Remember that purpose of the exclusionary rule is to deter police misconduct. As such, evidence should not be excluded if the officer has simply made a reasonable mistake. The Supreme Court has stated that the exclusionary rule should only be used when there has been “grossly negligent conduct” or “recurring or systemic negligence.” This concept is really in line with the purpose of the exclusionary rule – mistakes cannot be eliminated. So it only serves the purpose of this costly rule if the police mistakes amount to gross or systematic negligence.
Legal Supplement
Herring v. U.S., 555 U.S. 135 (2009),
The fact that a Fourth Amendment violation occurred—i.e., that a search or arrest was unreasonable—does not necessarily mean that the exclusionary rule applies.
We have repeatedly rejected the argument that exclusion is a necessary consequence of a Fourth Amendment violation.
We held that a mistake made by a judicial employee could not give rise to exclusion
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. As laid out in our cases, the exclusionary rule serves to deter deliberate, reckless, or grossly negligent conduct, or in some circumstances recurring or systemic negligence.
In Franks, we held that police negligence in obtaining a warrant did not even rise to the level of a Fourth Amendment violation, let alone meet the more stringent test for triggering the exclusionary rule.
Under Franks, negligent police miscommunications in the course of acquiring a warrant do not provide a basis to rescind a warrant and render a search or arrest invalid.
[W]e conclude that when police mistakes are the result of negligence such as that described here, rather than systemic error or reckless disregard of constitutional requirements, any marginal deterrence does not “pay its way.” In such a case, the criminal should not “go free because the constable has blundered.”
Illinois v. Rodriguez, 497 U.S. 177 (1990),
[I]n order to satisfy the "reasonableness" requirement of the Fourth Amendment, what is generally demanded of … the police officer executing a warrant, or the police officer conducting a search or seizure under one of the exceptions to the warrant requirement -- is not that they always be correct, but that they always be reasonable.
Illinois v. Krull, 480 U.S. 340 (1987),
[E]vidence should be suppressed ‘only if it can be said that the law enforcement officer had knowledge, or may properly be charged with knowledge, that the search was unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment.’ ”
Massachusetts v. Sheppard, 468 U.S. 981 (1984),
([T]he exclusionary rule did not apply when a warrant was invalid because a judge forgot to make “clerical corrections”).
*All Internal Citations Omitted
