State Of New Jersey v. Thomas Shannon

This matter comes before us based on the record developed

in defendant’s motion to suppress. On March 26, 2009, Municipal

Court Judge Daniel J. DiBenedetto issued a warrant for the

arrest of defendant for non-payment of fines owed to the City of

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Asbury Park. Defendant learned of that warrant while

incarcerated in Bayside State Prison on an unrelated charge. He

sent a letter to the municipal court requesting that his fines

in connection with two matters –- a criminal conviction and a

motor vehicle violation -- be vacated due to hardship. On April

16, 2010, Municipal Court Judge Mark T. Apostolou granted

defendant’s request.

The Asbury Park Municipal Court Administrator, Patricia

Green, provided testimony that when a judge vacates a fine, the

warrant associated with the non-payment of that fine is

necessarily vacated. Specifically, she explained that once the

vacation of a fine is entered into the relevant database, the

outstanding warrant in that database is also vacated. The

municipal court employees, not the police department, are

responsible for entering that information. According to Green,

in carrying out their responsibility of processing paperwork for

arrests and violations within Asbury Park, she and her

colleagues utilize separate computer databases for traffic

violations and criminal matters: the Automated Traffic System

(ATS) and the Automated Complaint System (ACS), respectively.

In respect of defendant, Green stated that a deputy municipal

court administrator properly vacated the traffic fines in the

ATS system but “failed to go into the [ACS] system and vacate

the criminal” fines there. Therefore, the ACS computer system

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did not reflect that the criminal fines were vacated, and,

correspondingly, the arrest warrant associated with those fines

was not vacated.

B.

On October 18, 2011, Officer Love of the Asbury Park Police

Department received a call directing him to 835 Dunlewy Street.

The dispatcher informed the officer that a suspicious vehicle --

a white Mercury with tinted windows and containing two males --

had been idling at that address for some time. Officer Love

reported that Dunlewy Street was a “high crime area,” where

drugs were both used and sold and where there had been recent

burglaries. Officer Love proceeded to Dunlewy Street and, upon

arrival, approached the vehicle meeting the reported

description. Officer Love inquired of the driver, defendant,

his purpose for sitting there. Defendant responded that he was

waiting for a female friend that he had met recently and pointed

out 831 Dunlewy Street as her residence. Officer Love asked

defendant for identification; he provided a New Jersey driver’s

license.

Subsequent efforts to substantiate defendant’s given reason

for his presence on Dunlewy Street proved unfruitful but are not

relevant to this appeal. What is important is that Officer Love

asked dispatch to run a warrant check, and dispatch advised

Officer Love that defendant had an outstanding arrest warrant.

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Defendant was placed under arrest. Officer Love patted

defendant down for weapons and felt what he thought was a large

amount of money; defendant confirmed that he had money on him.

Officer Love brought defendant to the police station in his

patrol car. Officer Love testified that he had inspected the

inside of his patrol car earlier that day and that no one else

had been inside since. During the drive, the officer noticed

that defendant was moving around in the back seat.

After removing defendant from the vehicle, Officer Love

spotted suspected cocaine on the back seat and white residue on

defendant’s fingers. Another officer secured defendant while

Officer Love pulled up the bench seat in the back of the car,

revealing additional suspected controlled dangerous substances.

Those substances were seized as evidence and their admissibility

is the subject of this appeal. Defendant was later found to be

in possession of $2,317 in cash. None of the officers were

aware that the warrant on which defendant was initially arrested

had been vacated.

C.

For purposes of this appeal, we note defendant was indicted

for third-degree possession of a controlled dangerous substance

(cocaine), N.J.S.A. 2C:35-10(a)(1), and second-degree possession

of a controlled dangerous substance (cocaine) with intent to

distribute, N.J.S.A. 2C:35-5(b)(2).

