NCJ Number
90635
Journal
South Texas Law Journal Volume: 23 Issue: 3 Dated: (1982) Pages: 632-653
Date Published
1982
Length
22 pages
Annotation
The U.S. Supreme Court and the Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas have applied the exclusionary rule in a variety of recent cases.
Abstract
The rule resulted from the 1886 decision in Boyd v. United States and was made applicable to the States by the Supreme Court decision in Mapp v. Ohio. The opinion in Taylor v. Alabama may be the most important decision of the Supreme Court concerning a confession obtained from a defendant who has been illegally arrested. This case upheld the exclusionary rule. However, the briefs in three Texas cases involving the same issue do not mention the Taylor case. In addition, several Supreme Court decisions have placed limitations on the exclusionary rule's applicability to convictions. In Autry v. State, the Court of Criminal Appeals in Texas considered the admissibility of a defendant's statements over a telephone located in the booking office of a police department. The court decided that the statements were admissible because they were made voluntarily. The court made a similar ruling in Vanderbilt v. State, in which the admissibility of a bullet recovered in a large open field was at issue. In Texas, Article 38.23 of the criminal code covers the issue of illegally obtained evidence. The Texas decisions which have interpreted this article and its predecessors appear to have varied over time as a result of public reactions during particular periods. A total of 28 reference notes are provided.