''United States v. Payner'', 447 U.S. 727 (1980), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court reversed a district court's suppression of evidence in the criminal prosecution of an Ohio businessman charged with tax evasion. The case concerned both issues of

criminal procedure Criminal procedure is the adjudication process of the criminal law. While criminal procedure differs dramatically by jurisdiction, the process generally begins with a formal criminal charge with the person on trial either being free on bail or ...

and the application of the exclusionary rule derived from the Fourth Amendment. By a 6–3 margin the Court both reaffirmed its earlier rulings' holding that only the party whose Fourth Amendment protections may have been violated has standing to challenge the evidence seized in the search, and barred lower courts from exercising their supervisory power to exclude such evidence at the trial of third parties. The case had been brought as the fruit of Operation Trade Winds, a lengthy

Internal Revenue Service The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting U.S. federal taxes and administering the Internal Revenue Code, the main body of the federal statutory ta ...

(IRS) investigation into the use of offshore accounts in tax havens by American citizens attempting to evade tax liability and hide assets, some of which were believed to have been derived from criminal activities. At one point, a private investigator working with a Florida IRS agent had taken the executive's briefcase for the IRS to open and duplicate the documents within, then returned the briefcase. (This aspect was described by the district judge as the "briefcase caper", a sobriquet which has subsequently become attached to the case as a whole).Sharon Davies, , 73 S. Cal. L. Rev. 1275, 1306 (2000). Subpoenas based on the information in those documents yielded the documents used in a prosecution later of Ohio businessman Jack Payner. Lewis Powell wrote for the

majority A majority, also called a simple majority or absolute majority to distinguish it from #Related terms, related terms, is more than half of the total.Dictionary definitions of ''majority'' aMerriam-Websterreasonable expectation of privacy in the documents used to build the case against him. While the Court, too, was outraged by the IRS agent's disregard for the law, the judicial branch's supervisory power was meant to be used only against its own excesses, and Congress was better equipped to remedy such breaches of the Constitution since there were no ways to limit how a court might apply such a rule. Thurgood Marshall's dissent noted not only the extent to which the IRS had gone in planning the briefcase caper but that its agents had purposely been instructed to take advantage of the loophole created by the court's standing rule. Later commentators read the case as expanding the standing rule, and indicating a shift to focusing on the deterrence effect of applying the exclusionary rule instead of the courts' supervisory role.

Initial investigation

In 1965 the IRS initiated "Operation Trade Winds", a broad investigation into the use of

offshore Offshore may refer to: Science and technology * Offshore (hydrocarbons) * Offshore construction, construction out at sea * Offshore drilling, discovery and development of oil and gas resources which lie underwater through drilling a well * Off ...

tax havens by American citizens, some of whom had links to organized crime. Agents in the Jacksonville office, where the investigation was headquartered, began to focus on Castle Bank & Trust, in

Nassau, Bahamas Nassau ( ) is the capital and largest city of the Bahamas. With a population of 274,400 as of 2016, or just over 70% of the entire population of the Bahamas, Nassau is commonly defined as a primate city, dwarfing all other towns in the country. ...

, when they learned a suspected drug trafficker had opened an account there. Richard Jaffe, one of the special agents involved in Trade Winds, asked Norman Casper, a private investigator he sometimes used as a source, to look into Castle.
United States v. Payner
', 434 F. Supp 113, 118 ( N.D. Ohio 1977). Casper made the acquaintance of Michael Wolstencroft, one of Castle's vice presidents. He introduced Wolstencroft to Sybol Kennedy, a former employee of his who also did private investigative work. In 1973 Wolstencroft came to Miami for a few days, and Casper came up with a plan to get information on who Castle's depositors were. Jaffe approved the basic outline.''Payner'', 434 F. Supp at 119. Upon Wolstencroft's arrival in Miami, he went to Kennedy's apartment and took her out for a dinner date. While they were out, Casper entered the apartment with a key Kennedy had given him and took Wolstencroft's briefcase to Jaffe. A locksmith created a duplicate key to the briefcase. Once it was opened Jaffe and other IRS personnel microfilmed 400 of the documents within. They were replaced and returned to Kennedy's apartment before she and Wolstencroft returned from dinner.''Payner'', 434 F. Supp at 120. The documents revealed extensive cooperation between Castle and the Bank of Perrine in Florida. Later, at Casper's instruction, Kennedy stole a rolodex from Castle's office in Nassau during a visit to Wolstencroft. Among those with contact information in it was Cleveland-area businessman Jack Payner. The IRS let him know that it was investigating his tax returns for four years. Subpoenas were issued to the Bank of Perrine. In response to one the bank produced a 1972 letter from Payner pledging the $100,000 in his Castle account as

