State of Minnesota v. Rebecca Julie Malecha

STATE OF MINNESOTA

IN SUPREME COURT

A22-1314

Court of Appeals Anderson, J.
Took no part, Procaccini, J.
State of Minnesota,

Respondent,

vs. Filed: March 6, 2024
Office of Appellate Courts
Rebecca Julie Malecha,

Appellant.

________________________

Keith Ellison, Attorney General, Saint Paul, Minnesota; and

Brian M. Mortenson, Rice County Attorney, Sean R. McCarthy, Assistant Rice County
Attorney, Faribault, Minnesota, for respondent.

Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Saint Paul, Minnesota; and

Melvin R. Welch, Welch Law Firm, LLC, Minneapolis, Minnesota, for appellant.

Teresa Nelson, American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, for
amici curiae American Civil Liberties Union and American Civil Liberties Union of
Minnesota.

Paul D. Sellers, Shauna Faye Kieffer, Minneapolis Minnesota, for amicus curiae Minnesota
Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

________________________

1
 SYLLABUS

1. The district court did not clearly err in finding that the defendant’s arrest

warrant had been quashed before her arrest.

2. The good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule does not apply to evidence

obtained during a search on a quashed warrant that appears active to law enforcement

because of a clerical error by court administration in violation of Article I, Section 10, of

the Minnesota Constitution.

Reversed.

OPINION

ANDERSON, Justice.

The question presented is whether the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule

under the Minnesota Constitution, adopted for the first time in Minnesota in State v.

Lindquist, 869 N.W.2d 863, 876–77 (Minn. 2015), should apply to evidence obtained

during a search and arrest incident to a quashed warrant that appears active to law

enforcement because of a clerical court error.

Appellant Rebecca Julie Malecha was arrested on a quashed warrant following an

encounter with the police in Faribault. The officers searched Malecha incident to her arrest

and discovered controlled substances. The officers later learned that Malecha’s arrest

warrant had been quashed by the district court but mistakenly appeared active in their

database because of a clerical error by court administration. The State charged Malecha

with four controlled substance crimes and she filed a motion to dismiss the charges based

on an unconstitutional search. The district court granted her motion to dismiss. The State

2
appealed and, in a nonprecedential divided opinion, the court of appeals reversed the

district court’s order. State v. Malecha, No. A22-1314, 2023 WL 2359622 (Minn. App.

Mar. 6, 2023).

Because we recognize several purposes served by the exclusionary rule, including

deterring unlawful government conduct generally, and we conclude that applying the

exclusionary rule here serves these remedial goals, we decline to extend the good-faith

exception to the exclusionary rule under the Minnesota Constitution to the present facts.

Therefore, we reverse the court of appeals and reinstate the district court’s order dismissing

the charges against Malecha.

FACTS

On November 12, 2020, the Rice County District Court issued a bench warrant for

Malecha’s arrest after she failed to appear for sentencing in another matter. Malecha’s

attorney moved to quash the warrant on December 11, 2020; a motion that the district court

granted several days later. Because of a clerical error by court administration, however,

the district court’s order quashing the warrant was not transmitted to law enforcement.

Therefore, neither the National Crime Information Center, which maintains a national

database of active arrest warrants, nor the Rice County Sheriff’s Office, which is

responsible for updating local warrant information in the national database, knew that the

arrest warrant for Malecha was no longer active as of December 15, 2020.

On March 7, 2021, a Faribault police officer encountered Malecha and believed the

arrest warrant from November 2020 remained active. In accordance with established,

standard law enforcement procedure, the officer contacted dispatch to confirm the validity

3
of the warrant. An officer at the Rice County Jail confirmed the existence of an active

warrant by looking at the warrant itself, maintained both in the national database and the

files of the Rice County Sheriff’s Office. The officer relayed the confirmation to dispatch,

and dispatch then relayed the confirmation to the officer in contact with Malecha. The

officer arrested Malecha based on the warrant and, during a search incident to arrest,

discovered methamphetamine.

Following Malecha’s arrest, police learned that the district court had recalled the

arrest warrant. On March 8, 2021, the day after Malecha’s arrest, Rice County Court

Administration issued a notice of judicial determination, providing “verification that . . .

