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"If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law, it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy."

Cheryl Stein has a nice op-ed in the Washington Times regarding Herring v. United States, a case the Supreme Court will hear on Tuesday. It raises the following question: whether courts must suppress evidence seized during an arrest made as a result of faulty information provided by another law enforcement agency.

Stein argues that the Supreme Court should not abandon the exclusionary rule. Here is her conclusion:

The contention that we should not allow a blunder by the police to confer a benefit on a criminal defendant would be reasonable only if most illegal searches are the result of good-faith mistakes. The sad fact is, however, that the vast majority of illegal searches are the result of deliberate misconduct by the police.

Political commentators and law professors who have never been in a courtroom except to defend their own traffic tickets may not understand that fact, but every practicing criminal defense lawyer knows it to be true. The rule provides the only legal brake on police misconduct. Without its sanctions, the Constitution's guarantee against unreasonable searches would be empty.

Finally, the critics fail to address one of the most important reasons the rule was adopted in the first place: to preserve the integrity of our court system. The Supreme Court explained its necessity more than 40 years ago: "If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law, it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy." The rule "gives to the individual no more than that which the Constitution guarantees him, to the police officer no less than that to which honest law enforcement is entitled, and, to the courts, that judicial integrity so necessary in the true administration of justice." To forget that teaching is to abandon all that is best and brightest about our system of government.

Full post as published by Southern District of Florida on October 05, 2008 (boomark / email).