NEW YORK – Every first year law student learns the Exclusionary Rule. The century-old constitutional doctrine forbids the use of evidence obtained by police as the result of an improper search.

Chief Justice John Roberts is following in the footsteps of his mentor.

The rule was bolstered in the 1960s, during the Warren Court, with Chief Justice Earl Warren and his brethren working mightily to clarify this important Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures by government officials.

Not so the more recent Rehnquist Court, which has been no friend to the Exclusionary Rule. During his many years as chief justice, William Rehnquist and his fellow justices carved out exceptions that began to swallow the rule: Evidence obtained through “good faith” reliance on a bad warrant; evidence seized under “exigent circumstances”; even evidence that would have been discovered anyway (the so-called inevitable discovery doctrine).

Now Chief Justice John Roberts, who follows in the footsteps of his mentor, has signaled his desire to further limit the rule. In 2006, the Roberts Court allowed for evidence found by police officers after they stormed a Detroit apartment without knocking. (Knocking was previously a requirement).

That opinion, Hudson v. Michigan, can be read as a call for additional challenges to the Exclusionary Rule. And, just this week, the Court accepted a new case that will give it yet another opportunity to roll back the rule: Herring v. US, in which the Court will decide whether the list of exceptions should be expanded to include evidence obtained from a search by officers relying on a careless record–keeping error.

The officers in Herring arrested a man after being informed that he was the subject of an outstanding warrant. But the warrant had expired. Despite this, Herring was tried and convicted.

Most often the Supreme Court takes a case like Herring’s to reverse the underlying conviction; indeed, Herring’s appeal, brought by students at my alma mater, Stanford Law School, is an effort to secure just that – a reversal of fortune for Herring.

I’m betting, however, that the Court is going to side with police on this one.

In rolling back the Exclusionary Rule, the Supreme Court has, time and again, cited the “heavy toll” the suppression of reliable evidence takes on the criminal justice system. Perhaps suppression of evidence for violation of basic constitutional rights does place a burden on the system.

But it is precisely the burden of justice our Founders intended. The Constitution is not about the efficiency; it is about our fundamental freedoms.

– Jami Floyd, In Session anchor