[the district court] did grant the request to recall the warrant on December 14, 2020 . . . and

the warrant was recalled on December 15, 2020.” On March 9, 2021, the day after Rice

County issued the notice, the State charged Malecha with four controlled substance crimes.

Malecha moved to suppress evidence of the controlled substances and dismiss the

charges, arguing that the officers subjected her to an unlawful search given the quashed

warrant. At the contested omnibus hearing, the parties offered a recitation of undisputed

facts and agreed to submit briefs on the issue of whether “police can rely on . . . dispatch

for confirming a warrant if a judge signs a judicial determination, and it never gets

processed.” In the memorandum supporting her motion to dismiss, Malecha argued that

the exclusionary rule applies to the evidence seized during her unlawful arrest and search.

The State countered that because the district court order recalling the warrant was never

recorded and transmitted by court administration, the warrant was still active at the time of

Malecha’s arrest and the officers conducted a lawful search incident to her lawful arrest.

4
Alternatively, the State argued that the exclusionary rule should not apply because

exclusion of the evidence would not deter police misconduct.

The district court granted Malecha’s motion to suppress the evidence and dismiss

the charges. First, it concluded that “[i]t is clear from the facts that the warrant was quashed

by the District Court and thus was no longer active, regardless of what information was

provided to law enforcement.” Thus, Malecha’s arrest on a quashed warrant violated the

Minnesota Constitution, and the exclusionary rule, if applied, would prevent the State from

using evidence obtained from the arrest and subsequent search. Second, the district court

concluded that the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule in Minnesota did not

apply, reasoning that under our court’s precedent, the good-faith exception is applicable

only if police obtain evidence in reasonable reliance on binding appellate precedent.

Because the officers did not rely on binding appellate precedent, and instead relied on

information not correctly updated by court administration, the court held that the

exclusionary rule applied.

The State appealed the district court’s order and, in a divided nonprecedential

decision, the court of appeals reversed and remanded. Malecha, 2023 WL 2359622, at *3.

Citing state and federal precedent, the court of appeals concluded that the exclusionary rule

is premised on deterring police misconduct. Id. at *2. Here, the court of appeals

determined that the police did nothing wrong in relying on the validity of the warrant as

visible in the database, that the error in failing to quash the warrant was attributable to court

administration, and that law enforcement officers should execute, not question, judicial

orders. Id. at *1, *3. Thus, the court of appeals concluded that because there was no police

5
misconduct to deter, the exclusionary rule does not apply, and the district court was not

justified in suppressing the evidence. Id. at *3.

In a special concurrence, one member of the court of appeals panel concluded that

the district court erred but reasoned that the warrant was still valid at the time of Malecha’s

arrest, and thus the search was incident to lawful arrest. Id. at *4 (Frisch, J., concurring

specially). Therefore, the concurrence concluded that there was no basis for the district

court to apply the exclusionary rule. Id.

In the dissenting opinion, another member of the court of appeals panel noted that

our court has only applied the good-faith exception to circumstances in which police obtain

evidence in reliance on binding appellate precedent. Id. at *8 (Slieter, J., dissenting).

Because only the supreme court and Legislature may extend existing law, and neither has

adopted the good-faith exception under the present facts, the dissent disagreed with the

decision to reverse the district court. Id. at *10.

We granted Malecha’s request for further review.

ANALYSIS

We first address whether the district court clearly erred in finding that the arrest

warrant was quashed before Malecha’s arrest. Then, we decide whether to adopt the

good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule under the circumstances here.

I.

First, we must determine whether the district court clearly erred in finding that the

arrest warrant for Malecha had been quashed before her arrest. On a pretrial motion to

suppress, we review the district court’s factual findings for clear error and legal

6
determinations de novo. State v. Leonard, 943 N.W.2d 149, 155 (Minn. 2020). “A factual

finding is clearly erroneous if it does not have evidentiary support in the record or if it was

induced by an erroneous view of the law.” State v. Roberts, 876 N.W.2d 863, 868 (Minn.

2016). In contrast, “[u]nder the de novo standard, we do not defer to the analysis of the

courts below, but instead we exercise independent review.” Wheeler v. State, 909 N.W.2d

558, 563 (Minn. 2018).

