Opinion ID: 2738861
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The alleged inapplicability of Davis does

Text: not control the issue. Alternatively, even if we were to accept Appellees’ argument that factual dissimilarities disqualify Knotts and Karo from being “binding appellate precedent” which could reasonably be relied on under Davis, our inquiry would not end there. In advancing their contrary position, the District Court and Appellees improperly elevate Davis’ holding above the general good faith analysis from whence it came. Davis is but one application of the good faith exception that applies when police “conduct a search in objectively reasonable reliance on binding judicial precedent.” Davis, 131 S. Ct. at 2428. Undoubtedly, Davis is the most analogous Supreme Court decision to the instant circumstances. However, even if Davis did not mandate the application of the good faith exception, we can still apply the exception for another good reason. Cf. United States v. Knights, 534 U.S. 112, 117 (2001) (rejecting the “dubious logic . . . that an opinion upholding the constitutionality of a particular search implicitly holds 25 unconstitutional any search that is not like it”). The whole of our task is not to determine whether Davis applies, nor to “extend” either the good faith exception or Davis’ holding. Even where Davis does not control, it is our duty to consider the totality of the circumstances to answer the “objectively ascertainable question whether a reasonably well trained officer would have known that the search was illegal.”9 Leon, 468 U.S. at 906–07, 922 n.23 (noting that exclusion inquiries “must be resolved by weighing the costs and benefits of [suppression]” (emphasis added)). To exclude evidence simply because law enforcement fell short of relying on binding appellate precedent would impermissibly exceed the Supreme Court’s mandate that suppression should occur in only “unusual” circumstances: when it “further[s] the 9 The District Court noted that the Supreme Court’s good faith decisions generally involved reliance on some “unequivocally binding” authority, which does not include non-binding case law. Katzin, 2012 WL 1646894, at ; see also supra note 7. However, in the Supreme Court’s many enunciations of the governing standard, it has never made such authority a condition precedent to applying the good faith exception. See, e.g., Herring, 555 U.S. at 137 (noting that suppression “turns on the culpability of the police and the potential of exclusion to deter wrongful police conduct”); Evans, 514 U.S. at 13–14 (suppression appropriate “only if the remedial objectives of the rule are thought most efficaciously served”); Leon, 468 U.S. at 918 (good faith exception requires “objectively reasonable belief that . . . conduct did not violate the Fourth Amendment”). We do no more than apply the good faith exception as articulated by the Supreme Court. 26 purposes of the exclusionary rule.” Id. at 918; see also Duka, 671 F.3d at 346. Davis supports this conclusion. In reaching its holding, Davis reiterates the analytical steps for evaluating suppression challenges. 131 S. Ct. at 2426–28. For example, we must limit operation of the exclusionary rule “to situations in which [its] purpose,” deterring future Fourth Amendment violations, is “most efficaciously served.” Id. at 2426 (quoting United States v. Calandra, 414 U.S. 338, 348 (1974)). Our analysis must account for both “[r]eal deterrent value” and “substantial social costs,” and our inquiry must focus on the “flagrancy of the police misconduct” at issue. Id. at 2427 (quoting Leon, 468 U.S. at 907, 911). Only when, after a “rigorous weighing,” we conclude that “the deterrence benefits of suppression . . . outweigh its heavy costs,” is exclusion appropriate. Id. Importantly, we must be prepared to “appl[y] this ‘good-faith’ exception across a range of cases.”10 Id. at 2428. 10 Moreover, we note that Justice Sotomayor understood Davis explicitly to leave open the question “whether the exclusionary rule applies when the law governing the constitutionality of a particular search is unsettled.” Davis, 131 S. Ct. at 2435 (Sotomayor, J., concurring). Similarly, Justice Breyer did not read Davis to limit the good faith exception only to “binding appellate precedent.” Id. at 2439 (Breyer, J., dissenting) (arguing that culpability rationale could similarly excuse as good faith a search which an officer “believes complies with the Constitution but which . . . falls just outside the Fourth Amendment’s bounds [or] where circuit precedent is simply suggestive rather than ‘binding,’ 27 Davis did not begin, nor end, with binding appellate precedent. Rather, binding appellate precedent informed— and ultimately determined—the Supreme Court’s greater inquiry: whether the officers’ conduct was deliberate and culpable enough that application of the exclusionary rule would “yield meaningfu[l] deterrence,” and “be worth the price paid by the justice system.” Id. at 2428 (alteration in original) (quoting Herring, 555 U.S. at 144) (internal quotation marks omitted). We must conduct the same analysis on the facts before us, even in the absence of binding appellate precedent.11 The District Court acknowledged the argument that the “general good faith exception language” could permit an “individualized determination” of whether the agents’ where it only describes how to treat roughly analogous instances, or where it just does not exist”). 11 Appellees’ warning not to “fabricate” a new good faith ground exemplifies this misreading of Davis. (Appellee En Banc Br. at 4.) The Davis Court did not “fabricate” binding appellate precedent as a ground for applying the good faith exception. The facts involved binding appellate precedent, but the ground for applying the good faith exception was—as it has been since Leon—that the deterrence rationale was unsatisfied. Davis, 131 S. Ct. at 2428–29 (noting the “absence of police culpability” and that excluding evidence would deter only “objectively reasonable law enforcement activity” (quoting Leon, 468 U.S. at 919)). The factual circumstances before us differ, but we ground our application of the good faith exception in the same time-tested considerations. 28 conduct was objectively reasonable. Katzin, 2012 WL 1646894, at . This determination would have been properly informed by its conclusion that the agents’ inadvertent Fourth Amendment violation was neither “calculated” nor the result of a “deliberately cavalier or casual” attitude toward Appellees’ Fourth Amendment rights, and that the agents were likely “surprise[d]” by Jones.” Id. at  n.15; see also Davis, 131 S. Ct. at 2429 (noting that the Supreme Court has “‘never applied’ the exclusionary rule to suppress evidence obtained as a result of nonculpable, innocent police conduct” (quoting Herring, 555 U.S. at 144)). However, the District Court declined to apply the good faith exception on the theory that doing so would implicate or “extend” the “strict Davis holding.” Id. at –10. This conclusion prevented the District Court from answering, as was its duty, the “objectively ascertainable question whether a reasonably well trained officer would have known that the search was illegal . . . . [under] all of the circumstances . . . .” Leon, 468 U.S. at 922 n.23.