Opinion

United States v. Janis

  • 428 U.S. 433
  • 96 S. Ct. 3021
  • 49 L. Ed. 2d 1046
  • 1976 U.S. LEXIS 162
Court
Supreme Court of the United States
Filed
Oct 4, 1976
Status
Published
Author
Brennan
On the bench
Blackmun, Brennan, Marshall, Stevens, Stewart
Cited by
1,216 cases
Authority
More cited than 24.1%

concluding that “exclusion from federal civil proceedings of evidence unlawfully seized by a state criminal enforcement officer has not been shown to have a sufficient likelihood of deterring the conduct of the state police so that it outweighs the societal costs im posed by the exclusion”

How later courts described this case

  • concluding that “exclusion from federal civil proceedings of evidence unlawfully seized by a state criminal enforcement officer has not been shown to have a sufficient likelihood of deterring the conduct of the state police so that it outweighs the societal costs im posed by the exclusion”
  • holding that “exclusion from federal civil [tax] proceedings of evidence unlawfully seized by a state criminal enforcement officer” was not found “to have a sufficient likelihood of deterring the conduct of state police so that it outweighs the societal costs imposed by the exclusion”
  • holding that a forfeiture proceeding was quasi-criminal rather than civil in nature since its object was "to penalize for the commission of an offense against the law”
  • holding that the presumption does not apply when the IRS makes a naked assessment without foundation

Written by the judges who cited it.

The opinion

Mr. Justice Brennan,

with whom Mr. Justice Marshall concurs,

dissenting.

I adhere to my view that the exclusionary rule is a necessary and inherent constitutional ingredient of the protections of the Fourth Amendment. See United States v. Calandra, 414 U. S. 338, 355-367 (1974) (Brennan, J., dissenting), and United States v. Peltier, 422 U. S. 531, 550-562 (1975) (Brennan, J., dissenting). Repetition or elaboration of the reasons supporting that view in this case would serve no useful purpose. My view of the exclusionary rule would, of course, require an affirmance of the Court of Appeals. Today’s decisions in this case and in Stone v. Powell, post, p. 465, continue the Court’s “business of slow strangulation of the rule,” 422 U. S., at 561 . But even accepting the proposition that deterrence of police misconduct is the only purpose served by the exclusionary rule, as my Brother Stewart apparently does, his dissent persuasively demonstrates the error of today’s result. I dissent.

This is a copy of a public record, reproduced as it was published. It is not legal advice, and it may not be the version a court would rely on. Check the official source before you cite it.

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