The State challenges the district court’s finding that the arrest warrant had been

quashed before Malecha’s arrest, arguing that there is no evidence that the district court

issued an order to that effect in December 2020. According to the State, the officers

arrested Malecha on an active arrest warrant and the search that produced the controlled

substances underlying her charges was therefore incident to a lawful arrest.

The evidence in the record, however, does not support the State’s position. The

record shows that the district court held a contested omnibus hearing on May 24, 2022. At

the hearing, the State gave a recitation of undisputed facts, including:

I think one of the facts that the State would also concede is I think that on
December 15, Judge Long probably had at that time the intention to quash
that warrant. We don’t know for sure. We can base it off of that -- the notice
of judicial determination. . . . But for whatever reason, that communication
didn’t get to law enforcement.

The “notice of judicial determination” referred to by the State was a document filed by a

court administrator on March 8, 2021, the day after Malecha’s arrest. The notice provided

“verification that . . . Judge Long did grant the request to recall the warrant on

December 14, 2020. The request was processed and the warrant was recalled on

December 15, 2020.”

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 In the order granting Malecha’s motion to dismiss, the district court found that “[t]he

sole reason law enforcement had to search Ms. Malecha in this case was the misinformation

provided to them that there was an active arrest warrant for Ms. Malecha.” The district

court then found it “clear from the facts that the warrant was quashed by the District Court

and thus was no longer active, regardless of what information was provided to law

enforcement.” Because the officers obtained the evidence pursuant to an unlawful search,

the district court applied the exclusionary rule and suppressed the evidence.

Based on the State’s concession on the record at the contested omnibus hearing that

the district court intended to quash the warrant on December 15, 2020, and the notice of

judicial determination verifying that the warrant was recalled on December 15, 2020, there

is sufficient evidentiary support for the district court’s finding that the warrant was quashed

and not effective on the date of Malecha’s arrest. 1 The factual finding is not clearly

erroneous.

II.

Because Malecha’s arrest warrant was quashed before her arrest, her arrest and

search violated Article I, Section 10, of the Minnesota Constitution. See Minn. Const.

art. I, § 10. The exclusionary rule is the normal remedy for such a violation. See State v.

Zanter, 535 N.W.2d 624, 634 (Minn. 1995) (affirming the suppression of evidence

1
A “notice of judicial determination” is commonly used by court administration to
immediately inform parties of a district court’s decision on a request or motion. Although
we acknowledge the utility of such documents for this purpose, here the notice served to
correct an error after-the-fact. We do not endorse the use of a notice of judicial
determination for this corrective purpose, particularly when the notice lacks any
acknowledgment, or explanation, of the earlier error.

8
obtained pursuant to parts of a warrant not supported by probable cause). We next consider

whether to extend the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule to the circumstances

presented here. We begin by addressing the scope of the good-faith exception as

recognized by the Supreme Court under the U.S. Constitution and then address our

narrower application of the good-faith exception under the Minnesota Constitution. We

then turn to whether the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule applies under

Minnesota law to the circumstances here, when police conduct an arrest and search

pursuant to a quashed warrant that nevertheless appears active to law enforcement because

of a clerical error of court administration.

A.

The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Article I, Section 10, of the

Minnesota Constitution each protect the right to be free from “unreasonable searches and

seizures.” U.S. Const. amend. IV; Minn. Const. art. I, § 10. Warrantless searches and

seizures are per se unreasonable. Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 357 (1967); State v.

Sargent, 968 N.W.2d 32, 37 (Minn. 2021). A long-standing exception to the warrant

requirement under the Fourth Amendment, however, is a search incident to lawful arrest,

which allows the police “to conduct a ‘full search of the person’ who has been lawfully

arrested.” State v. Bernard, 859 N.W.2d 762, 766–67 (Minn. 2015) (quoting United States

v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218, 235 (1973)).

Neither the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, nor Article I, Section 10,

of the Minnesota Constitution identify the remedy available in the event of an unreasonable

search or seizure by law enforcement. Thus, to “compel respect for the constitutional

9
guaranty” of the Fourth Amendment, the Supreme Court has recognized the exclusionary

rule as a “prudential” doctrine that requires the suppression of illegally obtained evidence.