collateral Collateral may refer to: Business and finance * Collateral (finance), a borrower's pledge of specific property to a lender, to secure repayment of a loan * Marketing collateral, in marketing and sales Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Collate ...

for a loan. Since Payner had said he did not have any offshore accounts on his

tax return A tax return is the completion of documentation that calculates an entity or individual's income earned and the amount of taxes to be paid to the government or government organizations or, potentially, back to the taxpayer. Taxation is one of ...

for that year, the case was referred to the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio. Based on that evidence, Payner was indicted in 1976 on a charge of filing a false tax return, a felony.''Payner'', 434 F. Supp at 122.

Trial

A year after the indictment, Payner moved to suppress the government's evidence against him as fruit of the poisonous tree, developed from evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment's prohibition of unreasonable search and seizure. Federal prosecutors argued in response that the evidence was developed from sources other than the documents in Wolstencroft's briefcase, and that even if those had been the only source Payner had no standing to invoke the exclusionary rule because his rights had not been violated when the documents were copied.Wolstencroft was also indicted for aiding and abetting Payner, but was never prosecuted because he never returned to the United States (''Payner'', 447 U.S. at 746 n.13 (Marshall, J., dissenting)). With the agreement of both parties, Judge

John Michael Manos John Michael Manos (December 8, 1922 – July 6, 2006) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. Early life and education Manos was born to Maria and Michael E. Manos on December 8, ...

conducted the proceedings as a bench trial, with himself as sole trier of fact, considering both the government's case on the merits and the defendant's motion to suppress concurrently, in order to determine whether or not any of the government's evidence was obtained independently of the contents of Wolstencroft's briefcase or the rolodex.''Payner'', 434 F. Supp at 118 n.2. After both parties had presented their cases, Manos granted the motion to suppress. Prosecutors appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. A three-judge panel headed by the circuit's chief judge,

Harry Phillips Harry Phillips may refer to: * Harry Phillips (rugby union) (1903–1978), Welsh international rugby union player * Harry Phillips (judge) (1909–1985), United States federal judge * Harry Phillips (athlete) Harry Phillips (born 1890, date of ...

, dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction. Phillips wrote that the federal statute limiting the government's right of appeal in criminal prosecutions was explicit that rulings suppressing evidence could only be appealed before trial, not afterwards. He criticized Manos's handling of the case, saying that the motion to suppress should have been heard first in any event, in order to preserve the government's right of appeal.
United States v. Payner
', 572 F.2d 144, 145–46 ( 6th Cir. 1978). With the case before him again, Manos amended his rulings accordingly. He first found Payner guilty, then granted the motion to suppress and, on his own initiative,

set aside Set-aside was an incentive scheme introduced by the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1988 (Regulation (EEC) 1272/88), to (i) help reduce the large and costly surpluses produced in Europe under the guaranteed price system of the Common Agricul ...

the verdict. In a memorandum opinion on the suppression, he set forth his reasoning. "This Court finds that the United States, through its agents, Richard Jaffe, and others, knowingly and willfully participated in the unlawful seizure of Michael Wolstencroft's briefcase", Manos declared. He did not accept the government claim that Casper had acted on his own, since Jaffe had been not only involved and aware but had gone so far as to clear the plan with his own superior. The government had also not proved its case that the evidence against Payner was developed independently of the theft of the briefcase. At trial he had not found Jaffe a trustworthy or credible witness. The IRS agent had, in fact, told a congressional committee that the evidence from the briefcase was unavailable from any other source, and the timing of the subpoenas reinforced that claim.''Payner'', 434 F. Supp at 122–23. Manos then turned to the legal issues surrounding the exclusionary rule. He cited the three circumstances under which the Supreme Court had said it was to be applied: when defendants' rights had been violated, when the court found the government's conduct outrageous, and as part of the courts' supervisory power over the operations of government, under which "to allow admission of the evidence calls into question the integrity of the entire federal judicial system".''Payner'', 434 F. Supp at 125. The first instance did not apply. In '' Alderman v. United States'','' Alderman v. United States'', the first Fourth Amendment case decided by the Supreme Court after it shifted the root of the Amendment's protection from property to privacy in ''

Katz v. United States ''Katz v. United States'', 389 U.S. 347 (1967), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court redefined what constitutes a "search" or "seizure" with regard to the protections of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution ...

