TN adopts good faith exception for unsigned affidavit but sworn officer in 2007 DP case

The officer in this case hurriedly prepared an affidavit and warrant to search defendant’s property. When printing it, he didn’t notice that the document was typed for legal size paper but the printer had only letter size in it. He took the affidavit and warrant to the judge who swore him as a witness and signed off on the warrant. The officer’s signature line was cut off by the paper size, and he didn’t sign the warrant, a necessary requirement under state statute. The search started. Somebody noticed the error, and they went to get another search warrant with a signed affidavit. The initial search was constitutional under the Fourth Amendment, but not under statute. Nevertheless, good faith is evident, and the court finally adopts the good faith exception by case law. [Tennessee adopted it by statute in 2011 and was previously reluctant to adopt the good faith exception.] State v. Davidson, 2016 Tenn. LEXIS 913 (Dec. 19, 2016):

Given the unusual facts in this case, we adopt a good-faith exception for the admission of evidence when a law enforcement officer has reasonably and in good faith conducted a search within the scope of a warrant the officer believes to be valid, but is later determined to be invalid solely because of a good-faith failure to comply with the affidavit requirement of Tennessee Code Annotated sections 40-6-103 and -104 and Tennessee Rule of Criminal Procedure 41(c)(1). In doing so, we note that Rule 41(g), a procedural rule promulgated by this Court, does not divest this Court of its authority to decide whether a good-faith exception, or any other exception, should be adopted. State v. Reynolds, No. E2013-02309-SC-R11-CD, 2016 Tenn. LEXIS 821, 2016 WL 6525856, at *21 (Tenn. 2016). Further, the applicability and validity of the Exclusionary Rule Reform Act, Tennessee Code Annotated section 40-6-108, effective July 1, 2011, are not at issue in this case.