TN Supreme Court Considering "Good Faith" Admission of Illegally Obtained Evidence

The Tennessee Supreme Court is again signaling its intent to decide whether the state's courts should be more forgiving of police mistakes even if they violate the constitutional rights of its citizens.

Tennessee’s high court will be paying a visit Wednesday to the University of Tennessee’s College of Law in Knoxville, where the panel will hear two cases involving errors in the search warrant process. One involves a drunken driving arrest in Williamson County. The other involves a mother in Sumner County who suffocated her newborn twins.

In each case, the Supreme Court is specifically asking attorneys for both the state and defense to argue their respective positions on what’s known as a “good faith exception” to a rule that requires judges to toss out evidence illegally obtained in violation of both state and federal constitutions.

The high court has been toying with the idea since the make-up of the court shifted from a panel of predominantly Democratic appointees to one with a majority of Republican appointees in recent years, the Knoxville News Sentinel reports.