'',''

'', . the Court had broadened an earlier holding, '' Goldstein v. United States'','' Goldstein v. United States'', . into a principle that the exclusionary rule could not be invoked vicariously. It had reaffirmed that holding recently in '' Rakas v. Illinois''.'' Rakas v. Illinois'', . And in ''

United States v. Miller ''United States v. Miller'', 307 U.S. 174 (1939), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that involved a Second Amendment to the United States Constitution challenge to the National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA). The cas ...

'',''

'', . it had held that there was no reasonable expectation of privacy in banking records. All the same Manos believed just as strongly that Payner's

due process Due process of law is application by state of all legal rules and principles pertaining to the case so all legal rights that are owed to the person are respected. Due process balances the power of law of the land and protects the individual pers ...

rights had been violated by the unlawful copying of the record's in Wolstencroft's briefcase. Drawing on a line of cases starting with ''

Rochin v. California ''Rochin v. California'', 342 U.S. 165 (1952), was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States that added behavior that "shocks the conscience" into tests of what violates due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United S ...

'',''

'', . where the Court had been so outraged by police officers' forced use of a

stomach pump Gastric lavage, also commonly called stomach pumping or gastric irrigation, is the process of cleaning out the contents of the stomach. Since its first recorded use in early 19th century, it has become one of the most routine means of eliminating ...

to retrieve two swallowed morphine capsules that they overturned the conviction, and clarified in ''

United States v. Janis ''United States v. Janis'', 428 U.S. 433 (1976), was a Supreme Court Case that found Max Janis and Morris Levine guilty of illegal bookmaking activities in Los Angeles in a 5-3 ruling. The two were arrested for the crime in November 1968. Appealing ...

''''

'', . when the Court declined to exclude evidence from a civil proceeding that had been seized in a good-faith belief it was permissible, he held that the jurisprudence on the issue: For the same reasons, the supervisory power of the courts first outlined in '' McNabb v. United States'''' McNabb v. United States'', . required suppression of the evidence.''Payner'', 434 F. Supp at 133–35. The government appealed the suppression order again. After hearing arguments late in 1978, another Phillips-chaired panel affirmed Manos early the following year. In a short '' per curiam'' opinion, the panel concurred with the district court's findings of fact. It found the suppression a permissible use of the court's supervisory power and declined to consider the constitutional questions.
United States v. Payner
', 590 F.2d 206 (6th Cir. 1979) ( per curiam). A petition for rehearing, either by another panel or '' en banc'', was denied in March. The government then petitioned the Supreme Court for ''

certiorari In law, ''certiorari'' is a court process to seek judicial review of a decision of a lower court or government agency. ''Certiorari'' comes from the name of an English prerogative writ, issued by a superior court to direct that the record of ...

'', which was granted later in the year.444 U.S. 822. Oral arguments were heard in February 1980.

Decision

The Court announced its ruling in June 1980, near the end of term. A

majority A majority, also called a simple majority or absolute majority to distinguish it from #Related terms, related terms, is more than half of the total.Dictionary definitions of ''majority'' aMerriam-Webster Lewis F. Powell, Jr. Lewis Franklin Powell Jr. (September 19, 1907 – August 25, 1998) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1972 to 1987. Born in Suffolk, Virginia, he gradua ...

