吃瓜大本营

In this case, the Iowa Supreme Court considered when rap lyrics are admissible evidence in criminal trials. The State sought further review of a court of appeals decision which reversed the defendant's criminal convictions and remanded for a trial based on errors in the admission of evidence. Together with the Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project and the ACLU of Iowa, the State Supreme Court Initiative filed an amicus brief arguing that such evidence should usually be excluded because it is rarely probative and yet creates a high risk of prejudice to the defendant. The Iowa Supreme Court ultimately reversed the Court of Appeals decision, but for narrow and fact-specific reasons. And the Iowa Supreme Court acknowledged that, in cases not involving the peculiar facts of Canady's case, other courts had expressed concerns about the risk that a jury will unfairly use rap lyrics and music as evidence of a defendant's guilt.

This case at the Georgia Supreme Court involves the 鈥渋ndependent source鈥� doctrine, an exception to the exclusionary rule providing that evidence that is acquired through means genuinely independent of a prior unlawful search or seizure may be accepted by the court. The ACLU鈥檚 State Supreme Court Initiative, alongside the ACLU of Georgia, filed an amicus brief arguing that the independent source doctrine does not apply in this case because the police relied on information acquired from a prior, illegal search when they applied for a warrant to search the defendant鈥檚 cell phone. The Court鈥檚 opinion vacated Tatum鈥檚 conviction and remanded to allow the trial court to determine whether the state鈥檚 decision to seek the search warrant was 鈥減rompted鈥� by the prior unlawful search.

This amicus brief highlights the constitutional defects of a California law that purports to protect consumer privacy but is actually an impermissible, content-based regulation of online speech. The brief urges that this law should be struck down while emphasizing that the court should rule narrowly and leave paths open for other consumer privacy laws to withstand First Amendment challenge.