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On April 30, 2012, defendant filed a motion to suppress the

evidence seized from the police vehicle. In support of that

motion, defendant argued that Officer Love’s questioning and

warrant check were unconstitutional. Following a hearing at

which only Officer Love testified, the motion court denied the

motion to suppress, finding the officer’s conduct

constitutionally permissible.

In January 2013, after the jury had been selected and sworn

in defendant’s criminal trial, defendant asked the court to

reopen his suppression motion, relying on a letter from the

Asbury Park Municipal Court, dated April 21, 2010, which

indicated that defendant’s fines had been vacated. Defendant

submitted that that letter showed that his initial arrest was

unlawful. The court adjourned the trial’s start to research the

matter further. Thereafter, with defendant’s consent and waiver

of double jeopardy, the trial judge declared a mistrial and

granted defendant’s motion to reopen the suppression issue.

Following a hearing at which Green, the municipal court

administrator, testified, the trial court granted the motion to

suppress. Relying on State v. Moore, 260 N.J. Super. 12, 16

(App. Div. 1992), the trial court held that defendant was

arrested unlawfully and therefore the seized drugs were

inadmissible “fruits of such an unlawful arrest.” The trial

court determined that “the lack of culpability on the part of

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the [police department]” was irrelevant, citing “the non

deterrent purposes of the exclusionary rule.”

The Appellate Division granted leave for the State to

appeal and, on April 11, 2014, affirmed the trial court’s

suppression of the evidence. The appellate panel pointed to

Moore, supra, in which an earlier Appellate Division panel had

relied on Novembrino, in finding inadmissible the fruits of an

arrest based on a vacated warrant that improperly remained

marked as “active” in police records, “even though the

particular arresting officer acted in good faith and without

culpability.” 260 N.J. Super. at 14, 16-20. The panel also

distinguished the arrests in State v. Diloreto, 180 N.J. 264

(2004), and State v. Pitcher, 379 N.J. Super. 308 (App. Div.

2005), certif. denied, 186 N.J. 242 (2006), by noting that the

arrests were not constitutionally defective. Addressing the

question left open in State v. Handy, 206 N.J. 39, 51-52 (2011),

regarding the admissibility of evidence when “[t]he police

department did not behave in an unreasonable manner in that it

relied on an ostensibly valid arrest warrant,” the panel held

that, consistent with Novembrino, the evidence seized from

defendant must be excluded.

This Court granted the State’s motion for leave to appeal

the interlocutory order of the Appellate Division. State v.

Shannon, 218 N.J. 528 (2014). We also granted amicus curiae

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status to the Attorney General of New Jersey and to the American

Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey (ACLU).

II.

A.

The State submits that because the test for assessing the

constitutionality of a search or seizure is “objective

reasonableness,” neither the exclusionary rule nor the good

faith exception is implicated in this appeal. The State

contends that defendant’s arrest was based on Officer Love’s

objectively reasonable reliance on the vacated warrant; thus, no

constitutional violation occurred, and the Appellate Division

decision should be reversed.

The State argues that New Jersey case law has permitted

officer reliance on erroneous database information to

substantiate a stop or arrest and that, in practical effect,

this case is indistinguishable from State v. Green, 318 N.J.

Super. 346 (App. Div. 1999). The State also cites to Herring v.

United States, 555 U.S. 135, 129 S. Ct. 695, 172 L. Ed. 2d 496

(2009), and Arizona v. Evans, 514 U.S. 1, 115 S. Ct. 1185, 131

L. Ed. 2d 34 (1995), as demonstrative of situations in which the

United States Supreme Court has declined to suppress evidence

seized following arrests made on misinformation contained in

official databases.

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Even if defendant’s constitutional rights were violated,

the State argues that the exclusionary rule should not be

applied. The State maintains that the exclusionary rule’s

primary purpose is deterrence and that neither police officers

nor court clerks would be deterred by suppression of the

evidence in this matter. Likewise, the State argues that the

exclusionary rule’s aim of preserving judicial integrity would

not be offended when the officers believed their conduct

complied with the law. Relatedly, the State urges this Court to

follow the path taken in other states that have rejected the

good faith exception established in United States v. Leon, 468

U.S. 897, 104 S. Ct. 3405, 82 L. Ed. 2d 677 (1984), but have

nonetheless permitted introduction of evidence seized following

the reliance of law enforcement officials on erroneous

information in a database.