, reaffirmed earlier holdings that only the aggrieved party could challenge the constitutionality of evidence, and that even the deliberate, sustained nature of the violation in the instant case did not change that. He also outlined reasons why the Court did not think it wise to extend the exclusionary rule in that direction, since its supervisory power was properly limited to actions of the judicial branch, and Congressional hearings had already exposed the excesses of Operation Trade Winds and led the IRS to shut it down. Chief Justice Warren Burger added a short concurring opinion emphasizing the latter point but also distancing the Court from the conduct of the agents. Thurgood Marshall wrote for the dissenting justices. He felt that the deliberate and calculated plans of Jaffe and Casper, as well as the former's admission to Congress that he had been made aware of the standing provision during training and encouraged to take advantage of it, required that the Court act. The Court's supervisory power was about protecting the integrity of the judicial process, he reminded the majority. A later petition for rehearing was denied. The Sixth Circuit remanded the case to the district court for further proceedings in the fall of 1980.
United States v. Payner
', 629 F.2d 1181 (6th Cir. 1980).

Majority opinion

After reviewing the facts of the case, Powell found no reason to doubt or add to Manos's conclusion that Payner lacked Fourth Amendment standing. In a footnote, he dismissed an argument in Payner's brief that Bahamian banking secrecy laws gave him an expectation of privacy. None of the stolen documents would have been covered by it, and even if they were the cited section of law was outdated, the current statute was "hardly a blanket guarantee of privacy" since it had limited scope, many exceptions and the brief had cited no authority on how to construe it.''United States v. Payner'', 447 U.S. 727, 732 n.4. He turned to the legal issues. "We certainly can understand the District Court's commendable desire to deter deliberate intrusions into the privacy of persons who are unlikely to become defendants in a criminal prosecution," he wrote. "No court should condone the unconstitutional and possibly criminal behavior of those who planned and executed this 'briefcase caper.'"''Payner'', 447 U.S. at 733. But the Court's many precedents in that area "do not command the exclusion of evidence in every case of illegality. Instead, they must be weighed against the considerable harm that would flow from indiscriminate application of an exclusionary rule." Thus its use was properly restricted to instances where it would most be useful in remedying the violation, wrote Powell. "Our cases have consistently recognized that unbending application of the exclusionary sanction to enforce ideals of governmental rectitude would impede unacceptably the truthfinding functions of judge and jury."''Payner'', 447 U.S. 727, 734. Similarly, Powell wrote, the supervisory power should be carefully used. The Court had said as such in ''

Elkins v. United States ''Elkins v. United States'', 364 U.S. 206 (1960), was a US Supreme Court decision that held the "silver platter doctrine", which allowed federal prosecutors to use evidence illegally gathered by state police, to be a violation of the Fourth Amen ...

''''

'', . nearly two decades before, and demonstrated that restraint most recently in '' United States v. Caceres'''' United States v. Caceres'', . "Were we to accept this use of the supervisory power," he concluded, "we would confer on the judiciary discretionary power to disregard the considered limitations of the law it is charged with enforcing."''Payner'', 447 U.S. at 734–37. In a footnote, he also pointed out that five years earlier, in 1975, the House Government Operations Committee had held hearings on Trade Winds and other related IRS investigations which had revealed the briefcase caper and other abusive investigatory practices. In response the investigations had been called off.''Payner'', 447 U.S. at 733 n5.

Concurrence

"Orderly government under our system of separate powers calls for internal self-restraint and discipline in each anch," Burger wrote. " is Court has no general supervisory authority over operations of the ecutive anch, as it has with respect to the federal courts." He emphasized his agreement with the majority, but noted that its opinion "should not be read as condoning the conduct of the IRS 'private investigators' disclosed by this record, or as approval of their evidence-gathering methods."''Payner'', 447 U.S. at 737–38 (Burger, C.J., concurring).

Dissent

The majority's holding, Marshall wrote, "effectively turns the standing rules created by this Court for assertions of Fourth Amendment violations into a sword to be used by the Government to permit it deliberately to invade one person's Fourth Amendment rights in order to obtain evidence against another person." Courts should, he said, be allowed to prevent that.''Payner'' 447 U.S. at 738 (Thomas, J., dissenting). He reviewed the facts of the case as Manos had outlined them, believing fuller detail was necessary to appreciate the extent to which the IRS agents had been involved in planning and executing the briefcase caper. He reiterated that they had been fully aware of the standing rule when they planned the investigation. "It is in the context of these findings", he wrote, "that the suppression issue must be considered."''Payner'', 447 U.S. at 738–43. In support of the use of supervisory powers to suppress, he cited

Louis Brandeis Louis Dembitz Brandeis (; November 13, 1856 – October 5, 1941) was an American lawyer and associate justice on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1916 to 1939. Starting in 1890, he helped develop the "right to privacy" concept ...

