Constructed in revolutionary times, the American system of Federal government seeks to balance the guarantees of personal freedoms against the rights of ownership, personal property, and the rights of privacy. Within the context of police actions where a search of personal property is being carried out, ostensibly under the authority of a warrant or with reasonable suspicion in mind, difficulties have arisen over defining the parameters of a legal search. The question of relational economic loss has also been difficult to answer.
Relational economic loss occurs when a person suffers financial loss as a result of damage to the property of another person. As such, it forms a subset of the law of general economic loss which, in actions for negligence, deals with financial losses not causally related to physical injury of the plaintiff's person or property (Feldthusen, 1994).
The Supreme Court and Congress have taken turns trying to define just what is admissible as legally gathered evidence and who or whom is responsible for defining what that evidence means. When the federal courts defer by use of the rule, other constitutional actors can participate more fully with the Court in interpreting the Constitution over time. This type of deference encourages others to lead in developing constitutional law, or at least be more active partners with the Court in doing so.
The Exclusionary Rule, as adapted by the Supreme Court on June 19, 1961 in Mapp vs. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081, commands that where evidence has been obtained in violation of the search and seizure protections guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, the illegally obtained evidence cannot be used at the trial of the defendant. Under this rule evidence which is obtained by an unreasonable search and seizure is excluded from admissibility under the Fourth Amendment, and this rule has been held to be applicable to the States (Black's Law Diction...