What does the concept of inevitable discovery entail?

The concept of inevitable discovery is a legal doctrine that allows evidence to be admissible in court, even if it was obtained in a manner that violated the defendant's rights, provided that the prosecution can demonstrate that the evidence would have been inevitably discovered through lawful means. This principle is rooted in the idea that if the police would have found the evidence through an alternate, legal path, then the taint of the illegal search can be effectively mitigated. It focuses on the likelihood of finding that evidence regardless of the prior constitutional violation.

This principle serves to prevent the exclusion of probative evidence that society has an interest in having considered during the trial. The foundation of this doctrine was laid out in the U.S. Supreme Court case Nix v. Williams, where the Court ruled that the evidence could be admitted because the police would have eventually discovered it through proper procedures. Thus, demonstrating that law enforcement would have inevitably discovered the evidence is key to this legal concept.