Herring v. United States
Encyclopedia
Herring v. United States, 555 U.S. 135
(2009), was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States
on January 14, 2009. The court, decided that the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule
applies when a police officer makes an arrest based on an outstanding warrant in another jurisdiction, and the information is later found to be incorrect because of a negligent error by that agency.
(1914) and Mapp v. Ohio
(1961), the Supreme Court created the exclusionary rule
, which generally operates to suppress - i.e. prevent the introduction at trial of - evidence obtained in violation of Constitutional rights. "Suppression of evidence, however, has always been [the court's] last resort, not [its] first impulse. The exclusionary rule generates substantial social costs, which sometimes include setting the guilty free and the dangerous at large." In United States v. Leon
, the Supreme Court clarified that the exclusionary rule "operates as a judicially created remedy designed to safeguard Fourth Amendment rights generally through its deterrent effect, rather than a personal constitutional right of the party aggrieved." Application of the rule should be sensitive to this purpose, the court said: If suppression "does not result in appreciable deterrence," the court had said, "its use ... is unwarranted."
Thus, for example, in Leon itself, the court concluded that the fruits of a search based on a search warrant later found defective should not be excluded because the rule's deterrent purpose "will only rarely be served by applying it in such circumstances," and in Arizona v. Evans
, the court concluded that the fruits of a search based on an arrest warrant that was no longer valid, but that was still listed in the police system because of an error by the issuing court's clerk, should not be excluded because such exclusion would have no deterrent effect.
, Alabama
, Sheriff's Department to check on a pickup truck that had been impounded. Mark Anderson, an investigator with the Coffee County Sheriff's Department, asked the department's warrant clerk to check for any outstanding warrants; the warrant clerk in the neighboring Dale County
Sheriff's Department was contacted, and advised that there was an outstanding warrant. Within fifteen minutes, the Dale County clerk called back to warn the Coffee County sheriff's department that there had been a clerical mistake: the warrant had been recalled five months prior. But it was too late; Anderson had already arrested Herring and searched his vehicle, discovering firearms and methamphetamine
.
Herring was indicted in the United States District Court, Middle District of Alabama for violations of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) (felon in possession of a firearm) and 21 U.S.C. § 844(a) (possession of a controlled substance, viz. methamphetamine) and invoked the exclusionary rule
to have both the firearm and drug evidence suppressed. He claimed that the arrest was unlawful as a result of an invalid/recalled warrant ("failure to appear" - issued by neighboring Dale County, Alabama), a motion denied by the trial court
. He was convicted, and sentenced to 27 months in federal prison
. The 11th Circuit
affirmed, ruling - based on Leon - that the evidence was admissible because the mistake was made by the Dale County officials, not the Coffee County police. Because the error was corrected in a very short time, there was no evidence that the Dale County Sheriff's Department had problems disposing of recalled warrants, and thus no negligence could be claimed because of the lack of a pattern of disposal problems.
The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari
on February 19, 2008. The case was argued before the Court on October 7, 2008.
Roberts affirmed the trial court and the 11th Circuit. While noting that there had not necessarily been a constitutional violation in the case, the court accepted for sake of argument Herring's contention that there had been. On that stipulation, the court held that the exclusionary rule did not apply to a search that resulted from isolated and attenuated police negligence: "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." Suppression was unwarranted because an error in record keeping - not flagrant or deliberate misconduct - led to Herring's arrest. The court also warned that it was not "suggest[ing] that all recordkeeping errors by the police are immune from the exclusionary rule. ... If the police have been shown to be reckless in maintaining a warrant system, or to have knowingly made false entries to lay the groundwork for future false arrests, exclusion would certainly be justified under our cases should such misconduct cause a Fourth Amendment violation." Nevertheless, in the case at bar, "the [police] conduct at issue was not so objectively culpable as to require exclusion." "[W]hen police mistakes are the result of negligence such as that described here, rather than systemic error or reckless disregard of constitutional requirements," the Chief Justice wrote, "any marginal deterrence does not 'pay its way.'"
Justice Ginsburg dissented, joined by Justices Stevens, Souter, and Breyer. She wrote that "the exclusionary rule provides redress for Fourth Amendment violations by placing the government in the position it would have been in had there been no unconstitutional arrest and search. The rule thus strongly encourages police compliance with the Fourth Amendment in the future." The prosecution had contested the unlawful case in court because of contraband found on Herring's person and in his vehicle, but, Ginsburg wrote, narrowing the scope of the exclusionary rule would most typically hurt innocent persons who are wrongfully arrested.
wrote that the decision was of "surpassing significance"http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/the-surpassing-significance-of-herring; law professor and Fourth Amendment
expert Orin Kerr
suggested Goldstein was reading too much into the case, writing that Herring was best seen as "a narrow and interstitial decision, not one that is rocking the boat. ... I don't see it as suggesting a general good faith exception for police conduct ... [which is] why the dissenters didn't sound the alarm...."http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_01_11-2009_01_17.shtml#1231961926 Writing shortly after the decision, the New York Times' Adam Liptak
expressed concern that the decision was a step towards overruling Mapp.http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/31/washington/31scotus.html?_r=1&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink&pagewanted=all
Case citation
Case citation is the system used in many countries to identify the decisions in past court cases, either in special series of books called reporters or law reports, or in a 'neutral' form which will identify a decision wherever it was reported...
