Criminal Procedure Commons^™

Davis And The Good Faith Exception: Pushing Exclusion To Extinction?, Eleanor De Golian

Mercer Law Review

To mitigate the effects of unlawful searches and remain faithful to the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, the United States Supreme Court created the exclusionary rule, which requires lower courts to suppress evidence obtained from illegal searches. The Court, however, has recognized exceptions to the exclusionary rule, many of which involve police officers' "good faith" reliance on what they believe to be legal authority to search. In Davis v. United States, the Supreme Court held that, where a police officer relies on binding precedent in performing a search, the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule will not be used …