Ben Oloko (University of Nigeria) has posted The Fruit of the Poisoned Tree: Provenance, Rationale and Judicial Attitude to the Exclusion of Tainted Evidence in Nigerian Criminal Justice on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
The fruit of the poisoned tree doctrine — the rule that evidence derived from an unlawful or unconstitutional act is itself tainted and inadmissible — is among the most evocative metaphors in the law of evidence, and among the most misunderstood outside its American home. This paper traces the doctrine from its common law origins through its distinctly American departure into a categorical exclusionary rule. It interrogates how much of that American rule has actually been received into Nigerian law. Sections 14 and 15 of the Evidence Act 2011, this paper argues, codify not an exclusionary rule but a discretionary, fairness-balancing rule considerably closer to the English and Commonwealth tradition than to the American one. The paper argues that Nigerian courts are converging, case by case rather than by settled doctrine, on a constitutionally-anchored exclusionary practice — and proposes reforms to make that convergence principled rather than accidental.
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Lawrence Solum