(2009), was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
on January 14, 2009. The court, decided that the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule
Exclusionary rule
The exclusionary rule is a legal principle in the United States, under constitutional law, which holds that evidence collected or analyzed in violation of the defendant's constitutional rights is sometimes inadmissible for a criminal prosecution in a court of law...
applies when a police officer makes an arrest based on an outstanding warrant in another jurisdiction, and the information is later found to be incorrect because of a negligent error by that agency.
The evolution of the exclusionary rule
"The Fourth Amendment contains no provision expressly precluding the use of evidence obtained in violation of its commands," but in Weeks v. United StatesWeeks v. United States
In Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383 , the United States Supreme Court unanimously held that the warrantless seizure of items from a private residence constitutes a violation of the Fourth Amendment...
(1914) and Mapp v. Ohio
Mapp v. Ohio
Mapp v. Ohio, , was a landmark case in criminal procedure, in which the United States Supreme Court decided that evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment, which protects against "unreasonable searches and seizures," may not be used in criminal prosecutions in state courts, as well as...
(1961), the Supreme Court created the exclusionary rule
Exclusionary rule
The exclusionary rule is a legal principle in the United States, under constitutional law, which holds that evidence collected or analyzed in violation of the defendant's constitutional rights is sometimes inadmissible for a criminal prosecution in a court of law...
, which generally operates to suppress - i.e. prevent the introduction at trial of - evidence obtained in violation of Constitutional rights. "Suppression of evidence, however, has always been [the court's] last resort, not [its] first impulse. The exclusionary rule generates substantial social costs, which sometimes include setting the guilty free and the dangerous at large." In United States v. Leon
United States v. Leon
United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897 , was a search and seizure case in which the Supreme Court of the United States created the "good faith" exception to the exclusionary rule.-Background:...
, the Supreme Court clarified that the exclusionary rule "operates as a judicially created remedy designed to safeguard Fourth Amendment rights generally through its deterrent effect, rather than a personal constitutional right of the party aggrieved." Application of the rule should be sensitive to this purpose, the court said: If suppression "does not result in appreciable deterrence," the court had said, "its use ... is unwarranted."
Thus, for example, in Leon itself, the court concluded that the fruits of a search based on a search warrant later found defective should not be excluded because the rule's deterrent purpose "will only rarely be served by applying it in such circumstances," and in Arizona v. Evans
Arizona v. Evans
Arizona v. Evans, , instituted an exclusionary rule exception allowing evidence obtained through a warrant-less search to be valid when a police record erroneously indicates the existence of an outstanding warrant due to negligent conduct of a Clerk of Court.-Background:On December 13, 1990, a...
, the court concluded that the fruits of a search based on an arrest warrant that was no longer valid, but that was still listed in the police system because of an error by the issuing court's clerk, should not be excluded because such exclusion would have no deterrent effect.
The beginnings of the Herring case
Bennie Herring drove to the Coffee CountyCoffee County, Alabama
Coffee County is a county of the U.S. state of Alabama. Its name is in honor of General John Coffee. As of 2010 the population was 49,948. Its county seats are Elba and Enterprise....
, Alabama
Alabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
, Sheriff's Department to check on a pickup truck that had been impounded. Mark Anderson, an investigator with the Coffee County Sheriff's Department, asked the department's warrant clerk to check for any outstanding warrants; the warrant clerk in the neighboring Dale County
Dale County, Alabama
Dale County is a county of the U.S. state of Alabama. Its name is in honor of General Samuel Dale. As of the 2010 census the population was 50,251...
Sheriff's Department was contacted, and advised that there was an outstanding warrant. Within fifteen minutes, the Dale County clerk called back to warn the Coffee County sheriff's department that there had been a clerical mistake: the warrant had been recalled five months prior. But it was too late; Anderson had already arrested Herring and searched his vehicle, discovering firearms and methamphetamine
Methamphetamine
Methamphetamine is a psychostimulant of the phenethylamine and amphetamine class of psychoactive drugs...
.