's famous dissent in ''

Olmstead v. United States ''Olmstead v. United States'', 277 U.S. 438 (1928), was a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, on the matter of whether wiretapping of private telephone conversations, obtained by federal agents without a search warrant and subsequ ...

'': "If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy."''Payner'', 447 U.S. at 745 (Marshall, J., dissenting) (citing ''

'', , 471 (1928)). He distinguished the cases where the Court had exercised its powers and suppressed evidenced obtained unconstitutionally as those cases where, like the instant one, the seizure of the evidence had come about through deliberate violation of law. "If the federal court permits such evidence, the intended product of deliberately illegal Government action, to be used to obtain a conviction, it places its imprimatur upon such lawlessness, and thereby taints its own integrity."''Payner'', 447 U.S. at 745–46 (majority opinion). Since the purpose of the supervisory power was to allow the courts to protect their own integrity, Marshall continued, he was all the more puzzled by the majority's focus on the Fourth Amendment's standing provisions. "The only way the IRS can benefit from the evidence it chose to obtain illegally is if the evidence is admitted at trial against persons such as Payner; that was the very point of the criminal exercise in the first place", he wrote. "Such a pollution of the federal courts should not be permitted."''Payner'', 447 U.S. at 747–48. He attacked the notion that the courts were improperly intruding on the prerogatives of the executive branch: Lastly, to respond to charges that this was potentially an indiscriminate application of the exclusionary rule, he quoted from one of Powell's own opinions, in '' Hampton v. United States''''Payner'', 447 U.S. at 751 (Marshall, J., dissenting) (quoting '' Hampton v. United States'', , 495 (Powell, J., concurring)). to the effect that at some point a case where the Court would have to take a stand against abusive investigative methods. "That appropriate case has arrived, and the Court should prevent the Government from profiting by use in the federal courts of evidence deliberately obtained by illegal actions taken in bad faith hostility to constitutional rights."''Payner'', 447 U.S. at 750–51.

Subsequent jurisprudence

No later holdings modified ''Payner'', but it has been among the cases that have guided the Court in other tests of the supervisory power and the exclusionary rule. Several years later, when the Court created the

good-faith exception In United States constitutional law, the good-faith exception (also good-faith doctrine) is a legal doctrine providing an exemption to the exclusionary rule. The exemption allows evidence collected in violation of privacy rights as interpreted f ...

to the exclusionary rule in ''

United States v. Leon ''United States v. Leon'', 468 U.S. 897 (1984), was a Supreme Court of the United States, United States Supreme Court case in which the Court established the "good-faith exception, good faith" exception to the Fourth Amendment of the United States ...

'', Byron White's majority opinion quoted Powell's criticism of the inflexible application of the rule in support of allowing good-faith exceptions.''

'', , 907 (1984). The next year, Thomas would himself cite Powell as to how the supervisory power could not be exercised in conflict with existing statutory or constitutional provisions in '' Thomas v. Arn'', upholding a Sixth Circuit rule that required parties appealing a district court judgement to have filed timely written objections to a magistrate's report.'' Thomas v. Arn'', , 184, (1985). During those years, two appellate courts would rely on ''Payner'' in reaching opposite conclusions about when to allow the use of the supervisory power. A few months after it was handed down, the Seventh Circuit upheld a district court's suppression of evidence during the prosecution of a Chicago gambling ring in ''United States v. Cortina''. An evidentiary hearing found that FBI agent William Brown had greatly exaggerated much of the information used to prepare an affidavit used to obtain the search warrant that had uncovered most of the evidence.
United States v. Cortina
', 630 F.2d 1207, (

7th Cir. The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit (in case citations, 7th Cir.) is the U.S. federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the courts in the following districts: * Central District of Illinois * Northern District of Ill ...

