Interview With Kay Williams and Eileen Wyman, authors of "Butcher of Dreams"

Kay Williams is a professional actress who has played leading roles at regional theaters around the U.S., including the San Francisco Actors Workshop and the Pittsburgh Playhouse. Among her many credits are the title role in "Miss Jairus," Cybel in "Great God Brown," and Georgette in "The Balcony," all plays that are part of the repertory of the 42nd Street Theater in "Butcher of Dreams." She has also performed in many, many new plays off-Broadway in Manhattan and knows how difficult it is for talented new playwrights to get produced and talented new actors to get noticed. She has acted in radio, television, and films. For several years, she worked behind-the-scenes as assistant producer with an award-winning independent filmmaker in New York. Kay is a co-author of "One Last Dance: It's Never Too Late to Fall in Love," a novel started by her father, Mardo Williams, and finished by her and her sister Jerri Lawrence. The book won a Best Regional Fiction Award from the Independent Publishers Association and was a Finalist in a National Readers' Choice Award, sponsored by the Romance Writers of America.

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Eileen Wyman is a writer of short fiction and has edited many books and film scripts. She has had a career in radio/television and is a gifted comedy writer, crafting jokes for speech writers and comedians, humorous fillers for various magazines, and captions for cartoonists. She has written additional dialogue for films. During her long career, Eileen has held a variety of odd jobs to make ends meet-teacher, social worker, office temp. When she grows up, she wants to be either a wizard or a world class tennis player.

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Tyler: Thank you, Kay and Eileen, for joining me today. It's always a treat to have two authors to talk to. Let's begin by having one of you just tell us basically what "Butcher of Dreams" is about?

Eileen: "Butcher of Dreams" is a suspense thriller set in the 1980's Hell's Kitchen when porno shops, girlie shows, prostitution and crime ran rampant. With this seedy and ominous Off-Broadway theater district as the backdrop, sensitive, talented actress Lee Fairchild is attempting to start a repertory theater in an abandoned burlesque house.

Grieving for her husband, who recently died of a heart attack (and missing her daughter who's away at college), Lee is vulnerable and, against her better judgment, falls into a passionate affair with a younger man. After a ritual Aztec mask is stolen from her home during a cast party, bizarre, seemingly unrelated events plague the theater. A homeless person is found dead on the third floor, his ring finger missing; an actress is poisoned; an actor stabbed. Strange marking are found painted on a set in construction. Is the stolen Aztec mask with its ancient curse somehow connected?

Who is the madman behind the destruction that is threatening the future of the theater (Lee's dream-come-true)? Lee's mercurial cast and crew become suspects as events escalate to ritual murder, and Lee herself becomes a target.

Tyler: Wow, that sounds like quite a plot. Will you tell me a little bit more about the Aztec mask and the curse associated with it? Is the ritual murder related to the Aztec culture?

Kay: The mask has two grotesque half faces, three bright blue fiercely staring eyes, a long black tongue hanging out of its mouth. (The long black tongue signifies thirst, a thirst for blood perhaps.) When Lee and her family visited Mexico, an Indian reluctantly sold the mask to her husband Richard, saying it would bring bad luck to anyone who owned it. Supposedly, it had been stolen from the Tomb at Monte Alban, the City of the Dead, and had been used in Aztec sacrifices. Six months later Richard was dead of a heart attack. Maybe the Indian was right, Lee thinks. Richard was too young, too healthy to have had a fatal heart attack.

At the cast party later, the actors, intrigued by the mask, take it down from the wall, and as a lark, several try it on. Alan confesses, "The mask took me over." His friend Walter asks to borrow it for a talk he's doing on Indian rites and occult practices for the Society of Medical Anthropology. At the end of the party, Lee discovers the mask is missing. And that's when the havoc begins. Detective Green thinks someone may be trying to scare them out of the theater which, with the gentrification of Hell's Kitchen, may soon become a desirable property. Green also postulates that a cult is involved.

Aztec/Mexican symbols, rites and rituals, including the Cult of the Animal Protector, are intrinsic to the plot right up through the chilling climax.

Tyler: Eileen and Kay, I'm always curious about writer collaborations? What brought the two of you together and how did the two of you work together to write "Butcher of Dreams"?

Kay: We've known each other for a long time. We were having dinner at a Greek restaurant in our neighborhood, drinking wine. Acting roles for me seemed to be drying up. I'd just taken a permanent job that wouldn't allow me to do auditions during the day. Eileen came up with the idea. "We should write a novel." It sounded to me like it was worth a try. The beauty of it was that we could work on it before and after work and on the weekends.

We have different strengths and we felt we could collaborate very well, complementing each other. For instance, Eileen is great at writing humor, especially satirical and black humor; she excels at short pithy character descriptions and terse, meaty descriptions of places, and her ability to come up with off-the cuff quips and funny one-liners for characters is uncanny. Over 25 years as an actress made me strong at character development and narrative line. As we brainstormed, we knew it would have to be a story about the theater. And about New York-in fact, about our fascinating, seamy, grimy, scary neighborhood-where a number of small off-Broadway theaters eked out an existence. You're supposed to write about what you know, right? We also knew we wanted to try suspense.

Together, we drafted a plot-that mutated as we went along. But we did know exactly how we wanted the story to start and how we wanted it to end. We decided to tell the story through the eyes of an actress. She had to be very emotionally vulnerable. So we came up with a back story for her. The antagonist had to be sneaky and scary, a world class liar, slippery as a bar of soap. We wanted the reader to wonder whom to believe among this band of actors-all first class dissemblers. We knew we didn't want the story to revolve around actors working on Broadway, actors who'd made it. We wanted to show the reader what a struggle it is to make a name in the theater (or in any other artistic endeavor, for that matter).

We also wanted to include Aztec/Mexican rites and rituals. And for that, we did research at the library.

I usually did a first pass at a draft. Eileen would make changes. We'd get together and argue and discuss. Through Mystery Writers of America, we found a writers group. So we'd read 10 pages at a time to the group, get feedback and make changes based on their suggestions.

Tyler: Tell me a little bit about the main character, Lee Fairchild, and why you think she is an attractive character to the reader?

Eileen: Lee is smart, tough, talented, able to manage and act successfully in her own off-Broadway theater. She's independent, but vulnerable. She's caring and imaginative. She's lonely. We thought of her as a combination of Holly Hunter and Emma Thompson. She has the intuition of an artist, seeing everyone's side. Lee is so empathetic her husband once told her, "You could identify with a mailbox." That is her strength and her weakness.

Tyler: Does Lee get herself into any dangerous situations, and if so, will you give us a little hint of one?

Eileen: One night Lee works late at the theater. When she leaves, she discovers the battery from her car has been stolen so she has no choice but to stay overnight. (She'd converted a small room on the theater's second floor into a bedroom but hadn't used it after the body of the derelict was found.) In the middle of the night, she hears sounds coming from the third floor construction area. She goes upstairs to investigate. Lighted candles are everywhere. A giant figure draped in a long white robe (an actor's costume, from "The Balcony"), complete with cothurni (high, thick-soled laced boots, also part of the costume), is wearing the hideous Mexican mask that was stolen from Lee's home. The figure stands before a mirror, a bird, painted blue-green, in his hand. He performs a ceremony with the live bird, cutting its wing, crooning to it softly. He discovers Lee hiding behind a shelf of paint cans. As they struggle, Lee tries to lift off the mask to see the face behind it. The last thing she feels are hands around her neck. She survives, suffering only a small cut between her thumb and forefinger. Her next encounter is not so benign.

