NCJ Number
80753
Journal
Connecticut Law Review Volume: 13 Issue: 4 Dated: (Summer 1981) Pages: 737-776
Date Published
1981
Length
40 pages
Annotation
By examining three court cases, the probable components of the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule are extracted, and the problems likely to arise in their application are identified.
Abstract
In three recent cases, the Supreme Court considered the possibility of creating a good faith exception by applying the exclusionary rule only where law enforcement officials have intentionally or flagrantly violated a defendant's fourth amendment rights. In Dunaway v. New York, the prosecution argued that because the police relied in good faith on a State court case authorizing custodial questioning on less than probable cause, the unconstitutionality of the procedure should not result in the exclusion of the defendant's confession. The Court rejected this argument, dismissing the relevance of good faith to 'fruit of the poisonous tree' analysis. In United States v. Peltier, the Court accepted good faith reliance by the police on an existing law as a relevant consideration in deciding whether to apply retroactively a case that overruled the law. Finally, in Michigan v. DeFillippo, the Court held that evidence seized during a search, incident to an arrest based on a city ordinance that was subsequently declared unconstitutional, was admissible because of police good faith reliance on the validity of the ordinance at the time of the arrest. While the Supreme Court has yet to set a clear standard for determining the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule, the components of what appears to be an evolving standard are subjective (the involved officers' states of mind and knowledge when the evidence was obtained) and objective (whether the officers' mistake was reasonable under the circumstances). Issues likely to be associated with these components are discussed. A total of 183 footnotes are provided. (Author summary modified)