Oklahoma Motion to Suppress Evidence

One of the jobs a defense attorney has is to file any and all pre-trial motions that are applicable to the client’s case. One of the most important motions that may be filed is a motion to suppress.

What Is a Motion to Suppress?

A motion to suppress is a request from the attorney that the court suppress, or not allow, a certain piece or pieces of evidence.

In other words, the attorney is making an argument that the evidence in question was either illegally obtained or is tainted in some other way, and he or she is requesting that the court throw out that evidence and not allow the prosecution to use it at trial.

Example

Imagine that a police officer pulls over a driver for making an illegal turn. After running the routine checks of the driver’s license and registration, the officer asks if he may search the vehicle. The driver politely declines the officer’s request, but he proceeds to search the vehicle anyway.

Without a warrant and without the vehicle owner’s permission, this search would be considered unlawful, and any evidence the officer found—whether drugs, guns, or a briefcase full of cash—should be deemed inadmissible in court.

Dismissal of Charges

Sometimes, the prosecution’s entire case rests on questionable evidence. If the defense attorney successfully files a motion to suppress and that evidence is thrown out, then the prosecution will have no choice but to dismiss the charges.

This is not a guarantee and it does not happen in every case; however, a good defense attorney will examine all the evidence at play in a case and move to suppress any evidence that was not obtained lawfully.