Felix Frankfurter

“ Therefore claims that taint attaches to any portion of the Government's case must satisfy the trial court with their solidity and not be merely a means of eliciting what is in the Government's possession before its submission to the jury. And if such a claim is made after the trial is under way, the judge must likewise be satisfied that the accused could not at an earlier stage have had adequate knowledge to make his claim. The civilized conduct of criminal trials cannot be confined within mechanical rules. ”

“ So to read a Congressional prohibition against the availability of certain evidence would be to subordinate the need for rigorous administration of justice to undue solicitude for potential and, it is to be hoped, abnormal disobedience of the law by the law's officers. ”

“ The issue thus tendered by the Circuit Court of Appeals is the broad one, whether or no § 605 merely interdicts the introduction into evidence in a federal trial of intercepted telephone conversations, leaving the prosecution free to make every other use of the proscribed evidence. Plainly, this presents a far-reaching problem in the administration of federal criminal justice, and we therefore brought the case here for disposition. 308 U.S. 539, 60 S.Ct. 103, 84 L.Ed. --.
Any claim for the exclusion of evidence logically relevant in criminal prosecutions is heavily handicapped. ”