United States v. Kevin C. Reilly

CALABRESI, Circuit Judge:

The good faith exception to the exclusionary rule announced in United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 922, 104 S.Ct. 3405, 3420, 82 L.Ed.2d 677 (1984), helped free federal courts from a difficult dilemma. Before Leon, federal courts examining the constitutionality of a search had to choose between: (1) holding the search unconstitutional and excluding the evidence found, thereby significantly increasing the chances that a guilty person would go free, regardless of the heinousness of the crime at issue, or (2) finding the search constitutional, thereby condoning similar…