B.

Defendant says his case involves a straightforward

application of the Novembrino precedent. He was illegally

arrested, and the evidence resulting from his arrest should be

suppressed.

According to defendant, the outcome of this appeal should

follow in line with the outcome in Moore, supra, in which the

Appellate Division, relying on Novembrino, suppressed evidence

seized following the defendant’s arrest based on a vacated

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warrant that remained active in police records due to an

administrative error. 260 N.J. Super. at 16-17. Defendant

distinguishes Pitcher, supra, 379 N.J. Super. at 320, and

Diloreto, supra, 180 N.J. at 277-78. Defendant also emphasizes

that the New Jersey Constitution provides greater protection for

its citizens than the United States Constitution and, thus, any

reliance on Herring and Evans is inapt.

Finally, defendant argues that deterring officer misconduct

is not the only purpose behind the exclusionary rule. Instead,

the rule is designed also to vindicate the individual’s right to

privacy and to maintain judicial integrity. Thus, defendant

submits that the Appellate Division’s decision should be

affirmed.

C.

As amicus, the Attorney General supports the State’s

position, providing further bases for concluding that

defendant’s constitutional rights were not violated or, assuming

a constitutional violation, that the exclusionary rule should

not apply. However, the Attorney General adds that, to the

extent that Evans cannot be reconciled with this Court’s holding

in Novembrino, Novembrino should be reconsidered and overruled.

According to the Attorney General, the concerns that influenced

the Novembrino Court to reject the Leon good faith exception

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have not come to pass. Thus, review of that decision is

warranted.

Amicus ACLU supports defendant’s position, submitting that

an arrest without a warrant is constitutionally impermissible

and that the exclusionary rule must apply to evidence seized as

a result of that constitutional violation. The ACLU

characterizes the State’s argument as an attempt to “carve out a

good faith exception” in contravention of Novembrino. The ACLU

points to the non-deterrent rationales for the exclusionary rule

and contends that the State’s position conflicts with those

rationales. In addition, the ACLU maintains that the deterrence

rationale for the exclusionary rule would be furthered by

suppression in this matter, pointing to the infrequent

occurrence of clerical errors in New Jersey as evidence of the

efficacy of deterrence.

III.

Both the United States Constitution and the New Jersey

Constitution guarantee the right to be free from unreasonable

searches and seizures. U.S. Const. amend. IV; N.J. Const. art.

I, ¶ 7. In accordance with that guarantee, both constitutions

require that arrest warrants be supported by probable cause and

that warrantless arrests in public places be supported by the

same. State v. Brown, 205 N.J. 133, 144 (2011) (citing State v.

Basil, 202 N.J. 570, 584 (2010)). “[A] police officer has

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probable cause to arrest a suspect when the officer possesses ‘a

well[-]grounded suspicion that a crime has been or is being

committed.’” Basil, supra, 202 N.J. at 585 (quoting State v.

Sullivan, 169 N.J. 204, 211 (2001)). That well-grounded

suspicion should be based on the totality of the circumstances

as viewed by “an objectively reasonable police officer.” Ibid.

(citations and internal quotation marks omitted).

The consequence for a violation of those constitutional

principles is generally the exclusionary rule, Handy, supra, 206

N.J. at 45, which prohibits evidence obtained as a result of

such violative conduct from being “use[d] in the prosecution’s

case in chief,” Leon, supra, 468 U.S. at 900, 104 S. Ct. at

3409, 82 L. Ed. 2d at 684. While the United States Supreme

Court has acknowledged a good faith exception to that rule in

certain circumstances, see, e.g., id. at 926, 104 S. Ct. at

3422, 82 L. Ed. 2d at 700-01, this Court has declined to do so,

see, e.g., Novembrino, supra, 105 N.J. at 157-58. That is the

relevant point of divergence between state and federal law in

this matter.

