Evidence reliability does not affect admissibility under the exclusionary rule

Evidence

Under the exclusionary rule, the reliability of the illegally obtained evidence has no effect on its admissibility. If a suspect under torture confesses to a crime, there may be reason to doubt the truth of his statements. But if a police officer discovers a stolen wallet during an illegal search of a suspect, the wallet provides clear evidence of guilt. Yet in neither case is the evidence admissible. This holds true no matter how serious the charges against a defendant. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1846

Categorization

• QUESTION: Useful hook for examining the deterrence- versus-truth-seeking tradeoff in evidence doctrine.
• XREF: connects to: the MOC “The Enemy-Making Machine: How Ourselves, the True, and Every Other Are Built from War”