Weeks v. United States
Is it still good law? What later courts have actually done to this case.
Status
177 later cases cite Weeks v. United States; 177 of those citations sat close to treatment language and were flagged for reading, and all of them have been read. Citations that did not sit near treatment language were not flagged and were not read one by one, so a court that weakened this case without using any of that language would not appear here.
Relying on Weeks v. United States?
This page shows what later courts did to it. Ask about your specific facts and see whether it still carries your argument, with citations you can check.
Treatments
Overruled in part
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The Supreme Court overruled Weeks's silver-platter rule, which had permitted federal prosecutors to use evidence unlawfully seized by state officers acting without federal involvement.
Elkins v. United States · Supreme Court of the United States · filed
But the Weeks case also announced, unobtrusively but nonetheless definitely, another evidentiary rule. Some of the articles used as evidence against Weeks had been unlawfully seized by local police officers acting on their own account. The Court held that the admission of this evidence was not error for the reason that “the Fourth Amendment is not directed to individual misconduct of such officials. Its limitations reach the Federal Government and its agencies.” […] For these reasons we hold that evidence obtained by state officers during a search which, if conducted by federal officers, would have violated the defendant’s immunity from unreasonable searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendment is inadmissible over the defendant’s timely objection in a federal criminal trial.
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Limited
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The Supreme Court confined Weeks's exclusionary sanction to victims of the unlawful search who timely object and declined to extend the analogous Communications Act sanction to nonparties to intercepted communications.
Goldstein v. United States · Supreme Court of the United States · filed
It has long been settled that evidence obtained in violation of the prohibition of the Fourth Amendment cannot be used in a prosecution against the victim of the unlawful search and seizure if he makes timely objection. […] The question now to be decided is whether we shall extend the sanction for violation of the Communications Act so as to make available to one not a party to the intercepted communication the objection that its use outside the courtroom, and prior to the trial, induced evidence which, except for that use, would be admissible. No court has ever gone so far in applying the implied sanction for violation of the Fourth Amendment. […] Weeks v. United States, 232 U. S. 383.
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The Supreme Court held that Weeks does not shield a defendant's sweeping false testimony from impeachment with unlawfully seized evidence.
Walder v. United States · Supreme Court of the United States · filed
The Government cannot violate the Fourth Amendment — in the only way in which the Government can do anything, namely through its agents — and use the fruits of such unlawful conduct to secure a conviction. Weeks v. United States, supra. […] It is one thing to say that the Government cannot make an affirmative use of evidence unlawfully obtained. It is quite another to say that the defendant can turn the illegal method by which evidence in the Government’s possession was obtained to his own advantage, and provide himself with a shield against contradiction of his untruths. Such an extension of the Weeks doctrine would be a perversion of the Fourth Amendment.
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The Supreme Court declined to extend Weeks's exclusionary rule to grand-jury questioning based on unlawfully seized evidence.
United States v. Calandra · Supreme Court of the United States · filed
Under this rule, evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment cannot be used in a criminal proceeding against the victim of the illegal search and seizure. Weeks v. United States, 232 U. S. 383 (1914); Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U. S. 643 (1961). […] We therefore decline to embrace a view that would achieve a speculative and undoubtedly minimal advance in the deterrence of police misconduct at the expense of substantially impeding the role of the grand jury.
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The Supreme Court limited the exclusionary rule to direct review and habeas cases lacking a prior full and fair opportunity to litigate the Fourth Amendment claim.
Stone v. Powell · Supreme Court of the United States · filed
In Weeks the Court held that the defendant could petition before trial for the return of property secured through an illegal search or seizure conducted by federal authorities. […] In sum, we conclude that where the State has provided an opportunity for full and fair litigation of a Fourth Amendment claim, a state prisoner may not be granted federal habeas corpus relief.
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The Supreme Court declined to extend the exclusionary rule to a federal civil tax proceeding using evidence unlawfully seized by state criminal investigators.
United States v. Janis · Supreme Court of the United States · filed
It was not until 1914, however, that the Court held that the Fourth Amendment alone may be the basis for excluding from a federal criminal trial evidence seized by a federal officer in violation solely of that Amendment. Weeks v. United States, 232 U. S. 383. […] We therefore hold that the judicially created exclusionary rule should not be extended to forbid the use in the civil proceeding of one sovereign of evidence seized by a criminal law enforcement agent of another sovereign.
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The Supreme Court held that Weeks's exclusionary rule is not automatic after every Fourth Amendment violation and does not reach isolated negligence attenuated from the arrest.
Herring v. United States · Supreme Court of the United States · filed
Nonetheless, our decisions establish an exclusionary rule that, when applicable, forbids the use of improperly obtained evidence at trial. See, e. g., Weeks v. United States, 232 U. S. 383, 398 (1914). […] The fact that a Fourth Amendment violation occurred — i. e., that a search or arrest was unreasonable — does not necessarily mean that the exclusionary rule applies. […] An error that arises from nonrecurring and attenuated negligence is thus far removed from the core concerns that led us to adopt the rule in the first place. […] To trigger the exclusionary rule, police conduct must be sufficiently deliberate that exclusion can meaningfully deter it, and sufficiently culpable that such deterrence is worth the price paid by the justice system.
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