MikeK
Gold Member
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- #41
I think of the good faith exception as being one more incremental loophole through which police may venture to avoid Constitutional constraint. I consider it analogous to the Supreme Court's frivolous demotion of the probable cause requirement to that of reasonable suspicion, which is nothing more than a hunch -- a feeling.No condition for error is mentioned so presumably there is no penalty for erroneous forced entry. What this essentially means is all the police need to do is say they smelled or thought they smelled marijuana and heard sounds of destruction of evidence it's okey for them to break down any door they choose. And if they find no marijuana they can simply say they were right about the sounds of destruction of evidence because it was flushed down the toilet.
It's called "good faith." If the entry is made "in good faith," then it is valid, and all contraband found following the entry is fair game, even if the original reason for the entry turns out to be non-existent. The test, of course, is an objective one, not subjective on the part of the officers.