A.

In Leon, supra, the United States Supreme Court declined to

apply the exclusionary rule to evidence seized by officers

relying in good faith on a search warrant issued by a magistrate

judge even though that warrant was later determined “to be

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unsupported by probable cause.” 468 U.S. at 900, 926, 104 S.

Ct. at 3409, 3422, 82 L. Ed. 2d at 684, 700-01. In so doing,

the Leon Court noted that the exclusionary rule was “‘a

judicially created remedy designed to safeguard Fourth

Amendment rights generally through its deterrent effect, rather

than a personal constitutional right of the party

aggrieved.’” Id. at 906, 104 S. Ct. at 3412, 82 L. Ed. 2d at

687-88 (quoting United States v. Calandra, 414 U.S. 338, 348, 94

S. Ct. 613, 620, 38 L. Ed. 2d 561, 571 (1974)). After reviewing

the objectives of the exclusionary rule, the Court concluded

that “it c[ould ]not be expected, and should not be applied, to

deter objectively reasonable law enforcement activity.” Id. at

906-09, 919, 104 S. Ct. at 3412-13, 3418, 82 L. Ed. 2d at 688

89, 696. Thus, weighing the costs and benefits of exclusion of

the evidence at issue, the Court determined that suppression was

inappropriate. Id. at 922, 104 S. Ct. at 3420, 82 L. Ed. 2d at

698. Thus sprang into being the “good faith exception” to the

exclusionary rule.

Since Leon, the Supreme Court has expanded the good faith

exception to include situations similar to that presently before

this Court. In Evans, supra, the Supreme Court addressed

“whether evidence seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment by

an officer who acted in reliance on a police record indicating

the existence of an outstanding arrest warrant -- a record that

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is later determined to be erroneous -- must be suppressed by

virtue of the exclusionary rule.” 514 U.S. at 3-4, 115 S. Ct.

at 1187, 131 L. Ed. 2d at 39. In that case, the warrant for the

defendant’s arrest had been quashed seventeen days prior to his

arrest; however, for an undetermined reason, the warrant

remained in police computer records. Id. at 4-5, 115 S. Ct. at

1188, 131 L. Ed. 2d at 40-41. The State conceded that the

defendant’s arrest violated his Fourth Amendment rights. Id. at

6 n.1, 115 S. Ct. at 1189 n.1, 131 L. Ed. 2d at 41 n.1. Despite

that constitutional violation, the Court found that the

“[a]pplication of the Leon framework support[ed] a categorical

exception to the exclusionary rule for clerical errors of court

employees.” Id. at 16, 115 S. Ct. at 1194, 131 L. Ed. 2d at 47.

In Herring, supra, the Supreme Court answered the

“unresolved” question in Evans: “whether the evidence should be

suppressed if police personnel [rather than judicial clerks]

were responsible for the error.” 555 U.S. at 142-43, 129 S. Ct.

at 701, 172 L. Ed. 2d at 505-06 (internal quotation marks

omitted). The defendant in Herring drove to the sheriff’s

department to retrieve items from his impounded truck and was

recognized by one of the police investigators. See id. at 137,

129 S. Ct. at 698, 172 L. Ed. 2d at 502. Upon inquiry, the

investigator was informed that an active arrest warrant existed

for the defendant. Ibid. The officer arrested the defendant

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and conducted a search incident to that arrest that revealed

narcotics and a weapon. Ibid. It was later discovered that the

warrant had been recalled five months earlier, but the recall

had not been updated in the relevant database. Id. at 138, 129

S. Ct. at 698, 172 L. Ed. 2d at 502.

Importantly, like in Evans, the Court accepted the parties’

assumption that a Fourth Amendment violation occurred and

restricted the analysis to whether the exclusionary rule should

apply. Id. at 139, 129 S. Ct. at 699, 172 L. Ed. 2d at 503.

