Carpenter, the Exclusionary Rule, and Retroactivity

In 2018, SCOTUS ruled that individuals have a legitimate expectation of privacy in Cell Site Location Information (CSLI) and that the State would need a warrant to access that information. (For a deeper discussion on CSLI and how it works, read Judge Hill’s recent opinion here and another blog post here).

In this recent S.C. Court of Appeals case, State v. Warner, law enforcement received a warrant for CSLI. At trial, the judge ruled that warrant was invalid. However, the trial judge did not suppress the fruits of that warrant based on no standing/expectation of privacy/third party doctrine (this trial was pre-Carpenter).

The Court of Appeals held that, based on SCOTUS precedent, law enforcement was acting in good faith based on the law at the time and thus the exclusionary rule should not apply:

The court also added:

See this blog post for a brief discussion on one exception to the exclusionary rule: good-faith.