Arizona v. Evans, 514 U.S. 1, 14 (1995)

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14

ARIZONA v. EVANS

Opinion of the Court

remedial objectives of the rule are thought most efficaciously

served, see Calandra, supra, at 348.

Our approach is consistent with the dissenting Justices' position in Krull, our only major case since Leon and Sheppard involving the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule. In that case, the Court found that the good-faith exception applies when an officer conducts a search in objectively reasonable reliance on the constitutionality of a statute that subsequently is declared unconstitutional. Krull, supra, at 346. Even the dissenting Justices in Krull agreed that Leon provided the proper framework for analyzing whether the exclusionary rule applied; they simply thought that "application of Leon's stated rationales le[d] to a contrary result." 480 U. S., at 362 (O'Connor, J., dissenting). In sum, respondent does not persuade us to abandon the Leon framework.

Applying the reasoning of Leon to the facts of this case, we conclude that the decision of the Arizona Supreme Court must be reversed. The Arizona Supreme Court determined that it could not "support the distinction drawn . . . between clerical errors committed by law enforcement personnel and similar mistakes by court employees," 177 Ariz., at 203, 866 P. 2d, at 871, and that "even assuming . . . that responsibility for the error rested with the justice court, it does not follow that the exclusionary rule should be inapplicable to these facts," ibid.

This holding is contrary to the reasoning of Leon, supra; Massachusetts v. Sheppard, supra; and, Krull, supra. If court employees were responsible for the erroneous computer record, the exclusion of evidence at trial would not sufficiently deter future errors so as to warrant such a severe sanction. First, as we noted in Leon, the exclusionary rule was historically designed as a means of deterring police misconduct, not mistakes by court employees. See Leon, supra, at 916; see also Krull, supra, at 350. Second, respondent offers no evidence that court employees are in-

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