Criminal defendants do not need to prove a reasonable expectation of privacy in order to suppress evidence collected by police in an illegal search, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has ruled.

In a unanimous July 19 ruling in Commonwealth v. Shabezz, the justices found that evidence gathered from a seizure deemed to be illegal is barred outright as “fruit of the poisonous tree.”

“The contested evidence, tainted by the initial illegality, must be suppressed, even absent a demonstrable expectation of privacy in the locations where the evidence was found,” Justice David N. Wecht wrote for the court.