The Court again relied on the Leon framework and maintained that

“the benefits of deterrence must outweigh the costs” of applying

the exclusionary rule. Id. at 141, 129 S. Ct. at 700, 172 L.

Ed. 2d at 505. The Court concluded that “when police mistakes

are the result of negligence such as that described here, rather

than systemic error or reckless disregard of constitutional

requirements, any marginal deterrence does not ‘pay its way.’”

Id. at 147-48, 129 S. Ct. at 704, 172 L. Ed. 2d at 509 (quoting

Leon, supra, 468 U.S. at 907 n.6, 104 S. Ct. at 3412 n.6, 82 L.

Ed. 2d at 688 n.6).

B.

In Novembrino, supra, this Court relied on Article I,

Paragraph 7, of the New Jersey Constitution in rejecting the

Leon Court’s good faith exception. 105 N.J. at 157-59. Thus,

the Court interpreted the New Jersey Constitution to provide

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broader protection than the Fourth Amendment. See id. at 145,

157-59. In its decision, the Court expressed concern that “the

good-faith exception w[ould] ultimately reduce respect for and

compliance with the probable-cause standard.” Id. at 154. The

Court also characterized the exclusionary rule as “an integral

element of our state-constitutional guarantee,” noting that

“[i]ts function is not merely to deter police misconduct[] [but]

. . . also [to] serve[] as the indispensable mechanism for

vindicating the constitutional right to be free from

unreasonable searches.” Id. at 157. This Court has not

retreated from its rejection of a good faith exception. State

v. Adkins, 221 N.J. 300, 314 (2015) (“Post-Novembrino, our

Court’s adherence to its holding has remained steadfast . . .

.”).

In Moore, supra, the Appellate Division considered whether

suppression was appropriate for evidence seized following an

arrest based on a warrant that “had been judicially marked

‘vacated’ 27 days” earlier but remained outstanding in the local

police log book. 260 N.J. Super. at 14. The panel noted that

while the parties disputed who was at fault for the failure to

update the record, there was “no dispute that the arresting

officer acted in good faith in executing what he thought was a

valid warrant.” Id. at 15. However, “[t]he inescapable

consequence, after the finger-pointing [wa]s over, [wa]s that

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defendant was arrested illegally.” Id. at 16. Therefore, the

Appellate Division concluded that “the fruits of such an

unlawful arrest [we]re not available to the State for [the

defendant’s] prosecution even though the particular arresting

officer acted in good faith and without culpability.” Ibid.

The panel rejected the State’s argument that “th[e] mistaken

arrest situation [i]s different from the issuance of a bad

search warrant in Novembrino,” finding “no justifiable

distinction between a judicial error on the existence of

probable cause” and the administrative errors committed in that

case. Id. at 17. In fact, the panel denoted the State’s

argument “no more than a plea for a ‘good faith’ exception to

the exclusionary rule” that the Court had rejected in

Novembrino. Id. at 16.

By contrast, in Diloreto, supra, this Court found no

constitutional violation, and thus did not apply the

exclusionary rule, in circumstances in which officers relied, in

part, on misinformation from the National Crime Information

Center (NCIC) database in questioning, detaining, and conducting

a pat-down search of the defendant. 180 N.J. at 271-74, 282.

More specifically, the Court concluded that, given an NCIC alert

that the defendant was an “endangered” missing person along with

other factors, the community caretaker doctrine justified the

police conduct. Id. at 277-78. In discussing the role of the

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officer’s reliance on the erroneous NCIC alert in its decision,

the Court acknowledged that it had rejected the good faith

exception in Novembrino; however, because “the error in failing

to remove defendant’s name from the NCIC database occurred not

within the framework of an intended prosecution, but under the

protective rubric of the community caretaker doctrine,”

Novembrino was inapplicable. Id. at 280.

