LAW

Criminal Procedure and the Constitution and the Exclusionary Rule

Criminal Procedure and the Constitution and the Exclusionary Rule

Thesis Statement

The Evidence collected should be judged on its merit not the source of the evidence. The evidence should be made admissible or not based on its own merit and not based on its source.

Introduction

Questions abound. What is civil society? What is its role? Who is part of it? A vibrantly working civil society stands as a key to organize people, and organizing people secures the key to have a chance at using the tools and instruments of a people-centered advocacy. When civil society works well, it uses public space to gather, think exchange and refine views, and organize and take action. Public space represents a freedom space. It enables people to act collectively. As part of this process, those participating in civil society accept debate and disagreement and that can entail negotiation that leads to compromise. Negotiation and compromise are not a given. But space is needed to allow the fruits of a particular organized group's will to be considered and dealt with in ways that are not violent.

Civil society's strength depends on autonomy from the state with laws and practices that protect the freedom of civil society organizations to set their agenda. Laws and regulations are meant to be ministerial—that is, organizations in their legal status cannot be discriminated against. Of course, organizations have to follow standards of honesty and not take actions that are illegal. Autonomy should not get in the way of civil society participants developing serious relationships with government officials and office holders and anyone else not included in what is generally considered to be civil society (Gardner, 1993).

People and organizations that participate in civil society, that is, people organized to take public action, must be free from threats and harassment by public officials. The government has an added responsibility to protect people from harassment and threats by nongovernment “outlaws.” On these two matters—the state's behavior and its duty to protect—there must be no compromise (Freire, 1993).

Whatever the form of government—democratic or not democratic—civil society is ever present. Strong expressions of civil society have existed within undemocratic governments whether they were in the communist societies of Eastern and Central Europe, South Africa under apartheid, or the U.S. South before the civil rights revolution. In essence, civil society embraces many organizations and individuals that are part of a community's and a country's public life.

Larry Diamond (1999) in his Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation enumerated a number of perspectives. In listing Diamond's perspectives, I have placed them in a context to describe the advocacy of values and beliefs in a setting of ongoing and rapid social and economic change.

Discussion

Over the last 50 years, advocacy based on values and beliefs is no longer a stepchild depending on philanthropic largesse. Organizations have an advocacy identity even though they are usually not financially self-sufficient. The idea of a people-centered advocacy anchored by social justice now has legitimacy. It is a necessary component of a vital civil ...