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returns. The ensuing investigation led to the deficiency notices
petitioner challenges in this proceeding.
Discussion
Petitioner alleges that respondent calculated his tax
liability for the years in issue on the basis of documents seized
from his residence by State police officers during an unlawful
search. He further contends that the search was such an
egregious violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution
that the seized documents should be excluded from consideration
in this proceeding.
We begin by noting that the exclusionary rule is primarily a
criminal law doctrine with limited application to civil
proceedings. United States v. Janis, 428 U.S. 433 (1976). In
Janis, the Court described a balancing test for identifying the
limited circumstances under which it would exclude unlawfully
seized evidence from a civil judicial proceeding. Briefly, the
benefit to society of deterring police misconduct must outweigh
the cost to society of forgoing relevant, probative evidence.
Id. at 454. This balancing test is derived from the purpose of
the exclusionary rule, which, the Court pointed out, is to deter
police misconduct. The Court reasoned that in the absence of
valid empirical studies to demonstrate the existence or strength
of the deterrent effect of exclusion, courts are forced to assess
the likelihood of deterrence under the circumstances of the case
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