Post details: SCOTUS: Herring decided today; watch out: if negligent, no exclusion?
01/14/09
SCOTUS: Herring decided today; watch out: if negligent, no exclusion?
Yes Virginia, there is a Barney Fife exception to the exclusionary rule.
In Herring v. United States, 07-513, the Supreme Court decided today, 5-4, holding that a constitutional violation that is only negligent is not subject to the exclusionary rule. The implications of this go beyond the recordkeeping issue presented. See The Surpassing Significance of Herring on SCOTUSBlog.
From the Court's syllabus:
Officers in Coffee County arrested petitioner Herring based on a warrant listed in neighboring Dale County’s database. A search incident to that arrest yielded drugs and a gun. It was then revealed that the warrant had been recalled months earlier, though this information had never been entered into the database. Herring was indicted on federal gun and drug possession charges and moved to suppress the evidence on the ground that his initial arrest had been illegal. Assuming that there was a Fourth Amendment violation, the District Court concluded that the exclusionary rule did not apply and denied the motion to suppress. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed, finding that the arresting officers were innocent of any wrongdoing, and that Dale County’s failure to update the records was merely negligent. The court therefore concluded that the benefit of suppression would be marginal or nonexistent and that the evidence was admissible under the good-faith rule of United States v. Leon, 468 U. S. 897.
Held: When police mistakes leading to an unlawful search are the result of isolated negligence attenuated from the search, rather than systemic error or reckless disregard of constitutional requirements, the exclusionary rule does not apply. Pp. 4–13.
(a) The fact that a search or arrest was unreasonable does not necessarily mean that the exclusionary rule applies. Illinois v. Gates, 462 U. S. 213, 223. The rule is not an individual right and applies only where its deterrent effect outweighs the substantial cost of letting guilty and possibly dangerous defendants go free. Leon, 468 U. S., at 908–909. For example, it does not apply if police acted “in objectively reasonable reliance” on an invalid warrant. Id., at 922. In applying Leon’s good-faith rule to police who reasonably relied on mistaken information in a court’s database that an arrest warrant was outstanding, Arizona v. Evans, 514 U. S. 1, 14–15, the Court left unresolved the issue confronted here: whether evidence should be suppressed if the police committed the error, id., at 16, n. 5. Pp. 4–7.
(b) The extent to which the exclusionary rule is justified by its deterrent effect varies with the degree of law enforcement culpability. See, e.g., Leon, supra, at 911. Indeed, the abuses that gave rise to the rule featured intentional conduct that was patently unconstitutional. See, e.g., Weeks v. United States, 232 U. S 383. An error arising from nonrecurring and attenuated negligence is far removed from the core concerns that led to the rule’s adoption. Pp. 7–9.
(c) To trigger the exclusionary rule, police conduct must be sufficiently deliberate that exclusion can meaningfully deter it, and sufficiently culpable that such deterrence is worth the price paid by the justice system. The pertinent analysis is objective, not an inquiry into the arresting officers’ subjective awareness. See, e.g., Leon, supra, at 922, n. 23. Pp. 9–11.
(d) The conduct here was not so objectively culpable as to require exclusion. The marginal benefits that might follow from suppressing evidence obtained in these circumstances cannot justify the substantial costs of exclusion. Leon, supra, at 922. Pp. 11–13.
Comment: Whether the Court intends it or not, in effect, it is promising in the future to reward sloppy police work. Ironically, that’s one of the kinds of conduct the exclusionary rule was created to correct. It’s the "Barney Fife" exception to the Fourth Amendment. This case is the subject of my NACDL President's Column from the Nov.-Dec. issue: The Barney Fife Exception to the Exclusionary Rule.
(By the way, SCOTUS cases prior to 2007 have been removed from the sidebar.)
Pingbacks:
No Pingbacks for this post yet...
FourthAmendment.com
Notes on Use
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| << < | ||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | |
| 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 |
| 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
| 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 |
| 28 | ||||||
Search
©
2003-10
Online since Feb. 24, 2003
To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $
Contact / About
www.johnwesleyhall.com
www.LawofCriminalDefense.com
Latest Slip Opinions:
U.S. Supreme Court
Federal Appellate Courts
First Circuit
Second Circuit
Third Circuit
Fourth
Circuit
Fifth Circuit
Sixth
Circuit
Seventh
Circuit
Eighth
Circuit
Ninth Circuit
Tenth Circuit
Eleventh
Circuit
D.C.
Circuit
Military Courts: C.A.
