Herring v. United States

In July 2004, Bennie Herring drove to the sheriff’s department in Coffee County, Alabama, to reclaim property from his impounded truck. Mark Anderson, a member of the department, knew of Herring’s criminal history and asked the warrant clerk to check if Herring had any outstanding warrants. There were none, but Anderson had the clerk check in neighboring Dale County as well, where computer records listed one outstanding warrant. To be safe the Coffee County department asked the Dale County department to fax over a copy of the warrant. While waiting for the fax, Anderson and a Deputy detained and arrested Herring. A search revealed Herring was in possession of methamphetamine and a pistol, which he was not allowed to own as a convicted felon.

During the arrest and search, the Dale county sheriff contacted the clerk to tell them that a mistake had been made in the computer records, and the warrant had been cancelled five months earlier. Although this all happened in quick succession, Herring had already been arrested and was charged with federal drug and weapons violations. Herring’s lawyers attempted to have the evidence suppressed on the grounds that, because the warrant was no longer active, the arrest and search of Herring was unlawful.

The legal question: Does the use of evidence found during the arrest of a suspect, with a warrant that should have been recalled, violate the Fourth Amendment search and seizure clause?

The Court came to a 5-4 decision, choosing to uphold the ruling of the Appellate Court, that the evidence was admissible because the officers were acting on good faith. Chief Justice Roberts provided the opinion of the Court while Justice Ginsberg and Justice Breyer provided dissenting opinions. In his opinion, Roberts states that while the search of Herring did violate the Fourth Amendment, it is not necessary to invoke the rule which would exclude the collected evidence because of this. In their dissents, Ginsberg and Breyer pay attention to the duty of Law Enforcement to keep accurate and updated records and the potential for flaws in nearly all Government databases.

In his dissent Justice Breyer makes the very valid point that while precedent states the exclusionary rule would not be invoked if the record keeping errors were the fault of a court clerk. However in this case they are the fault of law enforcement and as such can be seen as providing the potential for police misconduct. This along with the argument that Chief Justice Roberts opens this issue to a more case-by-case basis provide a strong argument against the majority.

In the view of the majority, the potential for police misconduct should not be seen as a factor in this case because it was a rather small record keeping error, as opposed to a scenario in which the officers were making false entries to later make false arrests. This act of small negligence in record keeping does not provide enough cover for the evidence to be suppressed. Along with this is the fact that the officers were acting in good faith while making the arrest, believing they were serving a perfectly legitimate warrant at the time. This is the primary reason that I would have to agree with the opinion of the court. The officers were not being intentionally malicious in their arrest of Herring, and the issue in their records was not evidence of systematic error within the department. While Herring was searched and seized without a warrant, his wrongdoings are not invalidated because of clerical error by other departments.

4 Responses to "Herring v. United States"

Emily Stubblefield says:

March 26, 2017 at 4:36 pm

I agree with Carter’s analysis of this case and the opinion of the Court. The Court continues to affirm many of their previous rulings, which state that just because a search is unlawful due to conditions, granting of warrants, etc., it does not necessarily mean that the evidence found as a result is illegal. Roberts also broadens the issue, and cites the idea that a principle which government must abide by is that the “benefits of deterrence must outweigh the costs,” similar to the ‘burdens principle.’ He states that in order to come to any sort of conclusion, it is necessary to assess the flagrancy of police conduct, and it was this statement which gives me reservations as to the opinion of the Court. While I do agree that the secondary officer was most likely acting in good faith, I don’t believe that the same can be entirely said of Anderson. We know that he deliberately was seeking for Mr. Herring’s arrest- he went searching for a reason to arrest him when he was trying to retrieve his car (not an illegal action), and when he didn’t initially find any, he widened his search. This is perfectly legal, and even demonstrates that he is doing his job well. However, he then chose to make an arrest and search without having the warrant. If two officers who had not been so directly involved with locating a warrant had been sent to make contact with Herring, then good faith would be assured and the evidence would be admissible. But Herring knew first-hand that a warrant had not yet been secured because he was the one who actively began to pursue it. The totality of Anderon’s actions lead me to believe that he became too eager or overzealous in pursuing Mr. Herring, and didn’t want to wait the extra amount of time to ensure that a warrant was retrieved. Had he done so, there would be no question as to the legality of the evidence, and the fact that he didn’t show his disregard for the procedures and laws. I believe that the majority opinion is setting a dangerous precedent, which can open the door for suspects to be treated with an assumption of guilt instead of having the chance to prove their innocence. This mindset of a police officer can, in my mind, be considered flagrant and dangerous enough to rule evidence as inadmissible.
Amanda Hertz says:

March 27, 2017 at 11:12 am

Carter, first, I agree with the legal question you provided. It is succinct yet detailed to the case facts regarding Herring v. U.S. The only difference I had in my legal question was the wording (does an arrest resulting from an expired warrant and based on erroneous information violate the fourth amendment search and seizure clause?).

