Legal Topics > Criminal Law >

Nolo's Plain-English Law Dictionary

Need Professional Help? Talk to a Lawyer
Enter Your Zip Code to Connect with a Lawyer Serving Your Area

Fruit Of The Poisonous Tree: In criminal law, the doctrine that evidence discovered through unconstitutional means (such as a forced confession or illegal search and seizure), may not be used as evidence against a criminal defendant. For example, if a suspect is arrested but is not read the Miranda rights, then tells the police the location of stolen property, and the police then find the stolen property as a result of the interrogation, the stolen property is inadmissible because it was acquired through an unconstitutional interrogation.

Need Legal Help?
Get Informed	Check out our thousands of free articles on everyday legal topics--they're accurate, up to date, and written in plain English.
Do It Yourself	With Nolo's easy-to-use books, legal forms, online services, and software, you can handle many routine legal tasks yourself.
Talk to a Lawyer	Just enter your zip code to connect with a lawyer serving your area.

More Information

Get Informed