SUPREME COURT RULING EXTENDS GOOD FAITH DOCTRINE

A recent five-to-four Supreme Court decision has ruled that evidence
obtained from an arrest based on careless record-keeping by the police
may be used against a criminal defendant.

This ruling revealed differing perceptions of the nearly century-old
exclusionary rule that mandates that courts ban evidence that proves
that defendants committed crimes with evidence obtained by police
actions and procedures that violate constitutional rights.

According to The New York Times, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr.,
writing for the majority, said that the exclusion of evidence should
be a last resort and that judges should use a sliding scale in
deciding whether particular misconduct by the police warranted
suppressing the evidence they had found.

"I feel that Fourth Amendment rights shouldn't be loosened any more in
favor of the police when we already have record numbers in prison,"
said senior history major Shepherd Lashley. "The end doesn't justify
the means. The end is we got a bad guy in jail but the means is we
went about it in a sketchy way."

The case in question involved Bennie Dean Herring's arrest in 2004,
which occurred due to the mistaken belief that he was subject to an
outstanding warrant. The warrant, which remained in the computerized
database, had been withdrawn five months earlier. However, by the time
the error was discovered, officers had stopped Mr. Herring, handcuffed
him, searched him and his truck and found methamphetamines and an
unloaded pistol.

According to a New York Times op-ed piece, this ruling will allow
judges to prevent the exclusion of evidence in cases of negligent
police conduct going well beyond sloppy record-keeping.

"This ruling is actually quite a consistent interpretation of the
Constitution and is not unlike a lot of other cases out there," said
Assistant Professor of Justice and Policy Studies Will Pizio. "It is
an extension of the good faith doctrine. If police officers act
reasonably within good faith then the evidence will be admitted in
court."

"There are so many checks and balances now in the way that the justice
system works that if police misconduct was involved it would be looked
at differently," said Director of Public Safety and former High Point
police officer Ron Stowe. "Law enforcement officers are now so in tune
with their communities and well trained that they won't take this
court case to say 'we can do anything.' It will have very little
effect on the day-to-day activities of most law enforcement officers."

While the ruling may or may not legitimize police misconduct, Supreme
Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg's dissenting position noted that the
ruling overlooks the importance of preserving a strong incentive to
maintain up-to-date and accurate records.

"It certainly legitimizes careless record keeping," wrote Dean of
Students Aaron Fetrow in an e-mail interview. "I teach numerous
officers every semester and officers don't want their cases thrown out
of court either. For the most part I believe that the exclusionary
rule's sole purpose of deterring police misconduct is effective and
that we should discourage negligent record-keeping by government
officials as well."

"I don't think that anything will really change based on this court
decision because these errors are so rare," said Pizio. "The justice
system functions a lot better than we think."