Herring v. United States

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Herring v. United States

Argued October term, 2008

Full case name:	Bennie Dean Herring, Plaintiff, v. United States of America

Citations:	U.S.
Prior history:	Defendant convicted, United States District Court, Middle District of Alabama

Subsequent history:	Appeal denied, July 17, 2007 (Case #06-10795). Certiorari granted, February 20, 2008

Holding

The question of whether the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule applies when a police officer makes an arrest after receiving information from a different law enforcement agency about an outstanding warrant, and the information was incorrect because of a negligent error by that agency

Court membership

Case opinions

Herring v. United States No. 07-513 (2008) is a case that will be decided in the Fall 2008 term by the United States Supreme Court. It was granted certiorari on February 20, 2008. The issue to be decided is whether the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule applies when a police officer makes an arrest after receiving information from a different law enforcement agency about an outstanding warrant, and the information was later found to be incorrect because of a negligent error by that agency, and the incorrect information was the sole reason for the arrest, despite what may have been found afterwards.^[1]

1 Background
2 Trial
3 Appeals
4 References

[edit] Background

In 2004, Bennie D. Herring drove to the Coffee County sheriff's office to check on a pickup truck that had been impounded. Upon his arrival, Investigator Mark Anderson of the Coffee County Sheriff's Department then asked the warrant clerk for that department to check for any outstanding warrants with the Dale County Sheriff's Department. Upon learning of and receiving a felony warrant for Herring's arrest, Anderson and another officer arrested Herring a short distance outside of the sheriff's department.^[2] When arrested, firearms and methamphetamines were found on Herring's person. Only a few minutes later, the Dale County clerk informed the Coffee County sheriff's department that the warrant had been recalled prior, but that the Dale County Sheriff's Department had not updated its data to reflect this fact.^[3]

[edit] Trial

Pre-trial, Herring attempted to invoke the exclusionary rule to have the drug evidence suppressed, claiming that the arrest was unlawful, a move that was denied by the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama.^[2]^[3] Following a conviction on one felony count of drug possession, Herring was then indicted, tried and convicted of weapons possession while in possession of illegal drugs. The resulting sentence was 27 months in federal prison.^[2]

[edit] Appeals

Jeffrey L. Fisher, a Stanford law professor,^[4] appealed the case on Herring's behalf to the 11th Circuit Court in Atlanta, arguing that the exclusionary rule should apply because of errors leading to an arrest that should not have happened. The Circuit Court denied the appeal, ruling that the evidence was admissible because the officer and his department was not the cause of the error.^[3]. In its decision, the 11th Circuit cited United States v. Leon, which created the "good faith" exception to the exclusionary rule, Arizona v. Evans, finding that because the error was corrected in a very short time, there was no evidence that the Dale County Sheriff's Department had problems disposing of recalled warrants, and thus no negligence involved.

The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari status on February 20, 2008. The case will be argued and decided in the next court year.