Opinion ID: 2214390
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: the exclusion exception

Text: ¶ 77 One year ago, the United States Supreme Court issued a landmark opinion summarizing and clarifying its prior case law regarding exclusion of evidence resulting from unlawful searches and seizures. Exclusion, the Court explained, is an extreme sanction that should only be applied as a last resort. Id. at 700. ¶ 78 [I]mportant principles [ ] constrain application of the exclusionary rule, the Court explained. Id. Exclusion is not a right, nor is it a necessary consequence of a Fourth Amendment violation. Id. The remedy of exclusion should apply only where it accomplishes the goal of deterrence, and only if the benefits of deterrence outweigh the substantial social costs of exclusionmost significantly, the toll upon the truth-seeking and law enforcement objectives underlying the criminal justice system. Id. at 700-01. ¶ 79 The United States Supreme Court has made clear that exclusion is aimed at deterrence of police misconduct, not judicial misconduct. [1] Id. at 701. The Court explained that judicial employees were unlikely to try to subvert the Fourth Amendment, and that application of the exclusionary rule in cases involving judicial misconduct made no sense because it would have no significant effect in deterring the errors. Id. ¶ 80 The court went further, and stated that the exclusionary rule is appropriate only in cases involving intentional conduct that was patently unconstitutional. Id. at 702. Errors arising from nonrecurring and attenuated negligence are far removed from the core concerns that led [the Court] to adopt the rule in the first place. Id. ¶ 81 The United States Supreme Court then summarized the operative rule for application of the exclusionary rule: 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. As laid out in our cases, the exclusionary rule serves to deter deliberate, reckless, or grossly negligent conduct, or in some circumstances recurring or systemic negligence. Id. ¶ 82 The United States Supreme Court's decision in Herring has been widely seen as establishing broad principles that dramatically narrow application of the exclusionary rule. See, e.g., Russell L. Weaver, The Irrelevancy of the Fourth Amendment in the Roberts Court, 85 Chi.-Kent L.Rev. 191, 203-04 (2010) (recognizing that the broad language in Herring signals a dramatic restriction in the application of the exclusionary rule, and represents a significant recasting of modern exclusionary rule theory). ¶ 83 What says the majority about these developments? Not much. Not much at all. Instead, the majority states: We have never expanded the good-faith exception nor limited the exclusionary rule in the absence of United States Supreme Court precedent, and we decline to do so here. Majority op., ¶ 53 n. 6. If the majority is looking for United States Supreme Court precedent regarding exclusion and the good-faith exception, I respectfully suggest that it take a closer look at the most recent Supreme Court pronouncements. ¶ 84 The most troubling thing about the majority opinion is that it completely ignores the development of the law in this area. [2] For example, the majority spends two paragraphs discussing this court's decision 83 years ago in State v. Kriegbaum, 194 Wis. 229, 215 N.W. 896 (1927) ( see majority op., ¶¶ 29-30), and a mere two sentences referencing Herring, where it states a cabined and fact-specific summary of its holding ( see majority op., ¶ 45). Commentators agree that the logic and sweeping language in Herring is hard to ignore. See Michael Vitiello, Herring v. United States: Mapp's Artless Overruling?, 10 Nev. L.J. 164, 164 (2010) (While arguably a narrow decision, few readers can miss its sweeping logic, effectively eroding the general application of the Fourth Amendment's exclusionary rule.). [3] Somehow, the majority does just that. ¶ 85 The majority begins from the wrong starting point. While the nomenclature suggests an exclusionary rule and a good-faith exception to the rule, the law as it stands today is exactly the opposite. It would not be a stretch to say that the recent jurisprudence of the United States Supreme Court makes admission of unlawfully obtained evidence the rule, and authorizes an exclusionary exception in limited circumstances. See id.