Tyler: The subtitle is "A Suspense Novel about the Theater." What about the theater appeals to you, especially as a subject for a mystery?

Kay: In the theater, film and TV, where we'd each had years of experience, we'd met many temperamental actors with overblown egos, actors with a heart of gold, actors living alternate lifestyles, brilliant but erratic directors and playwrights. We knew they would make unforgettable characters, characters easy to be suspicious of. In "Butcher of Dreams," we have Alan Dunbar, Lee's Artistic Director, who has troubling gaps in his resume; Ernst Kromer, her other director, who is a tyrant, rigid and uncooperative. In the acting company, we have wraithlike Fleur Mahoney, whose first role is a dead girl-and she almost is; Barry Blackwell, talented actor, compulsive practical joker; Harry O'Brien, company stage manager, who'd kill for a role; beautiful Samantha Read, Barry's live-in lover. Other major characters from the "real" world are just as quirky: Michael Day, Lee's sexy and mysterious assistant; Alan's lover, Walter Kaplan, eccentric psychiatrist and medical anthropologist; Heather, Lee's 18-year-old daughter, who has a surprising secret life; pock-marked, cynical NYPD Detective Mordecai Green, who moonlights as an actor.

Tyler: What specifically about the 42nd Street Repertory Theater, the setting for the book, makes it a great setting for a mystery?

Eileen: The fact that it's an off-Broadway repertory theater-almost an anomaly in New York City; that it's under-budgeted and under-staffed leaves room for plenty of mistakes and mishaps. The time is the mid-eighties. Small, struggling off-Broadway theaters lined 42nd Street. The theater was just three blocks from the Hudson River where an enclave of the homeless lived in cardboard boxes. At that time, the neighborhood was crime-ridden. Live nude shows, erotic bookstores, x-rated movies were just a block away from our apartment complex (we live in Manhattan Plaza, housing for performing artists). Crack cocaine was sold by dealers in the streets. Prostitutes blatantly solicited.

(By the time we finished the book, the Disney Corporation had renovated the Amsterdam Theater, moved in "The Lion King" and Hell's Kitchen was well on its way to being gentrified. Now our area is one of the safest, cleanest neighborhoods in New York City.)

Tyler: What would you say were your biggest influences in writing mysteries?

Kay: We love stories with an odd twist; characters who are slightly askew. These authors are among our favorites: Ruth Rendell, writing as Barbara Vine, P.D. James, Elizabeth George, Dorothy Sayers, Patricia Highsmith.

Tyler: What do you think sets "Butcher of Dreams" apart from the many other mystery novels out there?

Eileen: The book's mixture of temperamental actors, undercurrents of the supernatural, and a madman on the prowl set it apart from the many cozies, police procedurals, legal mysteries, high tech thrillers that dominate today's mystery world. This one is about people whom you like and learn to dislike, dislike and learn to like, real people in believable-if slightly bizarre situations. After all, it is the theater so that added theatrical flair is a must.

Tyler: What do you find most difficult about writing a mystery?

Kay: To give enough clues but not too many so that the reader will guess the culprit right off the bat. It's great to have a writers group as your first audience because if they say, "I suspect so-and-so," you know you have to be a little more subtle and pull back on information you're giving the reader. Also it's difficult knowing what to reveal when. Again, it's a great help having a writers group to bounce first drafts off.

Tyler: What did you most enjoy about writing and collaborating on "Butcher of Dreams"?

Eileen: Collaboration gave us more than one voice.

Also, Kay tended to overlook the flaws in the performers because she identified with them so strongly. I, as a theater-goer and lover of theater, wanted them to behave better. We feel we reached a happy medium.

Tyler: What will your next writing projects be? Do you plan to collaborate on writing more books?

Eileen: We've started a sequel to "Butcher." It opens in Leningrad in 1991-filmmakers competing at the Leningrad International Film Festival, against the chaotic backdrop of a disintegrating Russia. Then the action moves to New York and deals with the Russian Mafia in Brighton Beach and the 42nd Street Rep as it's evolved in the past five years. Also the reader will get a glimpse into the world of making independent films.

Tyler: Do you both plan to stick to writing novels now, or will you return to the theatre-maybe even turn one of your novels into a play?

Kay: We may attempt a screenplay of "Butcher of Dreams." But first we have to get further into our Russian book.

Tyler: Thank you, Kay and Eileen, for joining me today. Before you go, will you tell our readers about your website and what additional information can be found there about "Butcher of Dreams"?

Eileen: Our website is: http://www.calliopepress.com/butcherOfDreams/index.shtml

Additional information on the website includes: suggested book discussion questions, comments about the book from reviewers and readers; authors' pictures and bios; excerpt; ordering information.

Tyler: Thank you, Kay and Eileen. I hope you have many more successful collaborations together.

Interview With Kay Williams and Eileen Wyman, authors of "Butcher of Dreams"
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Ancient Greek Agora

From the moment people began to organise themselves into groups they had to have a place where they could meet and make decisions on matters of common interest. Such places demonstrate the existence of a community life: they were the public squares. We don't know what they were called in pre-historic times; we do know that the Greek word for such a place is agora, from the verb agorevein (speak), which shows clearly its initial function. With the growth of trade and the use of speech in buying and selling, the verb agorevein lent its form to agorazein which acquired the meaning of "purchase", to reflect new needs. Similarly, the movable table for transactions was then called "trapeza", the modern Greek word for bank.

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In pre-historic times, when the first settlement was established on the protected southern side of the Acropolis, the northern side was used as a necropolis, or cemetery. In a well from the neolithic period, a statuette representing a headless semi-reclining woman was found dating from the 3rd millennium BC. It is a marvellous example of primitive sculpture with the characteristic abundant flesh indicative of fertility. Many examples of Mycenean pottery were found in the same vicinity as well as a number of large jars (pithoi). Among the funeral customs of antiquity was that of enclosing the bodies of very young children in such jars, which were then buried; older children were laid straight in the ground. Only after puberty was the cremation of the body permitted. As the city grew, the graves were moved to the Dipylon area which was the potters' district, Kerameikos, so that very few graves remained in the area around the Areopagus hill after 1000 BC.

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Thus were the Agora and Speech related. Plutarch reports that the Agora first began to function as a meeting place for the residents of the federated townships during the rule of Theseus, when a Prytaneion was established. The altar bearing the sacred fire of this first official building became the symbol of newly constituted state. Other important buildings were the Bouleuterion, the Eleusinion sanctuary and the temple of Aphrodite Pandemos. The latter was a tribute built by the municipalities to the goddess with the great power over human nature. There was a great deal of traffic in the area, making it suitable for the practice of the oldest profession; the women were dedicated to the goddess thereby giving the term "pandemos Aphrodite" its meaning of prostitute. We do not know the precise location of these early sites, although they must have been somewhere in the clearing between the Areopagus and the northwestern corner of the Acropolis.

