The good faith exception to the exclusionary rule: Some implications for the police

Since 1961, when the United States Supreme Court ruled that evidence obtained by unreasonable search and seizure would not be admissible as evidence in state courts, police officers have had to work within the constraints imposed by the so-called “exclusionary rule.” This article traces the history of the exclusionary rule, reviews the Supreme Court's changing rationale for its existence, and examines a variety of proposed alternatives. Law enforcement officials need to be aware of the alternatives, for virtually all of them would remove the burden of the results from the prosecutors and the courts and place them on the officer and/or the agency. This article concludes that the implications of a good faith exception have ramifications for both the officer and the agency, ramifications that would fall most heavily, however, on agency policies and resources.