What-cha Got There? Part 3

The investigator and the Sherriff Deputy already had stopped Herring’s vehicle. They had told him that they intended to arrest him on the basis of a warrant from Dale County. Herring had informed the officers that he did not have an outstanding warrant from Dale County and had demanded to see a copy of the alleged warrant before any arrest took place. But without waiting the few minutes necessary to receive further information concerning the validity of the warrant, the officers had gone ahead and conducted a full-scale arrest of Herring. After they had handcuffed Herring, the officers had searched him and his truck and found methamphetamine in his pockets and an unloaded gun under the front seat of
his vehicle. Herring was charged and convicted. This case and others like it challenge the question “Whether the Fourth Amendment requires evidence
found during a search incident to an arrest to be suppressed when the arresting officer conducted the arrest and search in sole reliance upon facially credible
but erroneous information negligently provided by another law enforcement agent?” Herring v United States will be argued before the Supreme Court later this year.