After the monarchy was abolished and the citizens acquired the right to express their opinion, a need clearly arose for more public buildings and a larger place in which the citizens could gather. The level ground east of the Areopagus was regarded as being the most suitable location for the Agora which was to have several new sanctuaries and public fountains. While the Acropolis was devoted exclusively to religion, the Agora from the very beginning assumed the function of a civic and administrative centre. No trace of these first public buildings has survived up to our time, since they are underneath the present, densely populated district of Plaka.

The establishment of colonies, which the orator Isocrates would later refer to as the best possible solution to political problems, and the resultant growth of trade made it absolutely essential to have a more convenient place to do business. Thus, early in the 6th century, Solon selected the most appropriate spot for the Agora, i.e. the site we know today. The flat ground north of the Areopagus formed a triangle with its apex facing northward and its western side protected by a plateau. On the east was the main road which started at the Dipylon Gate, the entrance to the city, and ascended to the Acropolis. In addition, the roads from the outer townships ended in this lowland near a little creek called the Eridanos.

From the first moment, it proved to be an excellent choice. The plateau was named Agoraios Kolonos, and on its slopes the first public building was erected, very possibly a council chamber. Small temples followed, as did a Bouleuterion (Council House) and a Prytaneion. Solon chose the entrance to the city as the best position for a portico and gave orders for the written laws to be kept there. The Agora was beginning to take shape.

In the second half of the 6th century, during the tyranny of Peisistratos, the site was provided with a water supply and drainage system. A monumental fountain and rainwater duct were built. Like all dictators, Peisistratos was not especially keen on the idea of increasing space for meeting and voting; instead, he filled the city with projects to benefit the public. During the years of his rule, the great road followed by the Panathenaic procession took on its final form. On the south side of the Acropolis, the people's courthouse of the Heliaia was built and, at the northern crossroads, the Altar of the Twelve Gods.

The Persian campaign left much of the city in ruins which began to be cleared away after 460 BC, when Kimon was in power. Many new buildings were put up then, including porticoes with shops, a large Bouleuterion, special places for meetings of military leaders (strategoi) and civic administrators (prytanes), as well as altars and monuments honouring local heroes. On the highest point in the Agora, the temple of Hephaestos, the blacksmith god, was built. This Doric temple preceded the Parthenon, and also housed a statue of Athena, goddess of wisdom. Thus were the two gods brought together showing the association between philosophy and art, teaching that intellectuals and artisans cannot live one without the other.

During the years that followed, the Agora became the true heart of the city. Although decisions were made in the Council of the Deme and in the neighbouring Pnyx, the draws to determine who would take part in the administration of the state were held in the Agora. The laws, their enforcement, the penalties imposed on violators, the minting of currency, buying and selling - all had their own particular spot in the Agora. Processions, races, auctions and feasts were all characteristic of this political, civic, cultural, commercial and sometimes religious centre. The streets of the growing city may well have been narrow and full of hazardous potholes and the wooden houses may have had but one ground floor room with perhaps a wooden addition above. The walls of these houses may have been brick and susceptible to thieves. Cooking fires may have been lit on the road and the lack of proper sewers may have been responsible for epidemics. But when the Athenian citizen entered the Agora, he felt that he was participating in and contributing to the miracle of his times. Philosophers, orators, politicians and citizens caused Demosthenes to say, in the 4th century, that the customary greeting between Athenians meeting in the Agora was: What's new? At the end of the Hellenistic period, the Agora was crowded with buildings, including a recent graceful portico donated by Attalos of Pergamum. The Romans who followed began competing to build other edifices which caused the Agora to spill out beyond its initial bounds. Altars, temples, a library and gymnasium, porticoes and colonnades, all of which were open to the public, made Saint Paul say that the Athenian citizens and metoici did nothing but stroll around the Agora discussing politics. Athenaios from Egypt was also highly impressed, and wrote in his Deipnosophists that in the Athens Agora, one could find with equal ease: fruit, false witnesses, complaints, pap, pedlars, honeycomb with honey, peas, trials, lotteries, roses and irises, laws, hydraulic clocks, pimps, informers, myrtle branches...

The weakening of the Roman Empire brought barbarians. In 267 AD, the Agora was sacked by the Herulians who respected only the temple. A wall was built from the rubble of the buildings, but it could not save the Agora from Alaric's Goths in 396. This total devastation was followed by reconstruction which kept the site functioning until 529. This was the year of the final blow against Athens, when the Byzantine emperor Justinian ordered the closing of the philosophical schools, which the new religion regarded with such hostility. The Agora was abandoned, its monuments fell into disuse and then decay, the site was gradually covered over by earth and mud because there was nobody to keep the drainage ducts cleared. During subsequent centuries, houses were built of the plentiful debris. On top of the buried antiquities, the lovely Byzantine church of the Holy Apostles was built in the year 1000. Meantime, the ancient temple of Hephaistos had already been consecrated to St George.

Throughout the 400 years of Turkish rule (1456-1829), the Athenians lived perched on the north side of the Acropolis, where the heart of the Polis had once beaten most proudly. Many houses were destroyed during the Greek War of Independence, especially during the siege of Athens by Kiutahi Pasha. But with the designation of the city as capital of the new Greek state, new homes were soon built on top of the ruins of older ones. The architects Kleanthis and Schubert, who had been assigned to reconstruct the capital, vainly proposed that the new city be built some distance away from the old one so as to leave the ground free for future excavations. Short-sightedness, pettiness and profit, however, proved stronger than reason. The first traces of the ancient Agora were revealed in 1859, when foundations for houses began being dug. Much later, in 1931, the American School of Classical Studies undertook regular excavations which continued until after 1945, with constant appropriations of property. It is estimated that more than three hundred thousand tonnes of earth and rubble were moved in order to bring the Agora to light. Today the ancient heart of Athens, spread out as far as permitted by the surrounding modern buildings, reveals its beauty, its eloquent ruins and its rich memories of days past, days of eternal glory.

The most impressive monument in the ancient Agora is indisputably the great Doric temple which dominates the site. Built on the top of a plateau, known as the Agoraios Kolonos, this temple is the best- preserved ancient building in Greece, having survived a great number of adventures, threats and changes including the alteration of its original name. For centuries, this temple was known as the Theseion, as it was believed to have been a temple dedicated to Theseus, a conclusion drawn from its sculpted decoration depicting the hero's feats. This restless prince of prehistoric Athens was mythified by the Athenians, as the Attic counterpart of the Doric Hercules. Tales were invented about his birth, his achievements, his wanderings. It is said that he fell in love with the beautiful Helen when she was still a child and he an old man, and that this love pitted him against her brothers the Dioscuri, which forced him to seek refuge on the island of Skyros. There the local king Lykomedes killed him by throwing him off a cliff. After an oracle from Delphi, Kimon went to the island in 469 BC to fetch the bones of the founder of Athens and bury them properly in his ancestral city. A temple was built on Theseus' grave and was called Theseion, which Thucydides mentioned as a place where hoplites would gather. Aristophanes used the mocking name "Theseion-frequenter" to denote people who, having nothing to do, would wander about aimlessly. Plutarch wrote that the Theseion was a refuge for slaves, but its precise location is unknown.