Davis v. United States, 564 U.S. 229, 236 (2011) (citations omitted) (internal quotation

marks omitted). The Supreme Court first recognized the rule in Weeks v. United States,

232 U.S. 383, 398 (1914), and applied it to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment

in Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 655 (1961). Although initially available as a remedy for

any Fourth Amendment violation, the Supreme Court has since limited exclusion to

circumstances that serve the rule’s remedial goals. Compare Mapp, 367 U.S. at 655 (“[A]ll

evidence obtained . . . in violation of the Constitution is . . . inadmissible in a state court.”),

with United States v. Calandra, 414 U.S. 338, 348 (1974) (restricting exclusion to “those

areas where its remedial objectives are thought most efficaciously served”). As for what

those remedial goals are, the Supreme Court originally recognized the deterrence of police

misconduct and the preservation of judicial integrity as purposes of the exclusionary rule,

but has subsequently identified deterrence as the sole purpose served by exclusion in

federal jurisprudence. Compare Elkins v. United States, 364 U.S. 206, 217, 222 (1960)

(“Its purpose is to deter—to compel respect for the constitutional guaranty . . . . But there

is another consideration—the imperative of judicial integrity.”), with Davis, 564 U.S. at

246 (“[W]e have said time and again that the sole purpose of the exclusionary rule is to

deter misconduct by law enforcement.”).

Starting with United States v. Leon, the Supreme Court limited the use of exclusion

as a remedy through several “good faith” exceptions. 468 U.S. 897 (1984). In Leon, the

Court decided whether the exclusionary rule applied to evidence obtained under a warrant

10
later declared invalid for lack of probable cause. Id. at 905. The Supreme Court concluded

that if police act “in objective good faith or their transgressions have been minor,” the

“substantial social costs” of excluding relevant evidence outweigh the exclusionary rule’s

benefits, id. at 907–08, and observed that “the exclusionary rule is designed to deter police

misconduct rather than to punish the errors of judges and magistrates.” Id. at 916. Thus,

Leon counsels that the exclusionary rule applies only if suppressing the disputed evidence

would have an appreciable deterrent effect on unlawful police conduct. Id. at 909.

The Supreme Court has since expanded the good-faith exception to other

circumstances in which exclusion would not result in appreciable deterrence of unlawful

police conduct. See Illinois v. Krull, 480 U.S. 340, 359–60 (1987) (rejecting exclusion

when police reasonably rely on a statute later deemed unconstitutional); Herring v. United

States, 555 U.S. 135, 137–38, 147 (2009) (rejecting exclusion when police reasonably rely

on an arrest warrant database managed by law enforcement); Davis, 564 U.S. at 241

(rejecting exclusion when police obtain evidence in reasonable reliance on binding

appellate precedent).

The Supreme Court applied the good-faith exception to circumstances analogous to

the present facts in Arizona v. Evans. 514 U.S. 1 (1995). In Evans, Phoenix police arrested

the defendant on a quashed warrant that appeared active to law enforcement because of a

court administration clerical error. Id. at 4–5. In applying the good-faith exception, the

Court distinguished between clerical errors by law enforcement and court employees. Id.

at 14 (citing State v. Evans, 866 P.2d 869, 871 (Ariz. 1994)). Citing Leon, the Supreme

Court stated that “the exclusionary rule was historically designed as a means of deterring

11
police misconduct, not mistakes by court employees.” Id. (citing Leon, 468 U.S. at 916).

The Supreme Court reasoned that “[i]f court employees were responsible for the erroneous

computer record, the exclusion of evidence at trial would not sufficiently deter future errors

so as to warrant such a severe sanction.” Id. Because there was no evidence that court

employees are inclined to violate Fourth Amendment rights, nor that excluding evidence

would deter them from failing to inform police of quashed warrants, there was no basis to

apply the exclusionary rule. Id. at 15. Thus, the Supreme Court recognized “a categorical

exception to the exclusionary rule for clerical errors of court employees.” Id. at 16.

In sum, the Supreme Court has specifically applied the good-faith exception to

evidence obtained in reasonable reliance on a quashed arrest warrant that appears active to

law enforcement because of a clerical court error, Evans, 514 U.S. at 15, and more

generally limited the exclusionary rule’s application to circumstances that deter unlawful

police conduct.

