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Chapter 11 · When the Evidence Was Taken Wrong
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From the page before
A student is told to remove a protest button because 'someone might complain.' Which case controls?
The answer: Tinker v. Des Moines
Why: It is the student's own speech, so Tinker controls. Fear that someone might complain is not real trouble in class. Tinker lets a school stop speech only for real trouble.
A principal pulls a story from the class-produced school paper for a stated teaching reason. Which case says the school may?
The answer: Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier
Why: The paper carries the school's name and is made in a class. So Hazelwood controls, and the school may edit its own paper for a real teaching reason.
What must school staff have before searching a student's bag?
The answer: 'Reasonable suspicion' — a real reason tied to a rule or law
Why: New Jersey v. T.L.O. set the school bar at 'reasonable suspicion' — lower than the police's 'probable cause', but never nothing. And the search must fit the reason.
Why did the drug tests in Vernonia survive?
The answer: Athletes chose the team, shared locker rooms, and the school had a documented drug problem
Why: Vernonia turned on its facts. The team was a choice. The locker rooms were shared. The problem was proven. It does not say a school may test any student for any reason.
When the evidence was taken wrong
One story, told three times over fifty years: the state broke the rules to get proof. What does a court do about that?
Weeks v. United States (1914). Agents searched a man's home with no warrant and took his papers. The Court made the Fourth Amendment real: proof taken in breach of it cannot be used in a federal trial. That answer has a name — the 'exclusionary rule'. A right with no remedy is a wish. The rule is the remedy.
Mapp v. Ohio (1961). For almost fifty years the rule bound only federal courts. State police could still use what they took the wrong way. And most police work is state work. Mapp closed the gap: the rule binds the states too. The path was the Fourteenth Amendment — the one that makes core rights good against your own state.
Miranda v. Arizona (1966). The same idea, moved from your house to your mouth. Before police question a person they hold, they must say the words nearly all of us know: you may stay silent. What you say can be used against you. You may have a lawyer. One will be free if you cannot pay. With no warning, what you said in that room cannot be used to convict you.
Three cases, one spine. The state must win by the rules — because the cheapest way to kill a rule is to let the state keep what it gets by breaking it.
Before you turn the page
What does the 'exclusionary rule' do?
Which case made the exclusionary rule bind STATE police?
Police question a person they are holding, with no warning given. What happens to the answers?
Trying to recall a thing before you read it again is what makes it stick. That is why the question is here.
Nothing is scored. Nothing is saved. No one sees your answer, and there is no account to make.