Pausanias refers explicitly to the large temple in the Agora as being dedicated to Hephaistos and indeed he even described the cult statues there: one of Hephaistos and one of Athena with blue eyes. The celebrated Roman orator Cicero greatly admired the bronze statues which had been sculpted by Alcamenes just after 421 BC, praising the artist for his skill in presenting the lame Hephaistos standing upright without showing his physical disability. This testimony is the only trace of these statues that remains today.

The temple was built after 449 BC, based on plans by an unknown architect, similar in size to the temple of Poseidon at Sounion and that of Nemesis at Ramnus, near Marathon. It is indeed remarkable that, despite all the disasters that befell the Agora during the years of the barbarian invasions, the temple was left intact. Later, under Byzantine rule, it became a church consecrated to St George. An apse was built on the eastern side, and a door was opened on the west. In about 1300, the original ceiling collapsed and was replaced with the present-day vaulted brick one, which stands in sharp contrast to the rest of the building. It may even have been due to these changes that the temple escaped destruction, particularly during the years of Ottoman rule. It used to be said that in order to permit services to be held in the church, the Turkish governor would demand the weight of the key to the building in gold. At that time, keys were huge and gold rare, which was why the building only opened once a year. Services were held solely on the feast of St George, a fact which lent the building its picturesque name: St George the Akamatis (Lazybones).

In the early 19th century, during the Revolution against the Ottoman Empire, the temple was called "thirty-two columns"; it was used to chant the Te Deum when King Otto arrived in the capital in 1834, signalling liberation from the Turks. A marvellous painting of the period shows us the young king being welcomed by the awestruck crowd, as he started out unsuspectingly along the road to his destiny. Services were held in the church for the last time in 1934, on the 100th anniversary of the new Athens; two years later its restoration as an archaeological monument began.

The temple of Hephaistos stands firmly on a foundation of three steps, the bottom of which is poros stone, the other two are Pentelic marble; the columns are of the same material, 13 on each of the long flanks and six on the facades. Outside the columns there are traces of pedestals of votive offerings and statues. On the east side, is a carved representation on the floor beside the columns which shows that some lazy people used to spend their time either playing something like modern board games or scratching the marble with the age-old destructive mania of bored people.

Although the external dimensions of the building are typical of the classical age, the interior was an unsuccessful effort to achieve the perfect symmetry of the slightly later Parthenon.

The pronaos which once existed had two columns which were removed when the building was converted into a church, and was more spacious than the corresponding opisthodomos on the west side. Another equally unsymmetrical element could be seen inside the temple, where the inner Doric columns, five columns on the flanks and three on the west, were very close to the outer walls, and appeared to diminish the space. In front of the three columns on the west side a base of grey stone shows where statues of the gods had stood. Nothing has remained of the initial marble flooring, since for some centuries now it has been the custom to bury famous citizens here. On the interior wall of the north side one can still see an Englishman's gravestone bearing an epigram by Lord Byron.

The sculpted decoration of the temple has not been well preserved since for centuries it has been exposed to the weather and changes of season. The pediments have suffered most of all: on the east the sculptures have been lost altogether, while on the west some animal hoofs have remained which might have been part of a representation of the battle with the centaurs, a subject directly related to Theseus. The eastern metopes narrated the labours of Hercules while on the north and south side there are four relief slabs again depicting the feats of Theseus. On the exterior wall of the temple proper, there was a frieze on the facades alone, not on the flanks. On the eastern side Theseus was presented fighting against his kinsmen the Pallantides, who had disputed his hereditary right to the throne of Athens. To portray all these fighting figures, the sculptor used the entire width of the cella facade. By contrast, on the opposite, western side, the classical battle of the Centaurs and Lapiths occupied considerably less space.

Around the temple there were two rows of shallow pits at regular intervals. Even today, on the south side one can see traces of enormous clay jars half-buried in the ground; they were flower pots for the ornamental plants that adorned the site during the Hellenistic and Roman age. In a dry city like Athens, plants have always been welcome; we know that in an earlier age, Kimon himself had taken care to plant myrtle and plane trees in the Agora. There was once an enclosure round the sacred precinct of the temple, but not a trace of it remains. The same is true of the access point from the Agoraios Kolonos plateau to the lower level of the Agora; the grand staircase which used to be there has been completely destroyed.

Just north of the temple, but at a somewhat lower level, traces were found of an enormous colonnaded structure which had been almost entirely hewn out of the natural rock. Archaeologists believe it to have been a 4th-century building that was either related to the Athenian army or, because of the large number of Panathenaic amphoras found there, a storehouse for sacred oil. But the existence of strongly- built walls and a system for collecting rain water in underground cisterns makes it difficult for scholars to identify this strange building and its function. There was another building, too, on the Agoraios Kolonos: the little temple dedicated to Urania Aphrodite, the ruins of which were discovered accidentally in 1890, during the building of the railroad that was to link Athens with Piraeus.

We know that Aphrodite was a very ancient deity. The personification of love and fertility, she began in Babylon where she was worshipped as the all-powerful Ishtar. In addition to temples, the inhabitants of Babylon with its mythical wealth, had dedicated even the main entrance of this heavily walled city to their powerful protector. This is the gate which we can see restored today in the Museum in Berlin. The same divinity was called Astarte in Phoenician regions while the monotheistic Semites feared her as Ashtaroth: a divine but extremely dangerous woman who made it difficult for them to observe the strict rules in their lives. Herodotus reported, in the third book of his history, that in the land of the Phoenicians the all-powerful goddess had another name as well: Alilat. The Sumerians called her Inanna and the Persians Anahita for whom she was protectress of the water, which in their dry country was life itself. The influence of this supreme goddess spread throughout the entire Mediterranean, carried by Phoenician seamen who brought her as far as the city of Eryce on the western tip of Sicily, where she was worshipped on top of a steep rock. In the other great Phoenician colony, Carthage, she was called Tanit.

This goddess with the many names was worshipped according to the needs of the society in which her sanctuaries were located. Not only were her names different, but so were her rites: orgies, sacred prostitution, even the sacrifices of first-born children, as was the case in Carthage in the worship of the bloodthirsty Tanit. It is worth noting that the symbol of this Carthaginian goddess can be seen in Delos, on the threshold of the house of the dolphins, like a magic charm to keep misfortune away from the householders.

From clay slabs found on the coast of Syria, we learn of the correspondence of an Ugarit chief with his counterpart in Alasia, as prehistoric Cyprus was called. These relationships explain the way in which the Eastern divinity was carried to the island of Cyprus, where as early as the 12th century BC, there was a sanctuary dedicated to her near Paphos. But here the insatiable goddess changed form. She became identified with the sea and was named Pelagic.

In his Cosmogonia, Hesiod wrote some strange things about how this universal heavenly power came to be in the Helladic world. He said that Kronos castrated Uranus and threw the immortal parts of his divine father into the sea somewhere near Kythera. On that spot, a great foam was created out of which emerged the beautiful goddess. This accounts for her name in Greek, as Aphrodite means "arisen out of the foam". The waves embraced her and brought her gently to Cyprus where she acquired yet another name: Cypris.

