A judge in Nevada has ruled that “tower dumps”—the law enforcement practice of grabbing vast troves of private personal data from cell towers—is unconstitutional. The judge also ruled that the cops could, this one time, still use the evidence they obtained through this unconstitutional search.
Yes & no. Sadly case precedent in matters like this typically favor law enforcement & prosecutors for multiple reasons. One of them being where they argue if they make the ruling retroactive, then thousands of convicts where they used similar evidence would also be eligible for appeals or dismissal. Another more messed up reason is that if evidence is obtained illegally, if it still “proves” a defendant is guilty, the courts have came up with certain exceptions where it can still be used.
So anything discovered further is ‘fruit of the poisonous tree’ and no longer admissible as evidence. But since it wasn’t ‘wrong’ at the time it was done it is admissible?
Is that correct?
It’s basically a good faith exception. At the time it wasn’t known it was illegal so the police couldn’t have known. Now that they know anything forwarded becomes inadmissible.