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Newest Gov't Tracking Threat: Cell-Site Data Without a Warrant
An anonymous reader writes "Earlier this year, the Supreme Court put an end to warrantless GPS tracking. Now, federal prosecutors are trying to get similar data from a different source. A U.S. District Judge has ruled that getting locational data from cell towers in order to track suspects is just fine. '[Judge Huvelle] sidestepped the Fourth Amendment argument and declined to analyze whether the Supreme Court's ruling in Jones' case has any bearing on whether cell-site data can be used without a warrant. Instead, she focused on a doctrine called the "good-faith exemption," in which evidence is not suppressed if the authorities were following the law at the time. The data in Jones' case was coughed up in 2005, well before the Supreme Court's ruling on GPS. "The court, however, need not resolve this vexing question of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, since it concludes that the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule applies," (.PDF) she wrote. ... With that, prosecutors are legally in the clear to use Jones’ phone location records without a warrant.'"
This is not actually true. If the warrant in your example was obtained based on a deliberate deception it would be invalid and the evidence from the search would not come in. If what you suggest was the case, there would be basically no point to the exclusionary rule since the police could freely lie in affidavits and have the warrants (or at least the evidence obtained from their execution) upheld.
The good faith exception is easy to apply if you consider the purpose of the exclusionary rule. The exclusionary rule exists to deter unlawful police conduct.
Consider the situation where the police request a warrant in good faith, and it is issued by a detached and neutral magistrate. On appeal, the affidavit is found to lack probable cause. Should the evidence be suppressed? The Supreme Court says no, because the police acted in complete good faith. There was no misconduct involved and applying the exclusionary rule in situations like this would not further its purpose since there is no unlawful conduct to deter. This is the proper application of the good faith exception.
By contrast, excluding evidence obtained by lying in an affidavit for a warrant would have a very pronounced effect on reducing unlawful behavior by the police. Thus, no good faith exception for your dishonest detective. (Actually, he may be looking at a perjury prosecution.)
Law school ruined Law and Order for me. My wife can't stand me explaining why everything on the show is wrong. Also she hates it when I yell "Objection!!" at the screen every few minutes during the second half of the show.