Associated with humankind's most powerful emotion, Aphrodite was worshipped everywhere with zeal, as her cult conquered one region after the other. She enchanted both gods and mortals, accompanied by a retinue consisting of the mischievous Eros, the Graces, Desire and Lust. She was by her nature a fateful goddess, who could not stand to be spurned; she punished the unloved harshly, as she did Hippolytus, son of Theseus. The proud goddess tormented him and led him to his doom because the rash young man dared to prefer to worship the virginity of Artemis. In Sparta, Aphrodite was worshipped as a martial goddess, in keeping with the paramount local values, and in Athens she was exalted as Urania, heavenly protectress of the noblest form of love. There was of course the other sanctuary, in her Pandemos form, but it was as Urania, her refined form, that she was honoured on the Agoraios Kolonos, alongside the temple of her husband Hephaistos who had gone through so much during their married life. Pausanias referred to the sanctuary of the goddess and to its cult statue, a work by Phidias from choice marble, but today only a few stones have been saved on the slope of the hill beside the train tracks. In order to build this central communications line, the ruins of the greater part of this ancient building were sacrificed.

Ancient Greek Agora
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EZ Moves HS - Hard Surface Felt Bottom Furniture Slides - 8"x5" (Set of 4)

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Oct 31, 2011 01:27:30

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  • Great for moving refrigerators, sofas, entertainment centers, pianos, beds, bookcases, file cabinets and more.
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  • Includes 4 furniture slides. Dimensions of each furniture slide are 8"x5" (LxW)


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Hard Surface Furniture Slides allow one person to easily move all of your heavy furniture and more with ease. It Works great on any hardsurface flooring.Slightly tilt furniture and place a pad (foam side up) under each corner, then push or pull item to be moved. Furniture is gripped by the 1/2" thick EVA foam. The felt bottom base glides on hard surface floors with ease. Remove and store after each use using the included reusable plastic tie.Note: Make sure the floor is clean to prevent dirt or grit from damaging floor finsh. Remove and store after each use.



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  • Works on wood floors, linoleum, ceramic tile, carpeting


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Made of 100% polyester felt, Cleverbrand's non-abrasive Heavy Duty Felt Pads are suitable for protecting hardwood floors, furniture and other surfaces from marks and scratches. Each package consists of 144, 1 1/2" diameter felt pads. All pads are 3/16" thick with an adhesive backing and are readily placed on any surface for protection.



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Items to Protect Your Home While Moving

Hopefully you've done the basic research to protect your belongings while you're moving them, but what about protection for your walls, doors, floors, etc.? There are items available online or at box supply and hardware stores to help prevent damages to your home on moving day.

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There is a product called Carpet Shield that you can use to protect your carpet on the day you move. Most people use it in the new home they're relocating to. It prevents dirt and stains from getting on the carpet due to walking along the same path all day. It is a clear self-adhesive film that is sold by the foot and in different widths. The Carpet Shield also has a roller with an expandable applicator that is sold separately if you don't want to have to bend over to apply it to the floor. It has a non-slip surface and is resistant to ripping and tearing. Another nice feature is that it won't leave a sticky residue when you pull it up. When applying, you will definitely need it leading from the front door into the interior of the house and in any other halls that might have heavy traffic. Having Carpet Shield beats having to lay down a blanket because a blanket will move throughout the day and gets folds in it that you could end up tripping over. This product is also great if it happens to be raining on the day you're moving. Without it you'll definitely be tracking in mud all over your new house.

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You might also want to purchase a door jam. It's something you'll need to use on the front door to keep it open while you're bringing items in and out of the house. It prevents having to set items down to open the door and is great if you have a door with a tendency to swing closed on it's own. It's also a plus to have on hand if it's windy on moving day and the wind keeps trying to close your door.

If you have large furniture that needs to be moved across hard surface floors there is a product called EZ Moves Furniture Slides. It is used on the corners of the furniture to prevent easy movement of the piece and protection to floor at the same time. Each slide has a hard foam top that conforms to the corner of the item being moved and that helps to keep the slide in place while you're moving it. The bottom is made of felt to protect the floor and to provide easy movement of the furniture across the floor. It's also convenient to have on hand for future use when you want to move a large item to clean behind it. The slide can be used on wood, ceramic tile, linoleum or finished concrete.

There is an item you can buy to protect your doors while you're moving stuff in and out of your home. It is called a door jam protector pad and is sold individually or you can buy them in packs. They're also great for use on stairway banisters and hall entryways. The pads have springs to hold them in place on either side of the door you want to protect. This means you can protect either the edge of the door that swings out or apply it to the edge of the door near the hinges to protect the door and the frame at the same time. Not only will the pads prevent damage to your door, but they'll protect the item you're moving also.

Now that your home is protected you can remove one less stress from moving day: worrying about damages.

Items to Protect Your Home While Moving
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The United States Mandatory Rule of Exclusion Is Due For a Make-Over: Discretionary Approach? Part 1

Introduction: The United States Exclusionary Rule

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Contemporary constitutional provisions oftentimes integrate explicit boundaries or restrictions on the investigatory power of the police. These constitutional stipulations typically supplement guarantees aimed at ensuring fair standards in the criminal process, for those detained or charged with a crime (En 1) Most of these documents echo themes first articulated in the United States' Bill of Rights (En 2) and reiterated centuries later in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (En 3.)

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These recent global developments are not surprising. The potential for tyranny is constant, even in modern societies. Throughout history, oppressive regimes have used their unlimited police powers to search the homes of political opponents, to detain dissidents without trial, to conduct "show trials" for political purposes, or to subject opponents to torture or other extreme forms of punishment. Limitless police powers take the greatest toll on a society's most vulnerable members: the young, the homeless, the poor, racial or ethnic minorities, and political dissidents. It must be recognized, however, that in modern society, crime is one of the greatest threats to individual safety. If a society is so crime ridden that its members live in a perpetual state of fear, the niceties of constitutional liberty may seem unimportant to the populace. Fear of crime and criminals provokes a demand for government action. These two competing concerns are the basis surrounding the idea of the Exclusionary Rule. It all begins when the police excesses yield inculpatory evidence against a criminal accused. When evidence has been obtained in contravention of the Constitution, two opposing concerns meet: society's interest in seeing that persons guilty of crime are detected, prosecuted, convicted and punished, and a concurrent societal interest in safeguarding individual liberties against unlawful or unconstitutional police conduct. (Dawson, The Exclusion of Unlawfully Obtained Evidence.)

In the United States, these differing principles are presently resolved in favor of individual liberty, through the use of the exclusionary rule.(EN6) This rule, created my case-law, is anything but "resolved." Since its creation, the rule has led to extensive litigation and a never-ending flow of academic commentary. The debate surrounding the issue has continued unabated in the United States for almost one hundred years.

The following dissertation will provide an in-depth look into the mandatory or automatic exclusionary rule doctrine of the United States. The following piece will present a detailed elucidation of the exclusionary rule as it stands today, as well as the history leading up to its inception together with the underlying reasons for its formulation. Furthermore, the benefits and detriments of the doctrine will be discussed, providing the views of both the proponents and opponents of the rule as well as an inquiry into the question of whether or not this Exclusionary Rule is really doing the job it was intended to do, specifically to deter future illegal police conduct. An investigation into the question of whether or not there needs to be other underlying policy reasons, aside from the deterrence of police misconduct rationale, for the application of the Exclusionary Rule, will also be conducted.

