The "exclusionary rule" is that if the government (i.e. the police, public prosecutor, etc.) obtains the evidence illegally, the evidence is inadmissable. Under traditional Jewish law (not to mention under the Anglo-American common law until about 200 years ago), prosecutions were brought by the victim, not the government (Roman law systems had an entirely different mode of handling criminal prosecutions). Until recently, there were no police (the Romans, again, were an exception), and no public prosecutors for most non-political crimes (and there only on the theory that the "king" was the victim of a political crime, such as treason). American constitutional rights restrict the government, not the people, and the victim is "people". If the victim engaged in nefarious practices to get evidence, even today under American law, that evidence is admissable (though it might be considered unreliable, but that's under a different theory).
A different type of "exclusionary rule" exists for criminal confessions, and in this area, American law partially looked to Jewish law in partially rejecting common law traditions, but that's not an issue of constitutional rights per se. Aaron Aaron Kuperman, LC Law Cataloging Section. This is not an official communication from my employer From: hasafran-boun...@lists.service.ohio-state.edu [mailto:hasafran-boun...@lists.service.ohio-state.edu] On Behalf Of Etta Gold Sent: Saturday, September 07, 2013 2:27 PM To: Hasafran@lists.service.ohio-state.edu Subject: [ha-Safran] FW: Tough Question A patron is looking for any references to the following: A distinctive feature of American criminal procedure is the so-called "exclusionary rule:" the rule pursuant to which evidence cannot be used in court if it was obtained through violation of the constitutional rights of the person against whom it's offered. Would anyone know if there are any antecedents for this concept in Jewish/Talmudic law? Any thoughts? Thanks very much. [cid:image001.jpg@01CEAD42.53DE56D0] Etta Gold Library Director The Richard and Janet Yulman Campus 5950 N. Kendall Drive, Pinecrest, FL 33156 786.264.6543 Direct 305.667.6667 ext. 128 (W) |305.662.8619 (F) |eg...@tbam.org<mailto:eg...@tbam.org> |www.tbam.org/library [cid:image002.png@01CEAD42.53DE56D0]<https://www.facebook.com/BethAmMiami> [cid:image003.png@01CEAD42.53DE56D0] <http://www.youtube.com/user/TempleBethAmTV> [cid:image004.jpg@01CEAD42.53DE56D0] <http://www.flickr.com/photos/templebetham/collections/> [cid:image005.jpg@01CEAD42.53DE56D0]<http://jewishmiami.org/cjl/home/>
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