Herring v. United States (Decision)

As predicted, the Court affirmed the 11th Circuit here, even though four Justices dissented. It was a classic liberal v. conservative decision. I argued in my summary that the Court would probably affirm even though there were good grounds for reversal. The reason the Court affirmed conviction of Herring, even though officers gathered incriminating evidence in violation of the 4th Amendment, is that the conduct here was one of "isolated negligence" rather than "systemic error or reckless disregard of constitutional requirements." Thus, it is a "pro-police" ruling. This essay will summarize some of the facts of the case and the reasoning of the Court. All this is derived from the Syllabus of the Decision.

Background Facts

"Officers in Coffee County arrested petitioner Herring based on a warrant listed in neighboring Dale County’s database. A search incident to that arrest yielded drugs and a gun. It was then revealed that the warrant had been recalled months earlier, though this information had never been entered into the database. Herring was indicted on federal gun and drug possession charges and moved to suppress the evidence on the ground that his initial arrest had been illegal. Assuming that there was a Fourth Amendment violation, the District Court concluded that the exclusionary rule did not apply and denied the motion to suppress. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed, finding that the arresting officers were innocent of any wrongdoing, and that Dale County’s failure to update the records was merely negligent. The court therefore concluded that the benefit of suppression would be marginal or nonexistent and that the evidence was admissible under the good-faith rule of United States v. Leon, 468 U. S. 897."

We already know that the Court held that the fruit of an unlawful search is not excluded from evidence under all circumstances. In this case, the Court concluded that "isolated negligence" didn't warrant its exclusion. The Court reasoned as follows (Roberts wrote the opinion):

"The fact that a search or arrest was unreasonable does not necessarily mean that the exclusionary rule applies. Illinois v. Gates, 462 U. S. 213. The rule is not an individual right and applies only where its deterrent effect outweighs the substantial cost of letting guilty and possibly dangerous defendants go free. Leon, 468 U. S., at 908–909. For example, it does not apply if police acted “in objectively reasonable reliance” on an invalid warrant. Id., at 922. In applying Leon’s good-faith rule to police who reasonably relied on mistaken information in a court’s database that an arrest warrant was outstanding, Arizona v. Evans, 514 U. S. 1 , the Court left unresolved the issue confronted here: whether evidence should be suppressed if the police committed the error, id., at 16, n. 5."

The Chief Justice then stated the basic principle that led to the Court's decision:

"The extent to which the exclusionary rule is justified by its deterrent effect varies with the degree of law enforcement culpability."

This case, then, ultimately boiled down to the "degree of law enforcement culpability" in this scenario. It is a pretty good rule, though, as with many rules in law, it allows for lots of "interpretation." So, the Chief Justice rushed in to fill in the interpretive silence or gap created after the articulation of the principle:

"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. The pertinent analysis is objective, not an inquiry into the arresting officers’ subjective awareness."

Therefore, we must look at the "facts and circumstances" of each act of police conduct that led to a 4th Amendment violation. The twin peaks here are 'sufficiently deliberate' and 'sufficiently culpable.' But, in this case, he went on to say:

"The conduct here was not so objectively culpable as to require exclusion. The marginal benefits that might follow from suppressing evidence obtained in these circumstances cannot justify the substantial costs of exclusion."

Some might be bold enough to sugest that there weren't, in fact, simply "marginal" benefits that flowed from suppression...

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