The piece will further explore beyond the borders of the United States and into Canada to observe how the idea of suppressing evidence obtained in violation of the individual's rights, is applied abroad. The piece will discuss differences in the application of the mandatory exclusionary rule in the United States and the discretionary exclusionary rule in Canada and will compare and contrast policy reasons underlying their respective application of evidence suppression rules.

The dissertation will argue for the codification of the current mandatory or automatic exclusionary rule doctrine of the United States to a discretionary exclusionary doctrine which is currently applied in Canada. Such an amendment will endow the United States with benefits far beyond the ones the current exclusionary rule provides, such as bequeathing remedies to the individuals whose rights have been violated as well as appropriate penalties for the violating conduct of the police.

The definition of the United States mandatory exclusionary rule

In order to deeply delve in to the critique of the Exclusionary Rule, it is vital to understand its definition, characteristics, and circumstances in which it is applied. In legal proceedings, the exclusionary rule prohibits the use of any evidence obtained in contravention of the U.S. Constitution. The rule is invoked when government authorities seize evidence in violation of the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unlawful searches and seizures. Evidence may be illegally obtained when government officials do not have a warrant to search an individual's premises or the warrant is defective. Law enforcement officers may also lack sufficient probable cause to arrest a person. In addition, the courts will automatically invoke the exclusionary rule when they find a violation of an individual's Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination or a violation of a defendant's Sixth Amendment right to counsel. Courts often refer to evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth, Fifth, or Sixth Amendment as "tainted" or "the fruit of a poisonous tree." A criminal defendant who claims an unreasonable search and seizure is usually allowed to make the claims in a suppression hearing that is conducted before the trial. At this hearing the judge must determine what evidence will be suppressed, or excluded from trial.

This automatic exclusionary rule has 3 elements. First, there must be an illegal action by a police officer, or by someone acting as n agent of the police. Second, there must be evidence secured. The third element states that there must be a casual connection between the illegal action and the evidence secured. If the defense believes such an offense has taken place, the defense lawyer may file a motion to suppress the evidence. It is then up to the prosecutor to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the evidence was collected without violating the defendant's Fourth amendment rights. If the prosecution fails to prove this case, the evidence will automatically be suppressed from the case-in-chief, and absolutely no consideration will be given to the probative value of that evidence, even if it may be the only evidence out there. With time, the courts, after realizing the broad scope of this mandatory rule, began to narrow its application. There are now three exceptions to the exclusionary rule. In these cases, while the situation meets the three elements needed to trigger the exclusionary rule, the evidence will be allowed anyway. The first exception is the Independent Source Doctrine. This exception was created in the Supreme Court case of Segura and Colon v U.S in 1984. In this situation, evidence is seized in two different physical ways. One of them is illegal, but the second seizure of the same evidence is legal. For example, if one were to photo-copy financial records without a warrant of someone suspected of embezzlement, but then later returned with a warrant and re-copied the information, that evidence would be allowed. The second exception is the Inevitable Discovery Doctrine. The case that added this exception was Nix vs. Williams, in 1984. This exception states that the evidence is seized in two different ways, but only one being physical. The evidence is secured physically by illegal means, but there is also a hypothetical seizure of the evidence that would not have been illegal. For example, if a dead body was buried, and the police violated a defendant's rights in order to force him to tell where the body was, this would be the illegal physical seizure. However, if there was a search for the body in progress that would have eventually crossed the area where the body was to be found, this would be the hypothetical seizure. The prosecution must prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the evidence would have been located by this hypothetical means had it not been sized illegally. The third and final exception is that of Good Faith, which was added in the Supreme Court cases of U.S. vs. Leon and Mass. vs. Sheppard, both in 1984. In this case, a police officer receives a warrant from a magistrate and acts on it to seize evidence. However, there may have been an error in allowing the police officer to have the warrant. Since the point of the exclusionary rule is to deter police misconduct, and there would have been no misconduct by a police officer, the evidence would not be suppressed.

History of the rule

Between 1791 and 1914, the constitutionally guaranteed right of all citizens to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures remained virtually un-enforced by American courts. The Fourth Amendment had the words that warned the government not to engage in unreasonable searches and seizures, but lacked any means to restrain government officials from violating citizens' Fourth Amendment rights. Not until 1914 in Weeks v. United States, [FN4] did the U.S. Supreme Court recognize that if evidence can be illegally obtained "and used in evidence against a citizen accused of an offense, the protection of the Fourth Amendment... is of no value, and, so far as those thus placed are concerned, might as well be stricken from the Constitution." [] Thus, the United States faced the problem that, while the Fourth Amendment guaranteed protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, the judicial system, as the primary protector of constitutional rights, did nothing to deter or punish unreasonable searches and seizures. To give value to the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Weeks, held that the Federal government and its agencies could not use illegally obtained evidence against the accused at trial. In other words, the Court established an exclusionary rule that illegally obtained evidence is inadmissible at trial and applied it only to the Federal courts. [FN6] The Court propounded two central rationales for its adoption of the Exclusionary Rule. First, there was the need to protect citizens' Fourth Amendment rights by deterring government conduct that violated those rights. [FN7] Second, there was the need to preserve the integrity of the judicial system by refusing to sanction illegal police conduct: "To sanction such proceedings [where illegally obtained evidence is admitted] would be to affirm by judicial decision a manifest neglect if not an open defiance of the prohibitions of the Constitution, intended for the protection of the people against such unauthorized action." [FN8] While Weeks represented a significant development in enforcing Fourth Amendment rights, its limitation to federal courts greatly restricted the Rule's ability to enforce those rights.

Four decades later, in Mapp v. Ohio, [FN9] three police officers invaded Dollree Mapp's home. The officers knocked on her door and demanded entry. They suspected that someone they wanted to question was hiding inside. Mapp consulted her lawyer and refused to admit the officers. Later that day, four or more officers arrived at the home, which was still under surveillance by the original officers. The officers then finally and forcibly entered Mapp's home. About that time, Mapp's lawyer arrived at the home but was not permitted to see his client or to enter her house. Confronting the officers in her home, Mapp demanded to see their search warrant. After Mapp grabbed the purported warrant and placed it in her bosom, the officers forcibly recovered it from her. Mapp's arms were grabbed, twisted, forced into handcuffs, and she was dragged to her bedroom where she was forced to remain. The officers searched the entire floor, including Mapp's bedroom and the basement of her home. The officers found incriminating obscene materials and she was convicted of possession. Whether the officers had secured a warrant to search Mapp's home was subject to "considerable doubt," and no such warrant was produced at any subsequent legal proceeding. [FN10] Given the particularly egregious nature of the police misconduct, the Supreme Court felt compelled to bestow teeth to the Fourth Amendment by making the Exclusionary Rule, first enunciated in Weeks, applicable to the states.

In holding the Exclusionary Rule applicable to both state and federal courts, the Mapp Court decided to "close the only courtroom door remaining open to evidence secured by official lawlessness in flagrant abuse of that basic right, reserved to all persons as a specific guarantee against that very same unlawful conduct." [FN11] As in Weeks, the Mapp Court reiterated that without the Exclusionary Rule, the use of illegally obtained evidence to convict criminal defendants "tends to destroy the entire system of constitutional restraints on which the liberties of the people rest." [FN12]

Mapp reiterated the dual rationales enunciated in Weeks: protection of citizens' Fourth Amendment rights, and preservation of judicial integrity. [FN13] These dual rationales actually comprise only one justification behind The Exclusionary Rule: the recognition that allowing unrestricted use of illegally obtained evidence will not discourage violation of the constitutionally protected right.

