What are your thoughts on the good-faith exception to the warrant requirement? Does the exception exonerate officers who might be acting in bad faith, but simply claim that they were not?
If a warrant lacked probable cause and the officers were aware of the defect, does the ability to claim that they were acting in good faith save the search anyway? What mechanism would prevent government abuses in jurisdictions that recognize the exception?
What will be an ideal response?
ANSWER: Answers may vary: People believe that officers acting in good faith and just doing their jobs should not be punished for legal defects about the search of which they were unaware. Others believe every time police make mistakes, whether knowingly or not, they will claim "good faith" in an effort to save the fruits of an illegally-conducted search. The question asks students to balance potentially letting guilty suspects go free on a technicality against requiring government actors to scrupulously follow the law.
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