In Pitcher, supra, the Appellate Division similarly dealt

with a database error; this time, misinformation in the motor

vehicle database reflected that the defendant’s license was

suspended. 379 N.J. Super. at 312. The defendant was stopped

based on that misinformation, and the officer observed that the

defendant was intoxicated. Id. at 312-13. In moving to

suppress the evidence of intoxication, the defendant argued that

the stop was unconstitutional because it was based on an

erroneous license suspension. Id. at 313. The panel analogized

the license suspension information to information received from

an unreliable informant, noting that “[a] license suspension,

unlike a warrant or report of reasonable suspicion, is not a

determination about the justification for a stop or arrest. The

license suspension is simply factual information that leads to a

suspicion of a violation of the motor vehicle laws, i.e., one

articulable fact.” Id. at 318. Thus, the panel found that the

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stop was constitutional and that the good faith exception

rejected in Novembrino was irrelevant. Id. at 313.

Most recently, in Handy, supra, this Court addressed a

scenario in which officers arrested the defendant based on

receipt of erroneous information from the dispatcher that the

defendant had an outstanding warrant. 206 N.J. at 42-43.

Incident to that arrest, the defendant was found to be in

possession of drugs. Id. at 42. The police dispatcher then

informed the officer that there was a birth-date discrepancy

between that provided by the defendant and that listed in the

warrant. Ibid. Upon return to headquarters, the officer

learned that the warrant on which he had arrested the defendant

was for a different individual, with a similar, but somewhat

differently spelled, name. Id. at 42-43. The defendant

nevertheless was charged with possession of the drugs. Id. at

43. In assessing whether that evidence should be suppressed,

this Court found that the “conduct by the dispatcher, an

integral link in the law enforcement chain, was objectively

unreasonable” and thus violative of the state and federal

constitutions. Id. at 42.

In rendering its decision, the Court discussed the Supreme

Court decisions in Evans and Herring, and found them

inapplicable. Id. at 48-50, 52-53. The Handy Court further

highlighted that neither case “dispensed with the standard of

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‘objective reasonableness’ that governs the execution of a

warrant,” id. at 53, on which the Court’s decision was premised.

IV.

The arguments before the Court call into question the

significance of law enforcement reliance on an ostensibly valid

arrest warrant in assessing the constitutionality of an arrest

as well as the application of the exclusionary rule.

Beginning with the constitutionality of defendant’s arrest,

there is no dispute in this case that, at the moment of

defendant’s arrest, no valid warrant was in effect. Defendant’s

arrest was based solely on the existence of the allegedly

outstanding arrest warrant that, in fact, had been vacated

eighteen months earlier but had not been removed from the

computer database accessed by the dispatcher. No other probable

cause provides a leg on which the State can stand to assert a

lawful arrest. “The inescapable consequence . . . is that

defendant was arrested illegally.” Moore, supra, 260 N.J.

Super. at 16.1 The officer’s belief, even in good faith, that a

valid warrant for defendant’s arrest was outstanding cannot

render an arrest made absent a valid warrant or probable cause

constitutionally compliant. See Brown, supra, 205 N.J. at 144.

1 Notably, in Evans and Herring, a constitutional violation was conceded or assumed. Herring, supra, 555 U.S. at 139, 129 S. Ct. at 699, 172 L. Ed. 2d at 503; Evans, supra, 514 U.S. at 6 n.1, 115 S. Ct. at 1189 n.1, 131 L. Ed. 2d at 41 n.1.

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To the extent that the State relies for its position on

Diloreto and Pitcher, those decisions are inapposite, as the

Appellate Division properly concluded.

In Diloreto, supra, the Court considered the officers’

reliance on the misinformation contained in the NCIC database as

one factor supporting their conduct under the community

caretaker doctrine. 180 N.J. at 282. Thus, the Court applied

an exception to the general prohibition against warrantless

searches. Id. at 275, 282. That decision cannot, and should

not, be read to support the proposition that objective and

reasonable reliance on information in the NCIC database, even if

later determined to be erroneous, can support probable cause for

an arrest. In fact, the Court specifically highlighted the

limited nature of its holding. Id. at 282 (“The State should

not construe our holding as approving wide application of the

community caretaker doctrine in this setting.”).

