Rewording Paragraph

The Court reasoned that the exclusionary rule applies to evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment’s search and seizure clause in both state and federal prosecutions. The right of privacy under Fourth Amendment’s had been previously held enforceable against the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the same should be true for the exclusion unlawfully obtained evidence. The purpose of the exclusionary rule is to deter illegally obtaining evidence and to compel respect for the constitutional guarantee in the only effective manner. Otherwise, a State, by admitting illegally obtained evidence, disobeys the Constitution that it has sworn to uphold. A federal prosecutor may make no use of illegally obtained evidence, but a State prosecutor across the street may, although he supposedly is operating under the enforceable prohibitions of the same Amendment. If the criminal is to go free, then it must be the law that sets him free. Our government is the potent, omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law.A recent study shows that one half of the States still adhere to the common-law non-exclusionary rule. The main concern is not the desirability of the rule, but whether the States should be forced to follow it. This Court should continue to forbear from fettering the States with an adamant rule which may embarrass them in coping with their own peculiar problems in criminal law enforcement.