CRS-140 K. Alternative Considerations Rather than attempt to fill in the alternations not covered by proposed legislation, it would appear more useful to organize the field of all alternations into a form through which the issue can be considered as a whole. The outline and matrix which follow are intended to supply a framework on which legislative alternatives on the privacy investigative efficiency issue within the context of third party records can be effectively discussed. CRS-142 3. Acquisition from governmental agency From this outline and matrix all the basic options can be plied to the federal government across the board or selectively, agency agency. So long as the ridimentary constructures of the Constitution e not violated, or as the Congress determines what the structures are, ngress is free to legislate. 42-793 O-79-55 CRS-143 IV. THE EXCLUSIONARY RULE AND REMEDIES The presumed innocence or provable guilt of Lee Harvey Oswald would ultimately have revolved on relevant and competent eiidence. Part of competency, however, includes those legal policies which have an overriding importance to the use of evidence and would have excluded, or better precluded, evidence from the jury's consideration. In a trial of Lee Harvey Oswald the Constitutional Exclusionary Rule would have played an important part, as will be shown, and may have any precluded final jury determination. The material to be discussed in this chapter may have aborted a trial before it began in a way similar to the problems suggested in Chapter II, and would control the use of evidence acquired by the means discussed in Chapter III, 1/ including the current legislative proposals in that chapter. Initially the Exclusionary Rule was Constitutionally mandated 2/ to unlawful searches and seizures, but the proposition has grown along two distinct lines: 1) The type of conduct included under its umbrella of applicability, and 2) he legal basis for its prohibition and egregiousness of violation. On the first axis, the rule has extended from searches and seizures to include confessions and identifications. On the second axis, the rule has extended from Constitutional grounds to statutory, regulatory and, tentatively, customary grounds. The concept of matrix analysis may 3/ thus be useful in this context. 1/ Compare, Chapter III, Section K, with Chapter IV, Section 2/ See, infra, Section B. 3/ See, infra, Section Cl. CRS-144 authority: This chapter will proceed through the potentials on the basis Constitutional, statutory, regulatory or customary in analyz the traditional area, as well as supplemental areas. Thus, in reaching islative alternatives, the broadest potential jurisdiction will be included. supplement that jurisdiction, proposals which are not currently under sideration within the Congress, or which logically follow from the analysis, 1 be brought in from outside sources. Finally, a word must be said about the operation of suppression a remedy in criminal cases. When a case is the focus of wide-spread atten on of the general populace, suppression is only valid so long as the eviice has not been previously publicized. This was a major concern of Chapter Similarly, pressures mount from one viewpoint in such cases to read : exclusionary remedies narrowly and permit broader latitude in the introtion of evidence, counterbalanced by the pressures from another to construe : exclusionary remedies broadly and limit the use of damaging, but plausibly roper, evidence to avoid later reversal. These pressures tend to reinforce e special nature of such a trial; the potential reactions to the suppression evidence thus cannot be underestimated. |