6.1

• Jurisdiction: Arizona

§ 6.1 General Rule.

“Any evidence obtained as a result of such illegal searches and seizures is generally inadmissible at trial, pursuant to the exclusionary rule.” State v. Cañez, 202 Ariz. 133, 151, 42 P.3d 564, 582 (2002) (discussing home searches), citing Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 (1949). “The exclusionary rule is a judicially created remedy designed to safeguard Fourth Amendment rights generally through its deterrent effect. Whether to apply that rule to a particular fact situation requires weighing the benefits of vindicating a constitutional right through the deterrent effect of the exclusionary rule against the possibility that other deterrents may exist which would accomplish the same result at less cost to society.” Tornabene v. Bonine, 203 Ariz. 326, 54 P.3d 355 (App. 2002) (Div. 2) (internal citations and quotations omitted). See also State v. Mitcham, 1 CA-CR 23-0014, 2023 WL 5354942, at *8 (App. Aug. 22, 2023) (“The exclusionary rule, which allows suppression of evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment, is a prudential doctrine invoked to deter future violations. Exclusion is not a personal constitutional right, nor is it designed to “redress the injury” occasioned by an unconstitutional search. The rule's sole purpose . . . is to deter future Fourth Amendment violations. Thus, the rule is appropriate only when deterrence is necessary, and the substantial social costs are accounted for. Id. at 237, 131 S.Ct. 2419. Given the “enormous societal cost of excluding truth,” suppression of evidence should not place the police in a worse position than they would have been without the illegal conduct.”) (internal citations and quotations omitted).

“[M]ore than thirty years after Mapp [v. Ohio], the exclusionary rule as it exists today in Arizona remains solely a federal exclusionary rule.” State v. Juarez, 203 Ariz. 441, 447, 55 P.3d 784, 790 (App. 2002) (Div. 1).

“The exclusionary rule is, in essence, judge-made law designed to vindicate the constitutional right to privacy as embodied in the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and in article 2 section 8 of the Arizona Constitution. Under the rule, the court must exclude from a criminal trial any evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment and article 2, section 8, unless the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule applies. This rule exists, in short, to deter unconstitutional police conduct. Because the warrantless breath test to which Navarro submitted did not violate any provision of the United States or Arizona Constitutions, according to our highest respective courts, the exclusionary rule is inapplicable to this case.” State v. Navarro, 241 Ariz. 19, 382 P.3d 1234 (App. 2016) (Div. 2) (internal citations, alterations, and quotations omitted).

“Violation of the Fourth Amendment, however, does not invariably preclude the use of evidence derived from the unconstitutional conduct. Rather, the appropriate sanction, if any, for a Fourth Amendment violation depends on the nature of the proceeding in which the illegally obtained evidence will be used and the policy considerations that weigh in favor of or against exclusion of that evidence in such proceeding.” Tornabene v. Bonine, 203 Ariz. 326, 54 P.3d 355 (App. 2002) (Div. 2) (finding exclusionary rule inapplicable in civil driver’s license administrative proceedings); Herring v. United States, 129 S. Ct. 695 (2009) (Good faith applied when an officer arrested the defendant based on information from a different police agency that an outstanding warrant existed, which was incorrect because of a...