Address of William French Smith, Attorney General of the United States Before the 23rd Annual Conference of United Press International Editors, Denver, Colorado

• NCJ Number: 86951
• Author(s): W F Smith
• Date Published: 1982
• Length: 16 pages
• Corporate Author: US Dept of Justice
• Sale Source: National Institute of Justice/; NCJRS Photocopy Services
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

The Attorney General of the United States traces the history of the exclusionary rule, examines arguments for and against its use, and outlines the Reagan administration's proposal to eliminate the rule in Federal courts.

Abstract

The exclusionary rule is a judicially created rule of law that is not articulated in the fourth amendment itself and has no counterpart in English law. The Supreme Court declared the rule in 1914, but did not decide that it was applicable to all State and Federal prosecutions until 1961. The original rationale for the exclusionary rule was to deter unlawful police conduct and preserve judicial integrity by preventing courts from becoming accomplices in the willful disobedience of the Constitution. The Court recently has emphasized only deterrence, despite growing evidence that questions the rule's effectiveness in deterring illegal conduct of law enforcement officials. In reality, the law of the fourth amendment is so uncertain and so constantly changing that police officers cannot be expected to know what judges themselves do not yet know. Several cases that have reached the Supreme Court recently illustrate this dilemma, notably New York v. Belton and Robbins v. California. Thus, the rule's deterrent purpose is not served when courts apply it to situations where appellate cases are unclear, confused, or even contradictory. Supporters of the exclusionary rule claim that it does not adversely affect the criminal justice system because the rule is infrequently invoked and even less frequently applied, often citing a 1979 General Accounting Office report. Other empirical studies, however, show that the rule places a tremendous burden on an already overcrowded system, particularly in State and appellate courts. The administration proposes eliminating the rule in Federal courts, but only where it could not possibly have a deterrent effect. This revision would allow the admission of evidence when officers either obtain a warrant or conduct a search or seizure without a warrant but with a reasonable good faith belief that they were acting in accordance with the fourth amendment.