B.

Although Evans is analogous to the facts at hand, its holding addresses exclusion in

the context of a violation of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In contrast,

here Malecha’s argument for exclusion is premised on a violation of Article I, Section 10,

of the Minnesota Constitution. “In all cases, we employ our independent judgment in

interpreting the Minnesota Constitution.” City of Golden Valley v. Wiebesick, 899 N.W.2d

152, 157 (Minn. 2017). We most often exercise this independent judgment in deciding

whether to grant greater rights under our state constitution. See State v. Carter,

697 N.W.2d 199, 211 (Minn. 2005) (holding that a drug-detection dog sniff outside of a

12
storage unit is a search under the Minnesota Constitution). But the mandate applies equally

in determining whether a constitutional remedy, like exclusion, is available. See, e.g.,

Zanter, 535 N.W.2d at 634 (excluding evidence obtained in violation of Article I,

Section 10, because “the good faith of the police . . . cannot cure the clear insufficiency of

the . . . warrant application”); Garza v. State, 632 N.W.2d 633, 639–40 (Minn. 2001)

(applying the exclusionary rule despite law enforcement’s good-faith reliance on an issued

warrant because it lacked the “sufficiently particularized circumstances” required to justify

an unannounced entry). Accordingly, Evans does not control here as to the remedy for a

violation of the Minnesota Constitution. Instead, we must determine whether the

good-faith exception applicable in Evans likewise applies under the Minnesota

Constitution.

We have adopted the good-faith exception under the Minnesota Constitution in only

one limited circumstance: when law enforcement officers obtain evidence in reasonable

reliance on binding appellate precedent that specifically authorizes the police conduct at

issue. Lindquist, 869 N.W.2d at 876. Since then, we have declined to extend the good-faith

exception. See Leonard, 943 N.W.2d at 161 (“Because no binding appellate precedent

authorizes a suspicionless search of a guest registry, the good-faith exception recognized

in Lindquist does not apply here.”).

In Lindquist, officers responded to a single-vehicle accident and learned that the

occupants had fled the scene. 869 N.W.2d at 865. Upon apprehending Lindquist, who

officers determined was the driver and who declined to undergo a preliminary breath test,

the police arrested her and performed a warrantless blood draw. Id. At the time of

13
Lindquist’s arrest, this court’s decisions in State v. Shriner, 751 N.W.2d 538 (Minn. 2008),

and State v. Netland, 762 N.W.2d 202 (Minn. 2009), permitted the warrantless blood

draw. 2 Lindquist, 869 N.W.2d at 877–78. During the pendency of Lindquist’s appeal,

however, the Supreme Court decided Missouri v. McNeely, which overturned the

single-factor exigency analysis that authorized the police to conduct the warrantless blood

draw at issue in Lindquist. Id. at 865 (citing Missouri v. McNeely, 569 U.S. 141 (2013));

see McNeely, 569 U.S. at 145 (“[E]xigency in this context must be determined case by case

based on the totality of the circumstances.”). Thus, in Lindquist we addressed whether to

exclude evidence obtained by the police pursuant to precedent issued by our court and

binding at the time of the search, but which was subsequently overturned. Id. at 865,

876–77.

To reach our holding in Lindquist, we looked to the Supreme Court’s reasoning in

Davis, 564 U.S. 229. Lindquist, 869 N.W.2d at 868–69. Davis dealt with an analogous

issue and ultimately held that the exclusionary rule does not apply to evidence obtained in

reasonable reliance on binding appellate precedent. Davis, 564 U.S. at 241. The Supreme

Court, following federal good-faith jurisprudence, recognized that “[f]or exclusion to be

appropriate, the deterrence benefits of suppression must outweigh its heavy costs,” and

2
In Shriner, we held that the “rapid, natural dissipation of alcohol in the blood creates
single-factor exigent circumstances that will justify the police taking a warrantless,
nonconsensual blood draw from a defendant, provided that the police have probable cause
to believe that defendant committed criminal vehicular operation.” 751 N.W.2d at 545.
We extended Shriner’s single-factor exigency analysis to any circumstance where
“chemical impairment is an element of the offense” in Netland. 762 N.W.2d at 214.