1980). Judge William J. Bauer discussed ''Payner'' at length in his opinion. He found that the instant case fell within the scope of the supervisory power as delineated by Powell's opinion, since it was evidence seized from the defendants themselves. The government had argued, however, that none of them had suffered a violation of their privacy expectations and therefore the supervisory power could not be invoked. But ''Payner'' "did not hold that defendants must establish a legitimate expectation of privacy to invoke the supervisory powers if it is proven that the challenged evidence was seized from defendants", Bauer wrote, and had explicitly rejected a notion that it was identical with the Fourth Amendment. "We recognize that the supervisory power is a complement to, not a substitute for, the Fourth Amendment."''Cortina'', 630 F.2d 1207, 1215–16. Bauer felt it was even more important to deter illegal conduct in this case since it "was committed within the sanctity of the court itself". He noted that it was very difficult to uncover falsification in search warrant affidavits, and that it had only been the good faith and cooperation of the federal prosecutors that had made it possible to do so in the instant case. In that vein, he also felt that enough damage had been done to the judicial process by that falsification to outweigh any harm that might be done by excluding the evidence. He concluded: In 1984 District of Columbia Circuit judge

Antonin Scalia Antonin Gregory Scalia (; March 11, 1936 – February 13, 2016) was an American jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1986 until his death in 2016. He was described as the intellectu ...

, later elevated to the Supreme Court himself, would also rely on ''Payner'' to allow some contested evidence. In ''United States v. Byers'', the appellee sought the exclusion, on several grounds, of evidence from a psychiatric interview used to convict him of murder. Scalia found Powell's point that the balance between the deterrent value and social harm of excluding the evidence does not change whether they are considered against the supervisory power or the exclusionary rule "relevant" in holding the evidence admissible.
United States v. Byers
', 740 F.2d 1104, 1122 (D.C. Cir. 1984).

Analysis and commentary

Kevin Michael Carome has argued that ''Payner'' gave insufficient consideration to judicial integrity in allowing the tainted evidence. "Even where the defendants' rights are not violated," he wrote in a '' Boston College Law Review'' article, "courts should be permitted to rely on the supervisory power to exclude evidence seized by grossly improper means". He believed the evidence could have been suppressed even under a more limited exclusionary rule.Michael Kevin Carome
Limiting Exclusion of Evidence Under the Federal Court's Supervisory Power with a Fourth Amendment Sword
22 B.C. L. Rev. 567, 572 (1981). Prior to ''Payner'', there had been arguments that the supervisory power should be thought of only as the judicial branch's self-policing ability. But, Carome argued, from the time the Court first invoked it in ''McNabb'', "it has been used to counteract improprieties of the executive branch that do not amount to constitutional violations." Courts have also recognized that Congress can limit its application, and have used it sparingly, limiting the power's potential to upset the

balance of powers Separation of powers refers to the division of a state's government into branches, each with separate, independent powers and responsibilities, so that the powers of one branch are not in conflict with those of the other branches. The typic ...

. It also was not intrusive, checking the actions of the executive branch only insofar as it reached criminal prosecutions. In ''Payner'', the government's brief had also suggested

Federal Rule of Evidence First adopted in 1975, the Federal Rules of Evidence codify the evidence law that applies in United States federal courts. In addition, many states in the United States have either adopted the Federal Rules of Evidence, with or without local v ...

402 barred the exercise of the supervisory power, since it holds that only statutory or constitutional provisions may be used to justify suppressing evidence. Powell did not even mention it in his majority opinion. Carome speculated that while the Court may not want to expand the supervisory power, it does not want to surrender it either.Carome, at 585 n.169. He further argued that the supervisory power could, unlike the exclusionary rule, be applied on behalf of defendants whose rights had not been violated personally. "Because the supervisory power is non-constitutional in nature," he wrote, "federal courts may utilize it to create standards that exceed minimum constitutional levels. Hence, the power need not be doctrinally confined to the vindication of personal rights ... e supervisory power enables federal courts, in proper circumstances, to shift the focus from the rights of particular litigants and place it upon governmental conduct or institutions threatening the courts' integrity."Carome, at 586–87. Carome pointed to cases where this had been done. In '' Thiel v. Southern Pacific Corp.'','' Thiel v. Southern Pacific Corp.'' . and '' Ballard v. United States'','' Ballard v. United States'', . the Court had overturned a civil verdict and criminal convictions respectively where certain categories had been unlawfully excluded from the

jury pool Jury selection is the selection of the people who will serve on a jury during a jury trial. The group of potential jurors (the "jury pool", also known as the ''venire'') is first selected from among the community using a reasonably random method. ...

