2.1.3 The Good-faith Exception

• Library: Criminal Procedure in Practice (ABA) (2018 Ed.)

2.1.3 The Good-Faith Exception

After Mapp, prosecutors argued strenuously that limitations should be imposed on the broad reach of exclusion in Fourth Amendment cases. In particular, concern was expressed over its application in prosecutions in which police officers had acted wholly diligently. The Supreme Court ultimately heeded this concern and refused to apply the exclusionary rule to the fruits of a facially valid search warrant that a judge later ruled was unsupported by probable cause.¹⁶ Thereafter, provided officers execute a warrant in "good faith" and reasonably think that it supports the search, the evidence the officers discover will not be suppressed.¹⁷ Where officers reasonably believe they are within their constitutional bounds, there is no use for the deterrent device of the exclusionary rule.¹⁸ The officers—by definition—have acted in a responsible fashion.¹⁹

Exclusion, then, will not necessarily result in all cases in which unlawful seizures occur. At the time the Court first recognized the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule, it made clear that this exception would be applied only if three essential elements were shown:

1. The officers obtained a warrant;

2. The officers proceeded in the good-faith view that the warrant was valid; and
3. This view was reasonable.²⁰

The good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule has now been expanded and applied in a number of different settings. In one case, the Court held that evidence was admissible, even though it had been obtained in reliance on a warrant later invalidated because of a narrow error committed by the issuing judge.²¹ Eleven years later, in 1995, the Court refused to exclude evidence when an arrest was made on the basis of a computer report that erroneously indicated there was an outstanding warrant against the defendant.²² In that case, the error was committed by a court employee. More recently, the Court refused to exclude evidence obtained when a police officer relied on an inaccurate computer record showing an outstanding arrest warrant that had in fact been recalled months earlier. The inaccurate record in the latter case was created and maintained by a police employee.²³ The Supreme Court has also refused to apply the exclusionary rule when "police conduct a search in compliance with binding precedent that is later overruled."²⁴

Despite courts' extensive application of the good-faith exception, the exception does not apply when the warrant is facially deficient, when...