A.F., Army,
AF, N-M,
CG
Hall's links to state
opinions
Google Scholar
LexisWeb
LII State Appellate
Courts
LexisONE
free caselaw
Findlaw Free Opinions
Most recent SCOTUS cases:
2009-10 Term:
Cert. granted:
City of Ontario v. Quon, 08-1338
granted Dec. 14, 2009 (ScotusWiki)
Decided:
Michigan
v. Fisher, decided Dec. 7, 2009 (per curiam) (ScotusWiki)
2008-09 Term:
Decided:
Herring
v. United States, 129 S. Ct. 695, 172 L.Ed.2d 496, decided Jan. 13 (ScotusWiki)
Pearson
v. Callahan, 129 S. Ct. 808, 172 L. Ed. 2d 565, decided Jan. 21 (ScotusWiki)
Arizona
v. Johnson, 129 S. Ct. 781, 172 L. Ed. 2d 694, decided Jan. 26 (ScotusWiki)
Arizona
v. Gant, 129 S. Ct. 1710, 173 L. Ed. 2d 485, decided April 21 (ScotusWiki)
Safford
Unified School District #1 v. Redding, 129 S. Ct. 2633, 174 L. Ed. 2d 354,
decided June 25 (ScotusWiki)
Research Links:
Supreme Court:
SCOTUSBlog
SCOTUSWiki
S. Ct.
Docket
Solicitor General's
site
Briefs
online (but no amicus briefs)
Curiae (Yale
Law)
Oyez
Project (NWU)
"On the Docket"–Medill
S.Ct.
Monitor: Law.com
S.Ct.
Com't'ry: Law.com
General (many free):
LexisWeb
Google Scholar | Google
LexisOne
Legal Website Directory
Crimelynx
Lexis.com
$
Lexis.com
(criminal law/ 4th Amd) $
Findlaw.com
Findlaw.com (4th
Amd)
Westlaw.com
$
F.R.Crim.P.
41
www.fd.org
DOJ
Computer Search Manual
USSS
computer search website
Talkleft "It is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have frequently been forged in controversies involving not very nice people. And so, while we are concerned here with a shabby defrauder, we must deal with his case in the context of what are really the great themes expressed by the Fourth Amendment." "You've got to be very careful if you don't know where you are going because you might not get there." "There ought to be limits on freedom." "The course of true law pertaining to searches and seizures, as enunciated
here, has not–to put it mildly–run smooth." "A search is a search, even if it happens to disclose nothing but the
bottom of a turntable." "For the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places. What a person knowingly
exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth
Amendment protection. ... But what he seeks to preserve as private, even in
an area accessible to the public, may be constitutionally protected." "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain
a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
ACLU on privacy
Privacy
Foundation
Electronic Privacy
Information Center
Criminal
Appeal (post-conviction) (9th Cir.)
How Appealing Blog
—United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U.S. 56, 69 (1950) (Frankfurter,
J., dissenting)
—Yogi Berra
—George W. Bush (May 1999)
—Chapman v. United States, 365 U.S. 610, 618 (1961) (Frankfurter, J.,
concurring).
—Arizona v. Hicks, 480 U.S. 321, 325 (1987)
—Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 351 (1967)
—Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania (1759)
“A patriot must be ready to defend his country against his government.”
—Edward Abbey
“Experience should teach us to be most on guard to
protect liberty when the Government’s purposes are beneficent. Men born
to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded
rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men
of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.”
—United States v. Olmstead, 277 U.S. 438, 479 (1925) (Brandeis,
J., dissenting)
"Freedom is just another word for nothing
left to lose."
—Kris Kristopherson, "Me and Bobby McGee" (sung by Janis Joplin)
“Liberty—the freedom from unwarranted
intrusion by government—is as easily lost through insistent nibbles by
government officials who seek to do their jobs too well as by those whose purpose
it is to oppress; the piranha can be as deadly as the shark.”
—United States v. $124,570, 873 F.2d 1240, 1246 (9th Cir. 1989)
"You can't always get what you want /
But if you try sometimes / You just might find / You get what you need."
—Mick Jagger & Keith Richards
"In Germany, they first came for the communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for
the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Catholic. Then they came
for me–and by that time there was nobody left to speak up."
—Martin Niemöller (1945) [he served seven years in a concentration
camp]
“You know, most men would get discouraged by
now. Fortunately for you, I am not most men!”
—Pepé LePew
"There is never enough time, unless you are serving it."
—Malcolm Forbes
"The point of the Fourth Amendment, which often is not grasped by zealous officers,
is not that it denies law enforcement the support of the usual inferences which
reasonable men draw from evidence. Its protection consists in requiring that
those inferences be drawn by a neutral and detached magistrate instead of being
judged by the officer engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting
out crime."
—Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 13-14 (1948)
Archives
- February 2010 (34)
- January 2010 (102)
- December 2009 (104)
- November 2009 (86)
- October 2009 (80)
- September 2009 (62)
- August 2009 (56)
- July 2009 (69)
- June 2009 (53)
- May 2009 (59)
- April 2009 (70)
- March 2009 (55)
- More...
Misc
XML Feeds
What is RSS?
Who's Online?
- Guest Users: 25
powered by
