amendment stops unreasonable search and seizures, requires warrants before a search or arrest takes place, and requires probable cause for a search. A violation of any of these requirements is usually enough to get the resulting evidence suppressed. However, all of these terms and conditions have been addressed in numerous cases over the years, resulting in some exceptions.
First, evidence will be allowed against you if you consented to giving it over or consented to the search. Never volunteer information or consent to a search without talking to a lawyer first.
Second, police can skip a warrant if they have certain exceptional situations. For example, moveable property can often be searched or seized without a warrant, but the police still need probable cause. Police also do not need a warrant to arrest someone when they witness the crime.
Third, a search or arrest can take place without probable cause if there are “exigent circumstances” present. This usually requires something like a safety concern that allows the police to break down a door or a substantial risk that the defendant is destroying evidence.
Some things have been deemed by courts to still require a warrant, even though some of these exigencies and other concerns might be present. For example, police usually need a warrant to draw your blood after a DUI stop under U.S. Supreme Court Cases Missouri v. McNeely (2013) and Birchfield v. North Dakota (2016), but also under Utah Code § 77-23-213. A warrant is also needed to seize and search a cell phone under Riley v. California (2014).
Miranda Violations
Miranda v. Arizona (1966) was a case where the U.S. Supreme Court found that police interrogations are inherently pushy and that to protect peoples’ 4th Amendment rights, their 5th Amendment right to remain silent, and their 6th Amendment right to a lawyer, the police need to specifically warn people about these rights before questioning them.
This is why police are required to say things like, “You have the right to remain silent,” and so on, before questioning you. This right does not come directly from the Constitution but is instead an additional barrier the courts put up to protect your rights – and violations of Miranda can also lead to suppression.
This usually works to throw out evidence that the police obtained in an illegal interrogation. Note, however, that it only applies to interrogations (i.e., actually being asked questions) while in custody. It isn’t like on TV shows where they read you your rights when you are arrested.
If you invoke your right to remain silent, questions on this topic are supposed to stop entirely. If you invoke your right to counsel, questions can only continue after your lawyer is present.
If, ultimately, the police obtain something like a forced confession after failing to read you your Miranda rights, even that confession should be suppressed.
“Fruit of the Poisonous Tree” Doctrine
Sometimes the police obtain evidence illegally but then use that evidence to lead them to more evidence. Any evidence, arrests, interrogations, etc., that are obtained because of a prior illegal search or seizure should also be suppressed as “fruit of the poisonous tree.” Essentially, courts find that anything that grew out of an illegal search or arrest is also illegal, so it should be suppressed, too.
When Evidence Can’t Be Suppressed in Utah Criminal Cases
Keep in mind that suppression is only reserved for illegal evidence that the prosecution is not supposed to have. There are other ways to get evidence thrown out if it is unfair or biased, but they are found under the Rules of Evidence and usually apply to legally obtained evidence rather than illegal evidence. Suppression is still the strongest tool for blocking illegal evidence, but it cannot block everything.
For evidence to be suppressed, the rights violation has to have involved the defendant’s rights and a violation of their own, personal expectation of privacy. If the violation involved a search of someone else’s things – e.g., the police entering a friend’s house without a warrant and finding your drug stash in their bathroom – then you might not be able to suppress the evidence because you had no expectation of privacy that your drugs would be private in their bathroom.
Call Our Utah Criminal Defense Lawyers for Help Today
If you have been charged with a crime, call our Clearfield, UT criminal defense lawyers at Overson Law today at (801) 758-2287 for a free case evaluation.
