{
  "id": "R40189",
  "type": "CRS Report",
  "typeId": "REPORTS",
  "number": "R40189",
  "active": false,
  "source": "EveryCRSReport.com",
  "versions": [
    {
      "source": "EveryCRSReport.com",
      "id": 353221,
      "date": "2009-02-02",
      "retrieved": "2016-04-07T02:48:29.223632",
      "title": "Herring v. United States: Extension of the Good-Faith Exception to the Exclusionary Rule in Fourth Amendment Cases",
      "summary": "The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides a right against \u201cunreasonable searches and seizures.\u201d To deter the federal and state governments from violating this right, courts have developed an \u201cexclusionary rule,\u201d which requires that evidence obtained as a result of an invalid search or seizure be excluded from use at trial.\nThe Supreme Court has narrowed the scope of the exclusionary rule in several cases since the late 1970s. In United States v. Leon, the Court created the \u201cgood-faith\u201d exception to the exclusionary rule. The good-faith exception applies when officers conduct a search or seizure with \u201cobjectively reasonable reliance\u201d on, for example, a warrant that is not obviously invalid but that a judicial magistrate should not have signed.\nUntil a 2006 case, Hudson v. Michigan, the Supreme Court had applied the good-faith exception only in cases in which the error creating the constitutional violation was caused by judicial or legislative actors, rather than by the police themselves. In Hudson, the Court applied the exception to a case in which police officers had violated the \u201cknock and announce\u201d rule by entering a home without waiting a sufficient period of time.\nIn Herring v. United States, a 2009 decision, the Supreme Court for the first time applied the good-faith exception to bar application of the exclusionary rule in a case involving police error regarding a warrant. A police officer in the case mistakenly identified an arrest warrant for the defendant. The Court held that evidence discovered after the subsequent arrest was admissible at trial because the officer\u2019s error was not \u201cdeliberate\u201d and the officers involved were not \u201cculpable.\u201d\nIn future cases, courts will apply the Herring \u201cdeliberate and culpable\u201d test to determine whether to admit evidence obtained as a result of a search or seizure which is unconstitutional as a consequence of police error. A second impact of the Herring decision is a weaker constitutional footing for the exclusionary rule. Whereas judicially-created remedies have gained \u201cconstitutional status\u201d in the context of some other constitutional rights, it appears that the exclusionary rule lacks such a grounding under the Court\u2019s current Fourth Amendment jurisprudence.",
      "type": "CRS Report",
      "typeId": "REPORTS",
      "active": false,
      "formats": [
        {
          "format": "HTML",
          "encoding": "utf-8",
          "url": "http://www.crs.gov/Reports/R40189",
          "sha1": "9a8c931b915354f8344bc68fbbe8647a4bd2f931",
          "filename": "files/20090202_R40189_9a8c931b915354f8344bc68fbbe8647a4bd2f931.html",
          "images": null
        },
        {
          "format": "PDF",
          "encoding": null,
          "url": "http://www.crs.gov/Reports/pdf/R40189",
          "sha1": "7a052e68e8a0bd1a60f05c55c720d70017fec669",
          "filename": "files/20090202_R40189_7a052e68e8a0bd1a60f05c55c720d70017fec669.pdf",
          "images": null
        }
      ],
      "topics": []
    }
  ],
  "topics": [
    "Constitutional Questions"
  ]
}