COURT SAYS ILLEGALLY OBTAINED EVIDENCE VALID

Washington (AP) --- The Supreme Court said Wednesday that evidence
obtained after illegal searches or arrests based on simple police
mistakes may be used to prosecute criminal defendants.

The justices split 5-4 along ideological lines to apply new limits to
the court's so-called exclusionary rule, which generally requires
evidence to be suppressed if it results from a violation of a
suspect's Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable
searches or seizure.

The conservative majority acknowledged that the arrest of Bennie Dean
Herring of Alabama --- based on the mistaken belief that there was a
warrant for his arrest --- violated his constitutional rights, yet
upheld his conviction on federal drug and gun charges.

Coffee County, Ala., sheriff's deputies found amphetamines in
Herring's pockets and an unloaded gun in his truck following his
arrest. It turned out that the warrant from neighboring Dale County
had been recalled five months earlier, but the county sheriff's
computers had not been updated.

Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the court, said the evidence
may be used "when police mistakes are the result of negligence such
as that described here, rather than systemic error or reckless
disregard of constitutional requirements."

Justices Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Clarence
Thomas sided with Roberts.

In a dissent for the other four justices, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
said the ruling "leaves Herring, and others like him, with no remedy
for violations of their constitutional rights."

Ginsburg said accurate police record-keeping is of paramount
importance, particularly with the widespread use of electronic databases.

Some courts have ruled that as a deterrent to police misconduct, the
fruits of a similar search may be excluded from evidence.

But the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta said that
suppressing evidence in Herring's case would be unlikely to deter
sloppy record keeping.