Supreme Court Wrestles with Exclusionary Rule

This is from the Crime and Justice Newsletter and is based on a New York Times article

High Court Hears Variations On Same Old 4th Amendment Themes

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The Supreme Court's Fourth Amendment cases can seem like endless variations on a single sad theme.
The police search some luckless soul, his car or both; they find drugs, guns or both;
and the defense argues that the evidence should be suppressed. The court heard two more
such cases on Tuesday, and, as usual, the justices struggled to identify clear rules to separate
lawful searches from unconstitutional ones, says the New York Times. But these cases were
more interesting than usual, thanks to a discussion of a larger theme that has engaged
several Supreme Court justices in recent years: does the exclusionary rule,
which requires the suppression of some evidence produced by police misconduct, still make sense?

The first case concerned an Alabama man who was arrested, searched and found

with methamphetamines and a pistol. He argued that the evidence should be thrown out

because the officers who arrested him had relied on false information from the

computer files of police in a neighboring county. That database showed an

outstanding warrant for the man's arrest. In fact, the warrant had been withdrawn

five months before. The case seems likely to turn on whether the court decides

to extend a 1995 decision, Arizona v. Evans, which recognized an exception

to the exclusionary rule for arrests resulting from erroneous computer records kept by court employees.

Do you think the Exclusionary Rule should be continued or revisited? Would you eliminate it? Why?

New York Times