Davis v. United States: Retroactivity and the Good-Faith Exception to the Exclusionary Rule

Emily C. Barbour
Legislative Attorney

In Davis v. United States, the Supreme Court held that evidence seized in violation of the defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights is admissible at trial when the police seized the evidence in good-faith reliance on “binding appellate precedent.” The petitioner in that case, Willie Davis, was a passenger in a car that was stopped by police for a traffic violation. The police arrested the driver for driving while intoxicated and Davis for giving a false name. After handcuffing Davis and placing him in the back of a patrol car, the police searched the passenger compartment of the car in which Davis had been riding. The police found a revolver inside Davis’s jacket, and Davis was convicted of possessing a firearm as a convicted felon.

At the time of the search, the police were acting in conformity with controlling Eleventh Circuit precedent. However, after Davis was convicted and had filed an appeal, the Supreme Court ruled that this type of vehicle search incident to arrest was unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment. Nevertheless, when Davis’s appeal reached the Court, it held that even though the search was unconstitutional, the gun it produced was admissible under the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule.

The exclusionary rule bars evidence obtained in an unconstitutional search from being introduced at trial. The rule is a pragmatic doctrine intended to deter Fourth Amendment violations. It traditionally applies when (1) no exception, such as the good-faith exception, bars its operability; (2) exclusion will achieve “appreciable deterrence” of Fourth Amendment violations; and (3) the benefits of evidentiary suppression outweigh its burdens on the justice system.

In 2009, the Supreme Court broadened the good-faith exception when it announced in Herring v. United States that unconstitutionally obtained evidence is admissible at trial unless the evidence was the product of “deliberate” and “culpable” police misconduct. Davis was the first Supreme Court case to apply the Herring standard. The case furthers the impression that police culpability is now the sole relevant factor in determining whether the exclusionary rule applies. The Court rejected Davis’s contentions that other relevant factors include whether the exclusionary rule’s application would facilitate the development of Fourth Amendment law and whether a recently announced Fourth and Fifth Amendment rule applies retroactively. Two Justices dissented from the Court’s opinion. One Justice concurred in the judgment but rejected the Court’s view that police culpability is the dispositive factor in an assessment of whether the exclusionary rule applies.

Congress has occasionally considered legislation codifying the exclusionary rule or its good-faith exception. The scope of Congress’s authority to enact or modify exclusionary rule jurisprudence depends on the extent to which the exclusionary rule is constitutionally required. The Supreme Court in Davis emphasized that the exclusionary rule’s application is not constitutionally mandated by either the Fourth Amendment or the retroactivity doctrine. Accordingly, Davis supports the view that Congress has substantial authority to mandate the exclusionary rule’s applicability or inapplicability in federal court cases.


Date of Report: August 10, 2011
Number of Pages: 12
Order Number: R41774
Price: $29.95

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