Herring was indicted in the United States District Court, Middle District of Alabama for violations of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) (felon in possession of a firearm) and 21 U.S.C. § 844(a) (possession of a controlled substance, viz. methamphetamine) and invoked the exclusionary rule
Exclusionary rule
The exclusionary rule is a legal principle in the United States, under constitutional law, which holds that evidence collected or analyzed in violation of the defendant's constitutional rights is sometimes inadmissible for a criminal prosecution in a court of law...
to have both the firearm and drug evidence suppressed. He claimed that the arrest was unlawful as a result of an invalid/recalled warrant ("failure to appear" - issued by neighboring Dale County, Alabama), a motion denied by the trial court
United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama
The United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama is the Federal district court whose jurisdiction comprises the following counties: Autauga, Barbour, Bullock, Butler, Chambers, Chilton, Coffee, Coosa, Covington, Crenshaw, Dale, Elmore, Geneva, Henry, Houston, Lee, Lowndes,...
. He was convicted, and sentenced to 27 months in federal prison
Federal prison
Federal prisons are run by national governments in countries where subdivisions of the country also operate prisons.In the United States federal prisons are operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. In Canada the Correctional Service of Canada operates federal prisons. Prison sentences in these...
. The 11th Circuit
United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts:* Middle District of Alabama...
affirmed, ruling - based on Leon - that the evidence was admissible because the mistake was made by the Dale County officials, not the Coffee County police. Because the error was corrected in a very short time, there was no evidence that the Dale County Sheriff's Department had problems disposing of recalled warrants, and thus no negligence could be claimed because of the lack of a pattern of disposal problems.
The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari
Certiorari
Certiorari is a type of writ seeking judicial review, recognized in U.S., Roman, English, Philippine, and other law. Certiorari is the present passive infinitive of the Latin certiorare...
on February 19, 2008. The case was argued before the Court on October 7, 2008.
Result
In a 5-4 decision hewing to Leon and Evans, the Court, speaking through Chief JusticeChief Justice of the United States
The Chief Justice of the United States is the head of the United States federal court system and the chief judge of the Supreme Court of the United States. The Chief Justice is one of nine Supreme Court justices; the other eight are the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States...
Roberts affirmed the trial court and the 11th Circuit. While noting that there had not necessarily been a constitutional violation in the case, the court accepted for sake of argument Herring's contention that there had been. On that stipulation, the court held that the exclusionary rule did not apply to a search that resulted from isolated and attenuated police negligence: "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." Suppression was unwarranted because an error in record keeping - not flagrant or deliberate misconduct - led to Herring's arrest. The court also warned that it was not "suggest[ing] that all recordkeeping errors by the police are immune from the exclusionary rule. ... If the police have been shown to be reckless in maintaining a warrant system, or to have knowingly made false entries to lay the groundwork for future false arrests, exclusion would certainly be justified under our cases should such misconduct cause a Fourth Amendment violation." Nevertheless, in the case at bar, "the [police] conduct at issue was not so objectively culpable as to require exclusion." "[W]hen police mistakes are the result of negligence such as that described here, rather than systemic error or reckless disregard of constitutional requirements," the Chief Justice wrote, "any marginal deterrence does not 'pay its way.'"
Justice Ginsburg dissented, joined by Justices Stevens, Souter, and Breyer. She wrote that "the exclusionary rule provides redress for Fourth Amendment violations by placing the government in the position it would have been in had there been no unconstitutional arrest and search. The rule thus strongly encourages police compliance with the Fourth Amendment in the future." The prosecution had contested the unlawful case in court because of contraband found on Herring's person and in his vehicle, but, Ginsburg wrote, narrowing the scope of the exclusionary rule would most typically hurt innocent persons who are wrongfully arrested.
Reaction
Tom GoldsteinTom Goldstein
Thomas C. Goldstein is an American attorney famous as an advocate before and blogger about the Supreme Court of the United States. He was a founding partner of Goldstein and Howe, a Washington, D.C. firm specializing in Supreme Court litigation, and was, until the end of 2010, a partner at Akin...
wrote that the decision was of "surpassing significance"http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/the-surpassing-significance-of-herring; law professor and Fourth Amendment
Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution is the part of the Bill of Rights which guards against unreasonable searches and seizures, along with requiring any warrant to be judicially sanctioned and supported by probable cause...
expert Orin Kerr
Orin Kerr
Orin S. Kerr is a professor of law at the George Washington University Law School, legal representation for the MySpace "cyber bullying" pioneer Lori Drew and a leading scholar in the subjects of computer crime law and internet surveillance. In the fall of 2006, he visited as an associate professor...
suggested Goldstein was reading too much into the case, writing that Herring was best seen as "a narrow and interstitial decision, not one that is rocking the boat. ... I don't see it as suggesting a general good faith exception for police conduct ... [which is] why the dissenters didn't sound the alarm...."http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_01_11-2009_01_17.shtml#1231961926 Writing shortly after the decision, the New York Times' Adam Liptak
Adam Liptak
Adam Liptak is an American journalist, lawyer and instructor in journalism. He is currently the Supreme Court correspondent for The New York Times. In July 2008, Liptak was assigned to take over coverage of the U.S...
expressed concern that the decision was a step towards overruling Mapp.http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/31/washington/31scotus.html?_r=1&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink&pagewanted=all