When I reading the story, that part was just screaming at me. In my limited knowledge of the law, the guy got incredibly lucky in having illegally gain evidence accepted in a court of law (from a defendant).
It's mind blowing to think about being in a situation where the only way to get justice is to break the law. It sounds good in action movie but in real life, it's appalling...
Being a foreigner, it's mind blowing that how evidence is procured matter.
Evidence is evidence. If there were illegal actions while collecting it, then those actions should be prosecuted, but evidence is still evidence and should be used.
In the US, we (as a collective) hold sacrosanct the rights of a person against illegal searches and self-incrimination, as well as the 'innocent until proven guilty' doctrine. The idea is that it's better to let a criminal go than to convict an innocent person.
Disallowing illegally obtained evidence also has the effect of discouraging the police from illegally obtaining evidence in the first place and reducing opportunities for corruption. Of course, in this case it didn't work out so well, but you would see a lot more stories like this if sources of evidence weren't important.
Disallowing illegally obtained evidence also has the effect of discouraging the police from illegally obtaining evidence in the first place
Exactly, and arguably it's the only effective deterrent, because courts will be very lenient towards law enforcement officers doing their job, simply out of pragmatism. Law enforcement officers don't all have a precise understanding of the law, there are gray areas in the law anyway, and on top of that, the law is constantly evolving. Prosecuting police officers for illegal searches would be harmful, impractical, and _extremely_ unpopular, so the use of illegal searches and evidence obtained from them would become routine if that were the only deterrent.
In the US, the courts crafted the "suppression of evidence" doctrine as a remedy to violations of the Fourth Amendment right to be secure against unreasonable searches/seizures. The courts didn't have the power to punish the law-enforcement agents who violated the Fourth Amendment (because there didn't exist an appropriate statute criminalizing the behavior or because the prosecutor was unwilling to bring charges), so instead they refused to allow such illegally gathered evidence to be presented at trial. Note that evidence gathered by a private actor (independently of any gov't investigation) is not suppressible under this doctrine.
I believe (but cannot prove) that it's to prevent the police abusing their powers. If illegally gathered evidence were admissible, then they could argue - with some justification - that the end justifies the means.
I love anti-American criticism. Sure, most of the time, foreigners complain that we don't respect people's rights enough. But some of the time, they complain that we respect people's rights too much.
The US has abnormally strong civil liberties as far as interacting with your local police department goes, paired with a federal government that does everything they think they can get away with when it comes to kidnapping foreigners or feeling you up at the airport. It's a very strange system filled with contradictions.
EDIT: Anti-American was probably too strong a term for it. My point was just that it's interesting how the American government is criticized on both accounts.
It's mind blowing to think about being in a situation where the only way to get justice is to break the law. It sounds good in action movie but in real life, it's appalling...