Competing Concerns regarding the Exclusionary Rule in the United States

The Exclusionary Rule is certainly one of those controversial doctrines that caries with it its own share of proponents as well as detractors. When evidence has been obtained in contravention of the Constitution, the two opposing concerns meet: society's interest in seeing that persons guilty of crime are detected, prosecuted, convicted and punished, and a concurrent societal interest in safeguarding individual liberties against unlawful or unconstitutional police conduct. [FN5]. In the United States, these differing principles are presently resolved in favor of individual liberty, through the use of the exclusionary rule. [FN6] But the status of the American exclusionary rule is anything but "resolved." Since its creation, the rule has led to extensive litigation and a never-ending flow of academic commentary. The debate surrounding the issue has continued unabated in the United States for almost one hundred years.

As aforementioned, generally, two opposing viewpoints have emerged from all the debate concerning the exclusionary rule. There are those who want to abolish the exclusionary rule and those who wish to retain it. The critics of the rule are evidently more concerned with the idea of ensuring that the guilty are punished and kept in prisons than the view of making sure the constitutional rights and liberties of the people are kept intact. The proponents, contrary to the critics, are obviously more interested in making sure that the liberties of the people are protected, even though that may come at a price of letting the guilty go free. Opponents of the exclusionary rule argue that this extreme remedy is not required by the Constitution. They claim the rule is merely judicially created, fashioned to protect constitutional rights by deterring future police illegality. Critics complain that the exclusionary rule is not an effective deterrent and exacts a huge toll in lost convictions. According to critics, the rule's costs outweigh its negligible benefits. Therefore, it is invariably argued, the exclusionary rule should be replaced with some more effective and less costly alternative remedy.

In stark contrast, proponents of the exclusionary rule insist that it is mandated by the Constitution and serves as an effective deterrent. They argue that those who criticize its deterrent value fail to recognize that the rule is necessary to preserve judicial integrity and compensate individual victims of police illegality. Proponents complain that the rule's detractors mask a dissatisfaction with substantive constitutional guarantees, under an attack on the exclusionary remedy. If law enforcement obeys the constitutional rules, as they should, then there would be no illegally obtained evidence to be excluded. According to proponents, this remedy is matchless. No other device is equally capable of safeguarding the Constitution's guarantees in a criminal context.

The debate surrounding the exclusionary rule has been ongoing in the United States since the Weeks decision. Arguably, the historical debate is capable of being encapsulated into seven general criticisms and responses:

1) Criticism--The criminal is to go free because the constable has blundered. [FN123]

Response--Criminals do not go free because the constable blundered, but rather because official compliance with the requirements of the Fourth Amendment makes it more difficult to catch criminals. It is not the exclusionary rule but the Fourth Amendment which imposes a cost in lost convictions. [FN124]

2) Criticism--The exclusionary rule serves to handcuff the police in their legitimate and important effort to enforce the criminal law. [FN125]

Response--It is the constitutional rule, not the exclusionary sanction, which imposes limits on the operation of the police. If the police abide by the Constitution, there would be no evidence to exclude. The exclusionary rule, by definition, operates only after incriminating evidence has been obtained and flaunts before us the costs we must pay for constitutional safeguards. [FN126]

3) Criticism--The exclusionary rule does not provide a remedy for innocent persons who are the victims of unconstitutional conduct. The rule exclusively serves to benefit the guilty. [FN127]

Response--The Fourth Amendment protects everyone against unreasonable searches and seizures. The exclusionary rule inures to the benefit of all by decreasing the likelihood that anyone, "innocent" or "guilty," will be subjected to an unconstitutional search or seizure. In this fashion, individual liberty is benefited on a general level by the rule.

Criticism--Suppression motions, in which defendants seek the benefit of the exclusionary rule, unnecessarily shift the focus of the trial away from the defendants' guilt or innocence. These hearings are costly and distract judges from other important matters. Finally, the court is not the proper forum to discipline police officers for their unconstitutional activities.

Response--Courts should be preoccupied with the manner in which evidence has been obtained, otherwise the Constitution's guarantees would be rendered meaningless. It is the courts that must assume the role of being the final arbiters of individual rights. Absent such judicial scrutiny, constitutional violations would go unnoticed. Similarly, without continual judicial review, the Constitution's guarantees would remain unarticulated and rarely defined. The Constitution would only be expounded in rare actions for assault, trespass and false imprisonment, and prosecutions for resisting arrest or obstructing the police in the execution of their duty. [FN130]

6) Criticism--The exclusionary rule confers a disproportionate benefit on a defendant. A relatively minor violation of the Constitution results in the exclusion of evidence and necessitates that a guilty defendant go free. This windfall is contrary to the idea of proportionality that is essential to the concept of justice.

Response--This criticism is only significant if one conceives the purpose of the rule to be compensation of the individual victim. [FN132] If the compensation rationale is used, however, the criticism remains inaccurate. A number of exceptions to the exclusionary rule have been created to ensure that all that is excluded is the evidence the police would not have found had they abided by the Constitution. The exclusionary rule does not confer immunity on a defendant against future prosecution; it simply restores him to the position he would have occupied had his constitutional rights not been violated.

Criticism--The exclusionary rule in the United States is anomalous; other democratic nations do not employ an exclusionary rule and they are arguably as free as the United States. [FN134]

Response--The United States is not alone in employing an exclusionary rule; a number of nations use exclusion of evidence as a means to safeguard individual rights. For instance, England, Scotland, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Germany and France all have some form of an exclusionary rule.

Problems with the United States mandatory exclusionary rule

Looking at the above arguments, it is clear that the opponents and proponents are completely at opposite sides of the spectrum in deciding an issue which appears to have two possible conclusions: a) to continue maintaining the current exclusionary rule of the United States or b) to abolish it altogether. However, careful consideration and research into this particular sphere can lead one to ask the question of whether or not there is a third alternative, one which would sit between automatic exclusion and admissibility of evidence. Perhaps this third approach would alleviate some of the competing concerns regarding the exclusionary rule currently implemented in the United States. However, prior to making an endeavor to formulate this third possible choice, it is vital to point out some of the quandaries with the current mandatory exclusionary rule.

The mandatory aspect is problematic

As stated above, the United States exclusionary rule is one of mandatory or automatic exclusion. This means that, even highly probative evidence will be suppressed if the police seize it illegally. Proponents of an exclusionary rule must concede that the costs of such a rule occasionally seem too harsh. If a defendant charged with murder is released because a relatively minor and unintended violation of his rights disclosed essential evidence, then it is difficult to deny that the rule occasionally exacts too high a price. The problem with the American exclusionary rule is that it is unable to effectively cope with such exceptional cases. Generally, the rule demands that evidence be excluded regardless of society's competing interest in not having a dangerous criminal released back into the community. This is a major problem.