—without requiring parties to demonstrate they were prejudiced by the exclusions, since they had done enough damage to the judicial system. More recently, a Sixth Circuit case had excluded evidence obtained by a government informant who violated attorney–client privilege, conduct he called "more outrageous than ''Payner''" from trials of several defendants.
Valencia v. United States
', 541 F.2d 618 (6th Cir. 1976). Based on those cases, Carome said, ''Cortina'' showed that courts nevertheless felt there was a need for the power, and Carome proposed that the cases where it had initially been exercised called for the creation of a standard. He suggested it be used: Having standards would allay the Court's concerns, and send clear signals to law enforcement as to what conduct would not be tolerated. He called on the Court to re-evaluate ''Payner'' at some point in the future. "The Court's failure to so act would allow such abuses to continue to taint the integrity of hecourts," he said. "A nation pledged to obey the rule of law cannot ignore such threats to its basic order."Carome, at 593. A later commentator, Ohio State law professor Sharon Davies, also found ''Payner'''s narrow approach to the issue troubling. She looked at it through the lens of law and economics, particularly the work of Robert Cooter on prices and sanctions. Both could be applied to undesirable conduct, but the former permits it by requiring a party to personally bear costs that would otherwise be borne by others, whereas the latter is meant to discourage undesirable conduct as strongly as possible by imposing a high price.Davies, at 1283–86. Had the Court, she asked, considered violations of the Fourth Amendment an unconscionable wrong to be deterred with sanctions or a sometimes necessary evil that could be minimized with a price? The language various Supreme Court majorities had used in describing the infractions suggested, to her, the former.Davies, at 1294–98. At the time of ''

Mapp v. Ohio ''Mapp v. Ohio'', 367 U.S. 643 (1961), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the exclusionary rule, which prevents prosecutors from using Evidence (law), evidence in co ...

'', when the exclusionary rule was applied to proceedings in state courts, its imposition was defended as much for its role in protecting judicial integrity as well as deterring unconstitutional investigative practices. " idence collected in violation of Fourth Amendment limits", Davies recounts, "was so imbued with the potential to smear that even judicial robes normally infused with an aura of impartiality and fairness would be tarnished by it."Davies, at 1299–301. As the Court shifted over time to deterrence as the sole basis for the exclusionary rule, requiring a balancing test that is essentially a cost-benefit analysis, Davies argues that more and more exceptions to it have been createdDavies, at 1301–06. that another observer has described as "inclusionary rules."Davies, at 1301 n.146. She found ''Payner'' to be " example of government officials engaged in precisely this type of overt cost-benefit analysis ... If, as in ''Payner'', police are truly free to choose whether to abide by or violate the constitutional requirements, the penalty for the decision to inflict the constitutional harm begins to look less and less like a sanction for wrongful conduct."Davies, at 1306–07. She did not find the scope of the violation surprising either, since "when viewed from the perspective of a self-interested actor, these developments make perfect economic sense, for ' ce it pays to fall short of the legal standard, it pays to fall significantly short of it.'"Davies, 1322–23 (quoting Robert Cooter, Prices and Sanctions, 84 Colum. L. Rev. 1523, 1531 (1984)).

Notes

References

External links

*{{caselaw source , case = ''United States v. Payner'', {{ussc, 447, 727, 1980, el=no , courtlistener =https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/110317/united-states-v-payner/ , findlaw = https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/447/727.html , googlescholar = https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=5827713761582890953 , justia = http://supreme.justia.com/us/447/727/ , loc =http://cdn.loc.gov/service/ll/usrep/usrep447/usrep447727/usrep447727.pdf , oyez =https://www.oyez.org/cases/1979/78-1729 United States Supreme Court cases United States Supreme Court cases of the Burger Court 1980 in United States case law United States Fourth Amendment case law Bahamas–United States relations Banking in the Bahamas Money laundering Offshore finance

Initial investigation

Trial

Decision

Majority opinion

Concurrence

Dissent

Subsequent jurisprudence

Analysis and commentary

See also

Notes

References

External links