Legal Definitions - attenuation doctrine

Definition: The attenuation doctrine is a rule in criminal procedure that allows evidence obtained through illegal means to be admissible in court if the connection between the evidence and the illegal means is sufficiently remote.

For example, if a police officer illegally searches a suspect's home without a warrant and finds drugs, the drugs may be excluded from evidence under the Fourth Amendment's exclusionary rule. However, if the suspect later confesses to the crime during a legal interrogation, the confession may be admissible under the attenuation doctrine because it is sufficiently remote from the illegal search.

The attenuation doctrine is an exception to the fruit-of-the-poisonous-tree doctrine, which holds that evidence obtained through illegal means is generally inadmissible in court.