In Pitcher, supra, the Appellate Division found that

information in a motor vehicle database, even if later found to

be erroneous, could be “one articulable fact” that can “lead[]

to a suspicion of a violation of the motor vehicle laws” to

substantiate a motor vehicle stop. 379 N.J. Super. at 318. The

panel did not opine that reasonable reliance on that information

22

could support probable cause to arrest.2 See ibid. The same

rationale applies to the Appellate Division decision in Green,

supra, in which officers were in possession of a valid warrant

for a person matching the defendant’s description and were

executing that warrant at the address listed for that person

when the defendant fled and was arrested. 318 N.J. Super. at

349. In allowing admission of the evidence seized following

defendant’s arrest, the panel relied on law enforcement’s

objective and reasonable execution of the valid warrant, id. at

353-54; the panel did not suggest that an invalid warrant,

unsupported by probable cause, could supply the basis for an

objective and reasonable belief that there is probable cause to

arrest. See ibid.

Our decision does not alter the standard of objective

reasonableness applicable to the assessment of probable cause to

arrest. See Basil, supra, 202 N.J. at 585; cf. Handy, supra,

206 N.J. at 42 (finding conduct of police dispatcher, “an

integral link in the law enforcement chain, was objectively

unreasonable and violat[ive of]” the New Jersey and United

2 The State submitted a supplemental letter brief to the Court bringing to its attention the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Heien v. North Carolina, ___ U.S. ___, 135 S. Ct. 530, 190 L. Ed. 2d 475 (2014). We note that Heien, too, dealt with law enforcement’s objective reasonableness in effectuating a stop; it did not find justification for an arrest absent probable cause or a valid warrant. See id. at ___, 135 S. Ct. at 539, 190 L. Ed. 2d at 485.

23

States Constitutions). We conclude only that an invalid warrant

cannot provide the basis for an objective and reasonable belief

that probable cause to arrest exists; an arrest made under that

standard is constitutionally defective. To hold otherwise would

be akin to adopting the good faith exception to the exclusionary

rule that has been explicitly, and consistently, rejected by

this Court, most recently in Adkins, supra, 221 N.J. at 314.

See also Moore, supra, 260 N.J. Super. at 16 (labeling State’s

argument “no more than a plea for a ‘good faith’ exception to

the exclusionary rule”). We decline to carve out an exception

to that explicit rejection in the manner requested by the State

or the Attorney General.

In respect of the exclusionary rule, defendants are

afforded greater rights under the New Jersey Constitution than

under the United States Constitution. See Novembrino, supra,

105 N.J. at 144-45. In Novembrino, this Court relied on the New

Jersey Constitution in rejecting the Leon good faith exception.

Id. at 159. The United States Supreme Court decisions in Evans

and Herring are premised on the Court’s decision in Leon. Thus,

to follow their reasoning, as the State and the Attorney General

advocate, would be a retrenchment of our decision in Novembrino.

We can see it no other way.

The Court in Novembrino based its decision on the

conclusion that the exclusionary rule functioned not only as a

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deterrent for police misconduct but also as “the indispensable

mechanism for vindicating the constitutional right to be free

from unreasonable searches.” Id. at 157. This case involves an

unconstitutional seizure of a man who had secured relief

eighteen months earlier from his outstanding arrest warrant.

His constitutional right to be free of that unreasonable seizure

trumps the subjective good faith reliance by the police on the

unpurged, but in fact vacated, arrest warrant. Novembrino’s

important purpose to secure vindication of constitutional rights

cannot be ignored. We decline to do so here. Moreover, the

inevitable result will cause people to be more careful -- a

laudatory effect on all state actors.

For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment of the

Appellate Division affirming the trial court’s suppression

order.