http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123194613261081505.html

January 14, 2009

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that evidence found after an arrest based on incorrect information from police files may be used against a criminal suspect.

In a 5-4 split, the court upheld the conviction of an Alabama man on federal drug and gun charges.

Bennie Dean Herring was arrested on what the Coffee County, Ala., sheriff’s department thought was a valid warrant from a neighboring county. It turned out that the warrant for Mr. Herring’s arrest had been recalled five months earlier.

Mr. Herring argued that police negligence should automatically lead to the suppression of evidence found after an unjustified arrest.

But Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the court, said the evidence may be used “when police mistakes are the result of negligence such as that described here, rather than systemic error or reckless disregard of constitutional requirements.”

Justices Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas sided with Chief Justice Roberts.

In a dissent for the other four justices, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the ruling “leaves Herring, and others like him, with no remedy for violations of their constitutional rights.”

Justice Ginsburg said accurate police record-keeping is of paramount importance, particularly with the widespread use of electronic databases. Justices Stephen Breyer, David Souter and John Paul Stevens also dissented.

Mr. Herring was arrested after a neighboring Dale County sheriff’s employee found a computer entry noting that Mr. Herring was wanted for failing to appear in court on a felony charge. The sheriff’s computer database had not been updated to reflect the recall of the warrant for Mr. Herring’s arrest.

Meanwhile, in a search after Mr. Herring’s arrest, Coffee County deputies found methamphetamine in Mr. Herring’s pockets and an unloaded gun under the front seat of his truck.

Some courts have ruled that as a deterrent to police misconduct, the fruits of a similar search may be excluded from evidence.

But the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta said that suppressing evidence in Mr. Herring’s case would be unlikely to deter sloppy record keeping.

The case is Herring v. U.S., 07-513.

Court Affirms Judges’ Discretion in Sentencing

Separately, the Supreme Court reinstated a lengthy prison term for a child molester, allowing judges discretion in sentencing criminal defendants convicted of multiple crimes.

In a case from Oregon, the court says in a 5-4 ruling Wednesday that a judge may order a defendant convicted of multiple crimes to serve sentences one after the other, rather than at the same time.

The case is the latest in a nearly decade-old effort by the court to define where the Sixth Amendment’s right to a jury trial limits judicial discretion in sentencing.

An Oregon jury convicted Thomas Eugene Ice of twice breaking into an apartment and sexually abusing an 11-year-old girl.

A judge sentenced Ice to 80 months for each burglary count and 90 months for each sexual abuse count and ordered that Ice serve all the time in prison. The Oregon Supreme Court, however, ruled that the judge lacked the authority to impose consecutive sentences without specific jury findings.

The case is Oregon v. Ice, 07-901.

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