CREATORS: Let History Guide the Court on Deportation Issue

 Matthew T. Mangino
CREATORS
April 22, 2025

What happens when the government violates an individual's constitutional rights? We may soon find out as the United States Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case involving the federal government's deportation of noncitizens in violation of a court order and without due process of law.

The Supreme Court's response to unconstitutional conduct by law enforcement as it relates to individuals accused of a crime may serve as a guide.

In 1961, the high court created a dramatic remedy that would prevent the prosecution of an accused whose constitutional rights had been violated. The Court established the exclusionary rule, which remains controversial to this day.

In 1957, Cleveland, Ohio police officers went to the home of Dollree Mapp looking for a suspect in a criminal investigation. She refused to let the police in without a warrant.

The police left, and when they returned, they were armed with a phony warrant. Chicanery took the place of real police work. Instead of going to a judge to get a warrant, they drew up their own. After entering Mapp's home, police searched and confiscated obscene material, resulting in Mapp's arrest.

As a result of the police misconduct, the Supreme Court, in Mapp v. Ohio, provided a remedy — the exclusion of illegally obtained evidence from admission in a criminal prosecution — resulting in a dismissal of the charges.

The rationale behind the exclusionary rule was to deter police misconduct. If police intentionally circumvented their obligation to get a search warrant, or deprived an accused of due process, the penalty would be significant — the inability to use any evidence illegally obtained.

Over the last half century, the Supreme Court has whittled away at the exclusionary rule. The court has ruled that the exclusionary rule does not apply if the police obtained no advantage by their unlawful conduct, if a judge improvidently issued a warrant or if a valid warrant was illegally served.

In 2009, the assault on the exclusionary rule continued. The Supreme Court found that evidence confiscated as a result of an arrest that was the product of an expired warrant was not subject to exclusion. The court found that negligence by one police department in failing to remove a warrant did not contaminate evidence obtained by a different police department that was unaware of the invalid arrest warrant.

In 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court further narrowed the exclusionary rule. Police in Alabama arrested Willie Davis. After he was handcuffed and placed in the backseat of a police cruiser, Davis' car was searched. The police found a gun. They were in conformity with the law as it existed at the time the warrantless search of Davis' car was conducted.

Subsequently, the law changed, and Davis sought to have the evidence excluded. The Supreme Court refused to exclude the evidence. Justice Samuel Alito concluded that suppression of evidence as the result of a change in the law, a change that came after a lawful search, "would do nothing to deter police misconduct."

In 2016, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas wrote an opinion in a Utah case ruling that evidence obtained from an unlawful police stop would not be excluded from court because the link between the stop and the evidence's discovery was "attenuated" by the discovery of an outstanding warrant during the stop.

Despite the Supreme Court's diminution of Mapp v. Ohio, history has looked kindly on the Warren Court and the important protections provided by the court to men and women accused of crime.

The current Supreme Court has stepped in to halt deportations to El Salvadore temporarily. The Trump administration faces possible contempt for prior deportations and specifically for the mistaken deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. History will remember what remedy the Supreme Court crafts, if any, for Garcia and the other Venezuelans deported without due process.

Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George P.C. His book The Executioner's Toll, 2010 was released by McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on Twitter @MatthewTMangino.

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