Opinion ID: 2995093
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Exclusion of Evidence is a

Text: Disproportionately Severe Sanction in Cases Where the Police Conduct Does Not Actually Harm Protected Interests. Several well-established principles guide our balancing of the competing interests served and harmed by the exclu sionary rule. Pertinent to this case is the principle that the exclusionary rule is a sanction, and sanctions are supposed to be proportioned to the wrong-doing that they punish. Salgado, 807 F.2d at 607. The idea that sanctions must be proportioned to the gravity of the wrong has become an important element of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. Stefonek, 179 F.3d at 1035. The Supreme Court has emphasized the role of proportionality in assessing the propriety of excluding evidence as a remedy for Fourth Amendment violations as follows: The disparity in particular cases between the error committed by the police officer and the windfall afforded a guilty defendant by application of the [exclusionary] rule is contrary to the idea of proportionality that is essential to the concept of justice. Stone, 428 U.S. at 490. We find substantial guidance on the question of proportionality from our decision in Stefonek. In that case, we held that where the violation of the Fourth Amendment in a particular case causes no discernable harm to the interests of an individual protected by the particular constitutional prohibition at issue (in the present case the knock and announce requirement), the exclusion of evidence for the trial is a disproportionately severe and inappropriate sanction. Stefonek, 179 F.3d at 1034-35. In other words, the principle of proportionality demands that the application of the exclusionary rule should be limited only to those instances where the constitutional violation has caused actual harm to the interest (whether in privacy or in a fair trial) that the rights protect. Stefonek, 179 F.3d at 1036./7 At issue in Stefonek was the use of language in a search warrant authorizing the seizure of evidence of crime. Stefonek, 179 F.3d at 1032. This all- inclusive description of the items subject to seizure was properly found to fall short of satisfying the Fourth Amendment’s requirement that a search warrant particularly describe the things to be seized. Id. However, the constitutionally infirm generality of the warrant contrasted with the affidavit accompanying the application for its issuance, which clearly specified the particular items to be seized. Id. When executing the warrant, officers did not seize any property other than those items listed in the affidavit. Id. Under the circumstances presented, Stefonek clearly held that exclusion of the evidence seized pursuant to the warrant was a disproportionately severe, and thus an inappropriate, remedy for the clear violation of the Fourth Amendment’s requirement that a warrant identify the particular items to be seized. Stefonek, 179 F.3d at 1033-34. This disproportionality was established by circumstances demonstrating that the interest protected by the particularity requirement (to ensure that a search does not invade an individual’s privacy interests beyond those necessary to achieve a valid law enforcement purpose) was neither harmed nor infringed upon by the actual search that occurred. Id. The following quotations from Stefonek are an apt summary of its holding: [W]e do not think that the consequence of the violation of the Fourth Amendment in this case should be the suppression of the evidence seized . . . [Because] [t]he seizure caused no harm to the policy that underlies the requirement that a search warrant describe with particularity what is to be seized.