When analyzing the opinion of the court (delivered by Chief Justice Roberts) I thought it was extremely important that you noted Roberts believed there was a violation of the fourth amendment, however, that was not the only concern of the case. The concern of the case was whether the exclusionary rule of evidence should be applied. I thought you clearly stated this in your paragraph regarding the vote breakdown and the opinion.

I agree with both yours and the Supreme Court’s decision that the evidence should not be suppressed because the arresting officer’s were acting in good faith. The good faith exception to the exclusionary rule is effective, I think, because there are times when an officer needs to react quickly to a situation. If an officer follows his or her judgment because they are acting on good faith and thinking about the greater good, I think any evidence or arrest made should be deemed permissible. I think the point you made that this was only a minor error as opposed to some officers intentionally skewing database information was crucial to point out.

Lastly, I also agree that the officers acting in good faith is their primary defense. Andersen simply arrested Herring because of information he received from Dale County (how was he supposed to assume or know that the information would be outdated?). The Supreme Court ruling that the arresting officers acted in good faith is a reasonable, fair and expected verdict.
Karleigh Wike says:

March 27, 2017 at 4:55 pm

I agree with the opinion of the Court of this case, and solely believe this because the policemen were acting in good faith. They fully believed that they had a warrant to arrest Herring which is all they needed. The real issue lies in the police department in Dale County, who did not keep updated records and were responsible for the mistake. Because of this, they should have somehow been punished or standards needed to be raised to prevent this from happening again. The primary question for the court to decide is whether or not an expired warrant should be accepted after the arrest has already been made. Does this violate the search and seizure clause of the Fourth Amendment? I agree with the Supreme Court and Carter, because the policemen believed that they had reason to arrest Herring and went through the proper protocol to obtain a warrant. They had no bad intentions, and they were acting in good faith to fulfill their duties. Even if the officer conducts a search that is unlawful, then the evidence that they find if illegal, should not be thrown out. It is the officers’ jobs to protect our country, so if they don’t harm anyone or violate their clearly stated rights, I do not see an issue with using evidence obtained unlawfully. I had trouble coming to a decision on this case because of what Justice Breyer included in the dissent. The fault lies in the law enforcement, and that opens up the discussion of police misconduct, a popular topic nowadays. Even after considering this, it was hard for me to classify it as police misconduct because the mistake was made in another town where the officers had nothing to do with searching Herring. The Dale County police officers should be penalized in some way for their mistake, but the Coffee Country ones were just doing their job, when they happened to stumble across some illegal evidence that did not work in Herring’s favor.
Dylan McAuley says:

March 28, 2017 at 7:37 am

Carter, thanks for an insightful look at this case. I completely agree with your legal question here and think you have very effectively broken down the thought process of the Justices. While I completely understand the thought process behind the majority opinion in this case, I think that in the end I have to disagree with the Court for this decision. I am open to the claim that the officers were acting in good faith when the warrant was found and executed, however I also believe that the burden lies on law enforcement to ensure that they are following the rules properly. The point of the 4th Amendment is to protect against overzealous officers and unlawful intrusions so when an officer is intentionally looking for any reason to arrest someone, they need to be extremely cautious. Anderson knew that the warrant had not yet been fully obtained when making the arrest and accepted the warrant after the fact. I find this to be problematic as in actuality there was no actual warrant at the time to begin with, which is especially troublesome when considering the desire to apply it retroactively. I think it’s clear that Anderson became too eager to make an arrest and it caused his actions to become unlawful. Anderson’s intentions and actions in my opinion violate the very principles the 4th Amendment is supposed to protect. Because Anderson refused to wait a proper amount of time to guarantee an authentic warrant, I believe the evidence should be suppressed. This case sets a precedent that makes it easier to arrest people and to charge them based on seized evidence without a warrant and I am inclined to view that as a highly negative thing. I don’t believe the officers were acting in good faith, but rather they were looking for an excuse to make seized evidence admissible. This makes it easier for police to get around the rules and simply presumes guilt of any suspect in question. If the warrant had been fully obtained and if the warrant were accurate, there would be no problem in my mind, but officers acting on an incorrect warrant after the arrest is something that I think violates the 4th Amendment.

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