Herring v. U.S.

The Supreme Court agreed to determine whether evidence must be suppressed when an arrest is made based on good faith reliance on faulty information.

In July 2004, the Coffee County, Ala., sheriff’s department apprehended Bennie Herring after an employee for the neighboring Dale County sheriff’s department said computer records showed an outstanding warrant for his arrest.

After pulling Herring over, the two Coffee County police officers conducted a search that turned up methamphetamine in Herring’s pocket and a gun under the front seat of his truck. A short time later, the Dale County employee called back to say that the warrant for Herring’s arrest had been recalled five months prior, but someone had failed to update the department’s computer records.

The U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama denied Herring’s motion to suppress the evidence and, following conviction on drug and firearms charges, he was sentenced to 27 months in prison.

In July 2007, a three-judge panel on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously upheld the ruling, noting that the unique circumstances in the case created an exception to the long-standing exclusionary rule, which bars evidence obtained from an unlawful police search. The court held that illegally obtained evidence should only be suppressed when doing so could “result in appreciable deterrence” of future police misconduct.

“Hoping to gain a beneficial deterrent effect on Dale County personnel by excluding evidence in a case brought by Coffee County officers would be like telling a student that if he skips school one of his classmates will be punished,” Judge Ed Carnes wrote for the court.

In asking the Supreme Court to review the case, two Stanford law professors who are appealing on Herring’s behalf, point to a divide among the lower courts. They cite a factually similar Arkansas Supreme Court case in which the exception to the exclusionary rule “does not extend to clerical errors committed by law enforcement agents.”

Moreover, “as policing becomes ever more reliant on computerized systems, the number of illegal arrests and searches based on negligent recordkeeping is poised to multiply,” the brief states.

In the government’s opposing brief, Solicitor General Paul Clement argues that the exception would only apply to clerical errors that occur at law enforcement agencies that normally maintain accurate records.

“This Court has repeatedly rejected the view that the Fourth Amendment ‘requires adoption of every proposal that might deter police misconduct,” Clement notes. “Whether the exclusionary rule should be applied in situations involving clerical errors by law enforcement officials ‘depends on the type of error and the circumstances in which it arises.’”

Fourth Amendment, search and seizure, exclusionary rule, evidence

A closely-divided Supreme Court ruled today that evidence does not have to be suppressed when an arrest is made based on good faith reliance on faulty information.

In July 2004, the Coffee County, Ala., sheriff’s department apprehended Bennie Herring after an employee for the neighboring Dale County sheriff’s department said computer records showed an outstanding warrant for his arrest.

After pulling Herring over, the two Coffee County police officers conducted a search that turned up methamphetamine in Herring’s pocket and a gun under the front seat of his truck. A short time later, the Dale County employee called back to say that the warrant for Herring’s arrest had been recalled five months prior, but someone had failed to update the department’s computer records.

The U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama denied Herring’s motion to suppress the evidence and, following conviction on drug and firearms charges, he was sentenced to 27 months in prison.

In July 2007, a three-judge panel on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously upheld the ruling, noting that the unique circumstances in the case created an exception to the long-standing exclusionary rule, which bars evidence obtained from an unlawful police search. The court held that illegally obtained evidence should only be suppressed when doing so could “result in appreciable deterrence” of future police misconduct.

“Hoping to gain a beneficial deterrent effect on Dale County personnel by excluding evidence in a case brought by Coffee County officers would be like telling a student that if he skips school one of his classmates will be punished,” Judge Ed Carnes wrote for the court.

In asking the Supreme Court to review the case, two Stanford law professors who are appealing on Herring’s behalf, point to a divide among the lower courts. They cite a factually similar Arkansas Supreme Court case in which the exception to the exclusionary rule “does not extend to clerical errors committed by law enforcement agents.”

Moreover, “as policing becomes ever more reliant on computerized systems, the number of illegal arrests and searches based on negligent recordkeeping is poised to multiply,” the brief states.

In the government’s opposing brief, Solicitor General Paul Clement argues that the exception would only apply to clerical errors that occur at law enforcement agencies that normally maintain accurate records.

“This Court has repeatedly rejected the view that the Fourth Amendment ‘requires adoption of every proposal that might deter police misconduct,” Clement notes. “Whether the exclusionary rule should be applied in situations involving clerical errors by law enforcement officials ‘depends on the type of error and the circumstances in which it arises.’”

On Jan. 14, a Supreme Court divided along ideological lines sided with the government, upholding the lower court’s decision.

“When police mistakes leading to an unlawful search are the result of isolated negligence attenuated from the search, rather than systemic error or reckless disregard of constitutional requirements, the exclusionary rule does not apply,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the 5-4 majority.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg filed a dissenting opinion, joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter and Stephen Breyer.

“The unlawful search in this case was contested in court because the police found methamphetamine in Herring’s pocket and a pistol in his truck,” Ginsburg wrote, adding: “But the ‘most serious impact’ of the Court’s holding will be on innocent persons ‘wrongfully arrested based on erroneous information [carelessly maintained] in a computer data base.’”

Justice Breyer filed a separate dissenting opinion, joined by Justice Souter, in order to “note one additional supporting factor that I believe important.”

“In Arizona v. Evans, we held that recordkeeping errors made by a court clerk do not trigger the exclusionary rule, so long as the police reasonably relied upon the court clerk’s recordkeeping,” Breyer wrote. “The rationale for our decision was premised on a distinction between judicial errors and police errors, and we gave several reasons for recognizing that distinction.”