Scholarly record

THE DOCTRINE OF FRUIT OF THE POISONOUS TREE IN THE REALITIES OF LATVIAN CRIMINAL PROCEEDINGS

T. Jurkevich, K. Smits

Abstract

For centuries, the Greek goddess Themis has been a symbol of Western jurisprudence and adjudication. Themis symbolizes not only the Divine law, but also impartiality of judges, weighing of evidence, sword of justice for guilty and most importantly – risk of unfairness. Criminal procedure, like symbol of Themis, above all other branches of law must be shining example of the values of Western jurisprudence. However, in reality criminal procedure in theory and practice has always been the most vulnerable to unfairness – the serpent around the law code at Themis’s feet. Criminal justice too often encounters cases where it must be decided if illegally obtained evidence or its source, or evidence found on the bases of illegally obtained evidence or its source may be used to prove the issue or must be found inadmissible and excluded to guarantee a fair trial and due process. Such issues are decided under doctrine of Fruit of the poisonous tree. The subject-matter and focus of the paper is a Fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine and its applicability in Latvian criminal procedure law. In most cases there is no doubt that the evidence or source of evidence obtained in violation of human rights, constitution, general principles of criminal procedure law are strictly inadmissible. However, there is not a uniform opinion whether legally obtained evidence or its source found because of use of illegally obtained evidence is admissible or must be excluded. Aim of the article is to show what is a doctrine of Fruit of the poisonous tree, if and to what extent it influences admissibility of evidence not only in Latvian criminal procedure law, but procedural law in general. While writing the article the following research methods have been used: historical method, analytical method, deduction, comparative method and analogy.

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