Excluded Evidence: Do Judges Go Too Far?

Re “Case of the Missing Evidence,” Commentary, Jan. 28: While I appreciate some of professor Jonathan Turley’s remarks, I do take umbrage with his comment that “judges now routinely restrict evidence that any ordinary person would view as essential to a well-informed verdict.” If the professor’s house was on fire, would he want an ordinary citizen to try to save it rather than his local fire department? Would he let an ordinary citizen do his taxes?

While our legal system is not perfect, it appears to be the best in the world, and part of this can be attributed to the extraordinary citizens who oversee and manage the cases.

Shari O’Connell

Santa Monica

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Turley drones on about the unfairness of courts restricting what evidence a jury can hear. However, in his world the defendant is harmed by such exclusions. Yet in the overwhelming majority of criminal cases, excluded evidence is that which directly and, in many cases, irrefutably points to a defendant’s guilt.

Judge-created remedies are the usual basis for these exclusions. One, the exclusionary rule, holds that when an officer violates the 4th or 5th amendment, he is not held directly accountable. Instead, the gathered evidence, no matter how damning, is excluded from presentation to the jury. So, if you or a family member is murdered, raped or robbed, you will have to suffer when the guilty defendant walks free if errors by a police officer result in evidence exclusion.

Of course, you can take comfort in this being a lesson for the officer, and hopefully this or future lessons will encourage him not to violate the law. You could even apply this logic in your own life; for example, punish your daughter when your son breaks rules around the house. Hopefully, your son will care enough about his sister that he will change his future behavior. Turley’s musings have only revealed a courtroom truth: Trials are about evidence, not the truth.

William Rose

San Diego