Abstract: This Essay proposes that some state or locality create a specialized constitutional small claims court to investigate and adjudicate alleged Fourth Amendment violations, as a supplement to the existing mix of remedies. The system would effectively create room for that jurisdiction to ask the courts to replace the mandatory exclusionary rule with a fault-based alternative, and would create a meaningful forum for the innocent parties who are now largely excluded from any form of redress. Depending on volume, in some jurisdictions the portfolio might simply be added to the magistrates or judges who hold small claims court now. Sometimes there is virtue in thinking small. A single state or municipality, acting as a “laboratory of democracy,” will tell us more about the real-world effects of such a change than any abstract theorizing ever could. This Essay takes seriously the expressed interest of members of the Supreme Court and puts forward one alternative to the mandatory exclusionary rule in Fourth Amendment cases, following Professor Christopher Slobogin’s suggestion
Publication Year: 2013
Publication Date: 2013-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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