Having avoided the question for 30 years until it was “squarely presented,” the Tennessee Supreme Court adopts the good faith exception to the extent provided for in Davis. It does not yet signal Leon good faith. State v. Reynolds, 2016 Tenn. LEXIS 821 (Nov. 3, 2016):
We granted this appeal to determine whether the warrantless blood draw violated the defendant’s right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and article I, section 7 of the Tennessee Constitution, and, if so, whether the exclusionary rule applies and requires suppression of the evidence. We conclude that the warrantless blood draw violated the defendant’s federal and state constitutional right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. Nevertheless, we adopt the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule articulated by the United States Supreme Court in Davis v. United States, 564 U.S. 229 (2011), and as a result, hold that any evidence derived from testing the defendant’s blood need not be suppressed because the warrantless blood draw was obtained in objectively reasonable good-faith reliance on binding precedent. On this basis, we affirm the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals.
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The State correctly notes that this Court has not previously decided whether to adopt a good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule that applies to violations of article I, section 7 of the Tennessee Constitution. See State v. Carter, 16 S.W.3d 762, 768 n.8 (Tenn. 2000) (declining to address the issue until it was “squarely presented”). The State urges us to adopt the good-faith exception articulated in Davis and points out, correctly, that courts in several other jurisdictions have adopted this good-faith exception and that it has been applied to prevent the exclusion of evidence obtained from warrantless blood draws conducted prior to McNeely.
Having the issue now “squarely presented,” we adopt as an exception to the state exclusionary rule the good-faith exception described in Davis. As already noted, this Court has long recognized that article I, section 7 is identical in intent and purpose to the Fourth Amendment. McCormick, 494 S.W.3d at 683-84. Additionally, this Court relied upon the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Weeks when adopting the exclusionary rule as a remedy for violations [*68] of article I, section 7. Hughes, 238 S.W. at 594. Furthermore, like the federal exclusionary rule, the purpose of the state exclusionary rule is to deter police misconduct by excluding evidence obtained “by means prohibited by the Constitution.” Id.; see also Hampton, 252 S.W. at 1009. The deterrence purpose of the exclusionary rule is not served by excluding evidence that was obtained by means authorized by binding judicial precedent that was overruled only after the evidence was obtained. As the Davis Court stated, excluding evidence obtained under these circumstances would merely deter conscientious police work. Finally, we discern no “textual, historical, or other basis” on which to part company with the United States Supreme Court on this issue. State v. Watkins, 362 S.W.3d 530, 555 (Tenn. 2012) (interpreting the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Tennessee Constitution (article I, section 10) the same as the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment). Nor does the adoption of the Davis good-faith exception require us to overrule “‘a settled development of state constitutional law.?” State v. Vineyard, 958 S.W.2d 730, 733-34 (Tenn. 1997) (quoting Jacumin, 778 S.W.2d at 435-36). To the contrary, we have already recognized and applied other doctrines that are in effect exceptions to the exclusionary rule. See State v. Carter, 160 S.W.3d 526, 532-33 (Tenn. 2005) (applying the independent source doctrine and concluding that the exclusionary rule did not require suppression of the illegally seized evidence); Huddleston, 924 S.W.2d at 674-75 (applying the attenuation doctrine and holding that the exclusionary rule does not require suppression of a confession obtained during a period of unlawful detention so long as the confession was sufficiently an act of free will to purge the taint of the illegality). Accordingly, we adopt the good-faith exception articulated in Davis.
Like the Minnesota Supreme Court, however, we wish to “note the narrowness of our holding.” State v. Lindquist, 869 N.W.2d 863, 876 (Minn. 2015). We adopt only the Davis good-faith exception, which “represents a small fragment of federal good-faith jurisprudence.” Id. Furthermore, the Davis good-faith exception we adopt applies only when the law enforcement officers’ action is in objectively reasonable good faith reliance on “binding appellate precedent” that “specifically authorizes a particular police practice.” Davis, 564 U.S. at 241. Persuasive precedent from other [*70] jurisdictions is not a sufficient basis for applying the Davis good-faith exception. Lindquist, 869 N.W.2d at 876. Nor does the Davis good-faith exception permit law enforcement officers to “extend the law to areas in which no precedent exists or the law is unsettled.” Id. at 876-77 (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Davis, 564 U.S. at 250-51 (Sotomayor, J., concurring in the judgment)). Our holding today merely reflects the reality that the exclusionary rule does not serve its central purpose of deterring police misconduct “when applied to evidence obtained during a search conducted in reasonable reliance on binding precedent.” Id. at 877. We need not and do not here decide whether to embrace any of the other good-faith exceptions to the exclusionary rule the Supreme Court has adopted. Id. Like the Kentucky Supreme Court, which also adopted but narrowly defined the Davis good-faith exception, we view our decision as adequately preserving “the protections provided by our state and federal constitutions while not penalizing police officers for performing their duties conscientiously and in good-faith.” Parker v. Commonwealth, 440 S.W.3d 381, 387 (Ky. 2014). As the Kentucky Supreme Court declared, “[l]aw enforcement officers are the vanguard of our legal system.” Id.
Finally, having adopted the Davis good-faith exception, we agree with the State that it applies here. Prior to McNeely, no warrant was required for a blood draw in drunk driving cases because Tennessee courts had interpreted Schmerber as establishing a broad categorical rule that the natural dissipation of alcohol within the bloodstream presents an exigent circumstance, justifying a warrantless blood draw in every drunk driving case. See, e.g., Humphreys, 70 S.W.3d at 761. As a result, even though Deputy Strzelecki believed the defendant had actually consented to the blood draw, his action in obtaining her blood without a warrant was in objectively reasonable good-faith reliance on binding precedent. Under these circumstances, we conclude that the good-faith exception applies, and the exclusionary rule does not require suppression of the evidence derived from the testing of the defendant’s blood.
