Judicial Integrity: A Call for Its Re-Emergence in the Adjudication of Criminal Cases

• NCJ Number: 150005
• Journal: Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology Volume: 84 Issue: 3 Dated: (Fall 1993) Pages: 462-501
• Author(s): R M Bloom
• Date Published: 1993
• Length: 40 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Legislation/Policy Analysis
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This article discusses the concept of judicial integrity in the context of selected U.S. Supreme Court decisions and compares them with similar examples from cases decided in Australia and New Zealand.

Abstract

Judicial integrity involves making judicial decisions that will show the court's commitment to lawfulness and justice. Courts should act so as not to appear to condone or be associated with unlawful acts by government agents. In the U.S. Supreme Court cases examined, the author argues that the Court has sacrificed the judicial integrity required to support the exclusionary rule. Support for the exclusionary rule has been supplanted entirely by the deterrence rationale. It has been recharacterized from a proposition that courts should act as a symbol for lawful conduct to a concern that the courts should not become a symbol for guilty people going free as the result of suppression of probative evidence. The concept of judicial integrity was used initially to justify the Fourth Amendment's exclusionary remedy, to sanction the Court's use of supervisory powers, and, to a lesser extent, to justify the application of due process. The majority of the current Supreme Court, however, has retreated from the use of the doctrine of judicial integrity, such that judicial integrity is no longer regarded as a justification for the exclusionary rule. Additionally, the viability of the judicial integrity doctrine has deteriorated as the Court has limited the use of its supervisory powers. Moreover, there is substantially less flexibility inherent in due process, especially for the investigative stage of the criminal process, due to the selective incorporation of the Bill of Rights. By contrast, the author uses examples from Australia and New Zealand to show that the doctrine of judicial integrity has re-emerged and gained force in these countries. The article concludes with the argument that the pendulum has swung too far toward neglecting concerns inherent in the principles of judicial integrity and that the doctrine of judicial integrity must be restored in the United States. 229 footnotes