Opinion ID: 2738861
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Davis v. United States

Text: In Davis, the Supreme Court applied the good faith exception in the context of law enforcement officers’ reliance on judicial decisions. 131 S. Ct. at 2423–24. Specifically, Davis held that “searches conducted in objectively reasonable reliance on binding appellate precedent are not subject to the exclusionary rule.” Id. Davis’ holding implicated two prior Supreme Court decisions, New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454 (1981) and Arizona v. Gant, 556 U.S. 332 (2009). In Belton, the Supreme Court announced a seemingly broad and permissive standard regarding searches incident to arrest. 453 U.S. at 460 (“[W]hen a policeman has made a lawful custodial arrest of the occupant of an automobile, he 14 may, as a contemporaneous incident of that arrest, search the passenger compartment of that automobile.” (footnote omitted)). It was widely understood that the Court had issued a bright-line rule, and that vehicle searches incident to the arrest of recent occupants were reasonable, regardless of whether the arrestee “was within reaching distance of the vehicle at the time of the search.” Davis, 131 S. Ct. at 2424. However, as Davis noted, the Supreme Court’s subsequent decision in Gant upset this interpretation of Belton. Id. at 2425. After Gant, a vehicle search incident to a recent occupant’s arrest was only constitutionally reasonable where (1) “the arrestee [was] within reaching distance of the vehicle during the search, or (2) . . . the police ha[d] reason to believe that the vehicle contain[ed] ‘evidence relevant to the crime of arrest.’” Id. (quoting Gant, 556 U.S. at 343). Before Gant, the Eleventh Circuit had been one of many federal appeals courts to read Belton as establishing a permissive rule. See United States v. Gonzalez, 71 F.3d 819, 822 (11th Cir. 1996) (upholding search of vehicle conducted after recent occupant was “pulled from the vehicle, handcuffed, laid on the ground, and placed under arrest”). After Belton and Gonzalez, but before Gant, police officers in a case arising in the Eleventh Circuit arrested both the driver of a vehicle and the vehicle’s occupant, Willie Davis. 131 S. Ct. at 2425. After handcuffing and placing them in the back of separate patrol cars, officers searched the vehicle and found a revolver in Davis’ jacket. Id. The District Court denied Davis’ Fourth Amendment challenge, but during the pendency of his appeal from his conviction for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, the Supreme Court decided Gant. Id. at 2426. Accordingly, when Davis reached the Supreme Court, it was necessary to address “whether to apply 15 the exclusionary rule when the police conduct a search in objectively reasonable reliance on binding judicial precedent,” such as Gonzalez. Id. at 2428. Crucial to Davis’ holding that suppression was not warranted was the “acknowledged absence of police culpability.” Id. The officers’ conduct was innocent because they “followed the Eleventh Circuit’s Gonzalez precedent to the letter” and conducted themselves “in strict compliance with then-binding Circuit law.” Id. Because “well-trained officers will and should use” a law enforcement tactic that “binding appellate precedent specifically authorizes,” evidence suppression would only serve to deter what had been reasonable police work. Id. at 2429. As this outcome was inimical to the exclusionary rule’s purpose, namely deterrence, the Supreme Court applied the good faith exception to the officers’ conduct, rendering suppression inappropriate. Id. (“About all that exclusion would deter in this case is conscientious police work.”).