Exclusionary Rule

The exclusionary rule persists because there is no credible alternative. Freeing the guilty is unpalatable, and on many occasions the courts have sought to avoid that result by narrowing the substantive Fourth Amendment law or by recognizing exceptions to the exclusionary rule. But absent some other meaningful remedy, outright abolition of the exclusionary rule would, in the words of Justice Holmes, "reduce the Fourth Amendment to a form of words." The Supreme Court has not been willing to go that far.