"Sure we had a warrant. ...More or less."

[unixronin]

The Supreme Court ruled today that evidence gained from an illegal search or unlawful arrest is admissable as evidence provided the search or arrest arose from a clerical error over a warrant — i.e, as long as the officers involved believed they had a legal warrant or probable cause.

Now, consider this in view of the various occasions on which it has been admitted that as many as 50% of the records in some government databases may be in error.

The way I see it, if I violate a law through negligence or error, that doesn't get me anywhere; I'm still liable.  The government and its agents should be held to the same standard.  If they make an illegal search or arrest because of negligence or an error, it's still an illegal search or arrest, and anything they find should still be inadmissable.  I can see and understand the arguments to the contrary, but balanced against them is the slippery slope that if any illegal search or arrest can be excused by saying "Oops", then anyone can get away with making an illegal search or arrest, and what remains of the Fourth Amendment protection may as well be written in chalk on the bottom of a swimming pool.

Comments

[cipherpunk.livejournal.com]

The exclusionary rule is a very new rule in jurisprudence — just a century ago illegally obtained evidence was routinely admitted in court. In response to ongoing and deliberate violations of the Fourth Amendment by the Executive Branch, the Judiciary adopted the exclusionary rule to preclude not all evidence obtained illegally, but only evidence deliberately obtained illegally by government agents.

In light of this, the ruling over the database error isn't surprising. No one was alleging deliberate malfeasance on the part of the law enforcement agents. If the plaintiff isn't going to raise the issue, the jurists won't consider the issue.

If a plaintiff were to raise the issue and present strong evidence that government databases are in such a state of arrears as to be deemed ongoing criminal negligence, then the exclusionary rule would apply. As long as it's ongoing simple negligence, the exclusionary rule does not.

I actually support this ruling. Given the plaintiff's brief and the evidence presented, I think the judges' ruling makes sense. That said, I think the plaintiff could have given a much stronger brief.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I have to admit that in this case the plaintiff can hardly make a convincing case for being on the side of the angels.

[genuine-snark.livejournal.com]

As far as I know, this isn't a new thing, either; warrants have been honored in the past with unintended clerical errors. It's probably the first time it's been affirmed by the Supreme Court.

I take your analogy, but will point out that intent or state of mind is relevant for some (but not all) crimes. Fraud and theft come to mind.

[attutle.livejournal.com]

No, you see, the part your failing to understand is that we can't realistically expect the government to be as accurate a individual citizens. The courts are just recognizing that fact that the government can't possible meet the same standard, and cutting them some slack...

Sorry, couldn't keep a straight face.

[fruitylips.livejournal.com]

The Court also didn't say that there should be no penalty for such things. They pointed out that in a case where everyone involved was acting in good faith, the exclusionary rule isn't always the right answer.

The hard part of the question, of course, is what is a better penalty for jurisdictions that consistently are in error about these things. (No, i don't know of a better solution, but it also seems like 'clerical error' should not be a Get Out Of Jail Free card either).

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

(No, i don't know of a better solution, but it also seems like 'clerical error' should not be a Get Out Of Jail Free card either).

Yeah, that actually sums up my point perfectly - "clerical error shouldn't be a Get Out Of Jail Free card".


I see both sides of the issue, and it is a sticky one. I do think, though, that when it comes to the results of errors, the more ability you have to really fuck up somebody's life with the consequences of your errors, the higher the standard you should be held to. It's that whole "with power comes responsibility" thing.

[fruitylips.livejournal.com]

This guy's life was already fucked up ;-).

One thing that Roberts discusses in the opinion is that the purpose of the exclusionary rule is deterrence and the reason why they ruled this way is that there doesn't seem to be any real likelihood that excluding evidence would have deterred this particular 4th Amendment violation (given the facts as stipulated, this doesn't really seem to be in dispute).

I've cleverly forgotten the name of the case, but back in 1995, there was a similar ruling made. The difference was that they ruled that a court fucking up this kind of thing wouldn't required exclusion of evidence. The reasoning was the same.

The somewhat interesting part (from the political POV, if not a legal one) is that 7 of the 9 justices were on the court at the time. Of those 7, all voted the same way as they did back then and Ginsberg (who wrote the dissent back then) doesn't give any weight to that precedent in her dissent this time.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

This guy's life was already fucked up ;-).

Well, yeah. Point. :)

[novel-tharkun.livejournal.com]

Given the specifics of the case, this ruling isn't a problem. My bigger worry is that it might lead to a cost-benefit thought process wherein the choice is made to intentionally (accidentally) under-staff document maintenance & IT departments both to game the system for greater ability to search and to save money. As various laws are passed to create larger databases with more information (see also patriot act) in them it becomes essential that the opposite occur.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

That too. We don't need departments operating on an accidentally-on-purpose basis.