The mandatory exclusionary rule does not do its job

What is the ob of the exclusionary rule? What was the chief purpose for its establishment in the United States? Mapp reiterated the dual rationales enunciated in Weeks: protection of citizens' Fourth Amendment rights, and preservation of judicial integrity. [FN13] These dual rationales actually comprise only one justification behind The Exclusionary Rule: the recognition that allowing unrestricted use of illegally obtained evidence will not discourage violation of the constitutionally protected right. It is evident that the true aim of the Exclusionary Rule is to deter future police violation of constitutionally protected rights. Specifically, excluding evidence illegally obtained will chasten the government official to the extent that he or she will not engage in similar conduct in the future. It is implicit that if the offending government official would not be deterred from future illegality, then application of the Rule would be inappropriate. Indeed, in a series of cases after Mapp, the Supreme Court held the Rule's application inappropriate where the exclusion would not deter future Fourth Amendment violations. In United States v. Calandra, [FN14] the Court declined to allow grand jury witnesses to refuse to answer questions based upon evidence illegally seized because the "incremental deterrent effect which might be achieved by extending the rule to grand jury proceedings is uncertain at best." [FN15] In United States v. Janis, [FN16] the Court permitted the use of evidence seized illegally by state officials in federal civil proceedings because the illegal conduct was not likely to be deterred by exclusion in that setting. [FN17] The Court cited two factors which made exclusion unnecessary *49in the Janis case. [FN18] First, since the evidence was suppressed in the state criminal trial, the officer had already been "punished" for violating the Fourth Amendment. [FN19] Second, since the evidence was also excludable at the federal criminal trial, the entire criminal enforcement process, which was the concern and duty of these officers, would be frustrated by the exclusion of the evidence in both proceedings. [FN20] Thus, the Exclusionary Rule accomplished its intended goal of deterrence in the criminal courts, and any further possible deterrent effect that exclusion from federal civil proceedings might cause would be outweighed by the societal costs imposed by the exclusion. [FN21] More recently, in United States v. Leon, [FN22] the Court found the Rule's application inapplicable when police officers reasonably relied on a search warrant. [FN23] Since the constitutional error in Leon was made by the magistrate in approving the search warrant, there was no police illegality and hence nothing to deter. [FN24] Furthermore, the Court held that suppression of evidence obtained pursuant to a warrant should be ordered only on a case-by-case basis and only in those unusual cases in which exclusion will further the purposes of the Exclusionary Rule. [FN25] Leon is a powerful mandate holding that judges should not exclude evidence unless exclusion would deter future illegal police conduct.

Therefore, it is beyond dispute that the Exclusionary Rule, and the focus of modern Supreme Court opinions construing the Exclusionary Rule, is the preservation of our constitutional rights through the deterrence of future police misconduct that violates those rights.

So is the exclusionary rule really deterring unconstitutional police seizure of evidence? For the Exclusionary Rule to deter future police misconduct, the exclusion of the evidence must be communicated to the offending officer, the officer must learn why it was excluded, and he or she must be provided with some incentive to improve his or her future performance. *55 Absent these steps, is there motivation for a police officer to conform his or her conduct to the dictates of the Fourth Amendment?

Deterrence from wrongful conduct will only occur if notice of that conduct is effectively communicated to the wrongdoer. However, despite this apparent common sense notion, the Exclusionary Rule contains no provision for any police "education." Indeed, whether the police officer who has violated a defendant's constitutional rights will ever learn that he or she has committed such a violation is, at best, uncertain. [FN48] For example, the most direct educational effect will be felt by those officers who attend the suppression hearing (perhaps because they must present evidence of their conduct) and actually hear the court's ruling on the motion. Even then, the basis of the ruling may not be clear to the officer, or she may feel that the result was the product of a misguided or even ill-conceived system, rather than the result of her misconduct. In any case, the offending officer often does not attend the suppression hearing, so no direct lesson is possible. Whether the police officer is made aware of his or her misconduct will then depend upon how effectively the prosecutor or police supervisors communicate with the involved officers. Thus any educational effect of the Exclusionary Rule is unpredictable and often left completely to chance. [FN49]

An additional impediment to the educational aspect of deterrence of Fourth Amendment violations lies in the failure to file many potential prosecutions that result from constitutionally flawed investigations. A prosecutor, strongly believing that critical evidence is the product of illegal police activity, is not likely to even file the case. In these situations, whether the police officer learns that he or she illegally seized a piece of evidence will depend upon how well the prosecutor or police supervisor communicates with the offending officer. Again, any such communication is haphazard at best.

Prior to a case even reaching a prosecutor, as the Supreme Court observed, the Exclusionary Rule "is powerless to deter invasions of constitutionally guaranteed rights where the police either have no interest in prosecuting or are willing to forgo successful prosecution in the interest of serving some other goal." [FN50] In other words, where police invade a citizen's Fourth Amendment rights, but do not prosecute that individual, *56 there is no outside review -- such as by a prosecutor or judge -- to inform the officer of the violation.

If the "educational" aspect of deterrence is too vague to reinforce the "right" and "wrong" ways to obtain evidence, among police officers, the "punitive" aspect of the Exclusionary Rule is even more questionable. This is because punishment for illegally obtaining evidence falls directly upon "the government" by forbidding the use of the illegally obtained evidence at trial. Such punishment does not fall upon the offending police officer and, subsequently, any punitive effect felt by the police officer will be fortuitous. The offending officer suffers no formal negative consequences for his or her illegal activity. To be sure, some police departments keep track of data involving illegal searches and seizures conducted by officers and may use the data in decisions concerning promotions, salary increases, and the like. In addition, officers who are found to have violated a defendant's constitutional rights, and who are aware of this finding, may feel responsible for a failed prosecution, and may suffer from loss of stature in the eyes of their colleagues. But because the punitive effect of the Exclusionary Rule reaches the offending officers only indirectly, if at all, it seriously compromises the ability to deter police misconduct. A police officer who has violated a defendant's rights is not held personally accountable for that violation. In fact, empirical studies support the view that the Rule has a minimal effect on the police officers' on-the-street behavior. This is the ironic effect of the American Exclusionary Rule: In essence, the present rule lacks the power to deter, even though deterrence is the primary objective cited by the Supreme Court for implementing and then retaining the Exclusionary Rule. [FN51]

Deterrence as sole purpose and exceptions are signs of backtracking

As stated above, American courts, in their effort to limit the broad application of the exclusionary rule, have focused on deterrence as the rule's sole justification. The emphasis on deterrence, however, has posed an impediment to alleviating the most troublesome aspect of the rule's operation. If deterrence is the exclusionary rule's only purpose, then dangerous criminals must go free, even if a constitutional violation was relatively minor or technical. This reasoning ignores the harmful effect that exclusion may occasionally have on the integrity of the courts. In a free society it is essential that the court command respect within the community, otherwise it will not be long before the authority of the court is diminished and the rule of law is threatened. Should this occur, the collective freedom of everyone within a society would be markedly diminished.

The other difficulty with the contemporary United States position is the judiciary's effort to scale back the rule's operation through the use of exceptions. These exceptions, as stated above, are rules which state that even when constitutional rights of the accused are violated in the obtainment of the evidence, they will still not be suppressed if one of the exceptions, such as the good faith exceptions applies.

The United States Mandatory Rule of Exclusion Is Due For a Make-Over: Discretionary Approach? Part 1
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