The exclusionary rule as a way to enforce 4th amendment rights was created by Weeks v. United States in 1914, and expanded by Mapp v. Ohio (1961) to apply to the states. It isn't an ancient common law doctrine. This recent decisions modifies the boundaries of the exclusionary rule to say that evidence seized when the cops have a warrant and announce themselves, but don't knock, doesn't have to be tossed out.
"In fact, the common law not only did not exclude illegally-obtained evidence, but it even allowed that evidence to retroactively justify what would otherwise be an illegal search and seizure. As stated in a 17th Century English legal treatise: “And where a Man arrests another, who is actually guilty of the Crime for which he is arrested, it seems, That he needs not in justifying it, set forth any special Cause of his Suspicion, but may say in general, that the Party feloniously did such a Fact, for which he arrested him … .” [1] In other words, at common law evidence of the defendant’s guilt provided a complete defense against charges that the search was a violation of the defendant’s rights."
[1] 2 William Hawkins, A Treatise Of The Pleas Of The Crown (Professional Books Ltd. 1973) (1721), p. 77, quoted in Akhil Reed Amar, “Fourth Amendment First Principles,” 107 Harvard Law Review 757, at n. 30. For further discussion of how, at common law, probative evidence could retroactively justify a search and seizure by police, see id, at 767.
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