Applying the ‘Fruit of the Poisonous Tree’ Doctrine to Election Fraud
The case for ordering new elections in several contested states.
by Dov Fischer
November 13, 2020, 12:02 AM
In American criminal law, there is a doctrine called the “Fruit of the Poisonous Tree,†a term that obviously derives from the Biblical Adam and Eve account. Under that doctrine, government violations of citizens’ core constitutional rights are deemed so severe and egregious that, for example, if the police violate a Fourth Amendment right in conducting their investigation of a crime, the whole government case can be thrown out even if that illegal search led to finding perfectly admissible legal evidence that unequivocally proves the culprit’s guilt.
For example, say a person murders someone and buries him or her somewhere in a forest, or steals gold and buries that in that secret forest location. The government suspects the right criminal but cannot find evidence to connect the person to the crime or even to prove the crime itself. Then a law enforcement official conducts an illegal wiretap of the suspect’s phone or invades the suspect’s home to search without a warrant. During the illegal, unauthorized wiretap or search, the law-enforcement person learns where the body or money is buried. Now, armed with that information, the law enforcement official gets a proper warrant, or leads a search party properly to the forest where they dig up the body or the gold in a perfectly legally manner. Then they arrest the suspect, present the evidence, perhaps secure a confession with that evidence, and a trial ensues. Under the doctrine of the “Fruit of the Poisonous Tree,†since the legitimate forest search never would have happened if not for the initial illegal investigatory invasion (the “poisonous treeâ€), the subsequent evidence may be deemed “fruit†of that “poisonous tree†and therefore is inadmissible.
It is that very doctrine that often leads to outrageous news stories about outright murderers who go free when judges throw out a government case or overturn a jury guilty verdict on grounds that the conviction never could have arisen without the admissible evidence that was secured only by virtue of having derived from an illegal, warrantless (though warranted) search and seizure.
more
https://spectator.org/election-recounts-fruit-poisonous-tree/
