Flight from the police should not itself be considered a criminal act. People can legally flee from the police only when those people are not involved in a criminal act at the time. Police can legally give chase to a person only when the person's actions have created a reasonable suspicion of a criminal act. Flight from the police could create a reasonable suspicion of a criminal act as long as other significant factors are involved.
In a certain municipality, a judge overturned a suspect' s conviction for possession of an illegal weapon. The suspect had fled upon seeing police and subsequently discarded the illegal weapon after the police gave chase. The judge reasoned as follows: the only cause for the police giving chase was the suspect' s flight; by itself, flight from the police does not create a reasonable suspicion of a criminal act; evidence collected during an illegal chase is inadmissible; ttherefore, the evidence in this case was inadmissible.
Which one of the following principles, if valid, most helps to justify the judge's decision that the evidence was inadmissible?