Tomato avocados, and squashes of all kinds (such as zucchini and pumpkins) are all botanically fruit, yet cooked as vegetables. This has led to legal dispute in the United States. In 1887, U.S. tariff laws that imposed a duty on vegetables, but not on fruit, caused the tomato's status to become a matter of legal importance. The U.S. Supreme Court settled this controversy on May 10, 1893, by declaring that the tomato is a vegetable, based on the popular definition that classifies vegetables by use—they are generally served with dinner and not dessert ("Nix v. Hedden" (149 U.S. 304)). The holding
Nix v. Williams Nix v. Williams Nix v. Williams, 467 U.S. 431 (1984), was a U.S. Supreme Court case that created an "inevitable discovery" exception to the exclusionary rule. The exclusionary rule makes most evidence gathered through violations of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which protects against unreasonable search and seizure, inadmissible in criminal trials as "fruit of the poisonous tree". In "Nix", the Court ruled that evidence that would inevitably have been discovered by law enforcement through legal means remained admissible. Robert Williams, an escaped mental patient, kidnapped and murdered ten-year-old Pamela Powers from a YMCA in Des Moines,