I found this bill while digging through old laws, and I can’t stop thinking about it. Yes, the number really was H.R. 666. It was called the Exclusionary Rule Reform Act of 1995.
Here’s the most important fact first: it never became law. The House passed it 289 to 142 on February 8, 1995, and it never passed the Senate. What makes it worth reading is how it was argued and what happened to the idea afterward.
The rule it went after
If police search you illegally and find something, a court can refuse to let prosecutors use it. That’s the exclusionary rule. It’s the main practical penalty for breaking the Fourth Amendment.
What the bill would have done
I read the final text. Three things stand out:
- A reasonable belief could save an illegal search. Evidence would stay in if the search happened in “circumstances justifying an objectively reasonable belief” that it was legal. The Supreme Court had already allowed that for flawed warrants in 1984. This bill would have stretched it to searches with no warrant at all.
- A warrant would tilt the whole fight. A warrant would count as “prima facie evidence” of those circumstances. As a supporter explained on the House floor, the defendant would then carry the burden of proving otherwise.
- Breaking other rules would barely matter. Evidence taken in violation of a statute, regulation or procedure rule would stay in unless a law “expressly” allowed throwing it out.
To be fair, the test was “objectively reasonable,” not just an officer’s word, and supporters said a judge could still throw out knowing violations. I still think it goes too far, because it makes the question what the officer could reasonably believe instead of whether your rights were violated.
The strangest part
Look at the end of the bill. It says it “shall not apply” to searches by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms or the Internal Revenue Service.
Those exemptions were added on the floor. The ATF amendment passed 228 to 198. During that debate, an NRA letter was read aloud saying ATF’s record meant “the term ‘good faith’ has little meaning for them.” An amendment to exempt the INS failed, 103 to 330.
My read: a majority of the House decided this standard was too risky for two agencies they didn’t trust, then passed it for everyone else. If it wasn’t safe for them, why was it safe for your local police or any other federal agent?
What each side said
Supporters had a real argument. Rep. Diaz-Balart told the House about a stop that found 240 pounds of cocaine, thrown out over a license plate mistake, and said “something is profoundly wrong.” That story is why a bill like this gets 289 votes.
Opponents saw something bigger. Rep. Dingell said it “blows a huge hole in the fourth amendment.” Rep. Watt of North Carolina said, “The fourth amendment is not about protecting the guilty or the innocent.” He said it’s there so an officer doesn’t decide on the spot whose door to kick in.
The Clinton administration offered to support the bill only if the exception applied “only when a search warrant has been obtained.”
Why I think it was wrong
A right with no consequence for breaking it isn’t much of a right. People call these cases technicalities, but the so-called technicality is the constitutional violation. And the Constitution doesn’t say “unless they had good intentions.”
The bill died, but the idea didn’t
In the courts. The Supreme Court kept narrowing the rule on its own. Evidence stayed in after police broke the knock-and-announce rule in Hudson v. Michigan (2006), after a police database error in Herring v. United States (2009), and after police relied on court precedent that later changed in Davis v. United States (2011).
In the states. The American Legislative Exchange Council’s 1995 sourcebook carried a model “Exclusionary Rule Act”. It says no court shall suppress evidence “seized in good faith or as a result of a technical violation.” The watchdog group that published it says similar bills were introduced in many states, including Texas.
So a dead bill from 1995 is still worth knowing about. Your rights are only as strong as what happens when someone breaks them.
I’m not a lawyer, and this isn’t legal advice. Read the originals and make up your own mind.