There are others in this thread who seem to think that raping a child is ok...I do not.
I have not seen anybody even suggest that raping a child is OK. Regardless of how heinous a crime is, as US citizens, even if it allows a guilty person to go free, we must demand that the laws and established processes be followed. If we don't, we simply have a criminal catching a criminal. Where do you draw the line? Currently, it appears Texas has drawn the line at not allowing illegal gathered evidence to be used to prosecute a person.
The police gathered their own evidence legally, based upon the report of the in-progress rape of a child.
actually, based on the facts presented, the question of the legality of the police search has not been established. The Texas statute concerned is quite clear in it's statement. If that statute is held, the police did not obtain their evidence by legal means.
=cyjeff;2565326]Let's look at this another way.
You suspect your neighbor has killed his wife because you just heard the scream.
but there was no scream. If not for the trespass, ex GF would not have knowledge of the act. Obviously a scream brings in exigency. Unless OP and rape victim were hooping and hollering with screams of passion, there was no event to trigger exigency.
Geez, people. We are talking about the rape of a child here. If there is a police officer in the country that wouldn't react immediately to a report of child rape by investigating, that officer should have their badge removed.
We aren't talking about if the officer should have acted differently, we are talking about the legality of the search.
and even with that, yes, I do believe the officer should have acted differently. He should have knocked on the front door instead of the window on back of the house.