How Evidence Gets Thrown Out in a Criminal Case
Not all evidence is admissible. If it was obtained illegally, handled improperly, or presented unfairly, it can be excluded — and excluding the right evidence can end the case. Here are the 10 most common grounds.
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Each of these is a recognized legal basis for excluding evidence in Nevada criminal court. The right one depends on the facts of your case.
Illegal search or seizure (the exclusionary rule)
The Fourth Amendment protects you from unreasonable searches and seizures. If police searched your home, car, or person without a valid warrant, without probable cause, and without your consent, any evidence found during that search can be excluded under the exclusionary rule. This is the single most common suppression argument in Nevada criminal cases — and the one that wins most often.
Example: Police search your car during a traffic stop without consent, probable cause, or a warrant. The drugs found in the trunk get thrown out.
Invalid or defective search warrant
Even when police have a warrant, the warrant must be valid. It must be based on probable cause, it must describe the place to be searched and the items to be seized with specificity, and officers must execute it within its scope. A warrant that is vague, overbroad, based on stale information, or supported by a misleading affidavit can be challenged — and everything found under that warrant excluded.
Example: A warrant authorizes a search of the living room, but officers search the garage. Evidence from the garage is outside the warrant's scope.
Miranda violations
Under the Fifth Amendment, you have the right to remain silent and the right to an attorney during custodial interrogation. If officers interrogated you while you were in custody without first advising you of your Miranda rights, any statements you made — including confessions — may be suppressed. This also applies if you invoked your right to remain silent or asked for a lawyer and officers kept questioning you.
Example: You are arrested, placed in a patrol car, and officers start asking questions about the incident without reading you your rights. Your answers are inadmissible.
Broken chain of custody
For physical evidence to be admissible, the prosecution must show an unbroken chain of custody — that the evidence was collected, stored, transported, and tested without gaps or irregularities. If there is any period where the evidence was unaccounted for, improperly logged, or accessible to unauthorized people, the defense can argue it is unreliable and should be excluded.
Example: A blood sample sits unrefrigerated for 48 hours before reaching the lab. The defense argues the sample degraded and the BAC result is unreliable.
Hearsay
Hearsay is an out-of-court statement offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted. It is generally inadmissible because the person who made the statement is not in court, under oath, and subject to cross-examination. There are recognized exceptions — excited utterances, dying declarations, business records, statements against interest — but the prosecution must prove the exception applies. If they can't, the statement is excluded.
Example: A witness tries to testify about what someone else told them at the scene. Unless an exception applies, that testimony is hearsay and inadmissible.
Suggestive identification procedures
Eyewitness identifications are powerful with juries but notoriously unreliable. If a lineup, photo array, or show-up identification was conducted in a way that was suggestive — the suspect stood out, officers hinted at the right answer, or the procedure was not properly documented — the identification can be suppressed as tainted.
Example: In a photo array, the suspect's photo is the only one matching the description given by the witness. The identification is challenged as impermissibly suggestive.
Prejudice outweighs probative value
Under Nevada Rule of Evidence 48.035, the court can exclude evidence whose prejudicial effect substantially outweighs its probative value. This prevents the jury from being unfairly swayed by inflammatory, shocking, or emotionally manipulative evidence that does not meaningfully help them decide the facts.
Example: The prosecution wants to show graphic autopsy photos. The defense argues the cause of death is not in dispute and the photos serve only to inflame the jury.
Unreliable expert testimony
Expert witnesses must be qualified, their methods must be scientifically valid and generally accepted, and their testimony must be relevant to the case. If a forensic expert used outdated techniques, an unvalidated methodology, or reached conclusions not supported by the data, the defense can move to exclude the testimony under the applicable reliability standard.
Example: A forensic analyst testifies about bite mark evidence — a technique that has been widely discredited by the scientific community. The testimony is challenged as unreliable.
Entrapment
If law enforcement induced you to commit a crime you would not otherwise have committed, the defense of entrapment applies. The key question is whether the idea and motivation for the crime originated with the government, not with you. Evidence obtained through entrapment may be excluded — or the defense may defeat the charge entirely.
Example: An undercover officer repeatedly pressures a person with no criminal history to sell drugs, providing the drugs and arranging the buyer. The person had no predisposition to commit the crime.
Coerced statements and confessions
The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments require that any statement used against you was made voluntarily. Confessions obtained through physical force, threats, prolonged isolation, deprivation of food or sleep, or psychological manipulation are involuntary and inadmissible. The totality of the circumstances determines voluntariness — and the defense can challenge any statement that was the product of coercion.
Example: Officers interrogate a suspect for 14 hours without a break, food, or access to an attorney. The confession obtained at hour 12 is challenged as involuntary.
Why suppression can change everything
Best case
Case dismissed
If the excluded evidence was the core of the prosecution's case — the drugs, the weapon, the confession — the DA often cannot proceed. Charges are dismissed.
Common outcome
Reduced charges or plea
Even if the case doesn't collapse entirely, losing key evidence weakens the prosecution's position and often produces a significantly better plea offer.
At trial
Jury never sees it
If evidence is suppressed, the jury never knows it existed. The prosecution must prove its case with only the admissible evidence that remains.
Evidence Suppression — Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about getting evidence excluded in Nevada criminal cases.
Frequently Asked Questions
Clear answers to common record sealing questions.
Think the evidence was obtained illegally?
Suppression issues are not always obvious from the police report. Call for a free review of how the evidence in your case was obtained — the details determine whether there is a viable motion.