14
concluded that excluding evidence obtained in such circumstances would not deter police

misconduct. Id. at 237–41.

Applying this reasoning in Lindquist, we stated that if police conduct a search in

accordance with established law, but that law subsequently changes, “any error rests with

judges and not the police,” meaning exclusion “deters no police misconduct and imposes

substantial social costs.” Lindquist, 869 N.W.2d at 871 (quoting Davis, 564 U.S. at 249).

Thus, adopting the good-faith exception articulated in Davis, we held that exclusion does

not apply to evidence obtained in reasonable reliance on binding appellate precedent

because the social costs of exclusion outweigh its deterrent benefit under those

circumstances. Id.

Our holding in Lindquist, however, was decidedly narrow. Id. at 876 (“We note the

narrowness of our holding . . . nothing in our opinion should be construed as authorizing

the application of exceptions we have not explicitly adopted.”). Further, we explicitly did

not address whether the good-faith exception applies if police obtain evidence “pursuant

to a facially valid search warrant later held to be deficient” or “to evidence obtained due to

police negligence.” Id. at 877. Although we “identified deterrence of police misconduct

as the central purpose of the exclusionary rule,” we also did not foreclose the consideration

of other purposes of exclusion. Id. at 871.

Before Lindquist, we declined to address the applicability of the good-faith

exception even when police acted in good-faith reliance on a warrant later found to lack

probable cause, first in Zanter, 535 N.W.2d at 634, then in Garza, 632 N.W.2d at 638. In

Zanter, this court affirmed the suppression of certain evidence obtained pursuant to a

15
warrant that was not supported by probable cause. 535 N.W.2d at 634. The State asked

us to adopt a good-faith exception to the warrant requirement of the Minnesota

Constitution. Id. Though we did not question that the police acted in good faith on an

issued warrant, we determined that good faith could not “cure the clear insufficiency of

the . . . warrant application.” Id.

Similarly, in Garza, we held that law enforcement’s unannounced entry pursuant to

a search warrant was unconstitutional because the evidence presented in the supporting

affidavit failed to meet the required standard for particularized circumstances. 632 N.W.2d

at 638. The State asked us to adopt Leon’s good-faith exception because police relied on

“a neutral magistrate’s authorization” in conducting the unannounced entry. Id. at 639–40.

We declined to do so, concluding that, even if the police acted in good faith, they “cannot

cure the absence of particularized circumstances in the warrant application.” Id. at 640

(citing Zanter, 535 N.W.2d at 634).

Although we did not expressly reject the good-faith exception in either Zanter or

Garza, basing our decisions instead on the insufficiency of the warrant application, we also

noted that even good-faith reliance on an issued warrant cannot cure violations of Article I,

Section 10, of the Minnesota Constitution. Zanter, 535 N.W.2d at 634; Garza,

632 N.W.2d at 639–40. In each case we determined that exclusion was necessary to

remedy the state constitutional violation, even though federal jurisprudence might not grant

a similar remedy.

Continuing to recognize the importance of the exclusionary rule in Minnesota, we

have declined to expand the good-faith exception further following Lindquist. See

16
Leonard, 943 N.W.2d at 161. Our reticence has not foreclosed discussions, however, of

whether we should do so under the right circumstances. Compare State v. Fawcett,

884 N.W.2d 380, 391 (Minn. 2016) (Stras, J., dissenting) (“[I]n an appropriate case . . . I

would be open to considering whether to adopt the good-faith exception in full.”), with

Fawcett, 884 N.W.2d at 391 (Lillehaug, J., dissenting) (claiming that the Lindquist

“exception applies only when officers act pursuant to binding appellate precedent”).

C.

We now address whether to extend the good-faith exception to these circumstances,

or to exclude the illegally obtained evidence and remedy the violation of Article I,

Section 10, of the Minnesota Constitution. 3

As a threshold matter, the application of the good-faith exception in Lindquist does

not control the present outcome because Lindquist arose under different circumstances and

stemmed from reasoning not relevant here.

3
Malecha argues that because we have previously interpreted Article I, Section 10,
of the Minnesota Constitution to provide greater protections than the Fourth Amendment,
we should apply the exclusionary rule here, even though the Supreme Court has declined
to apply the remedy in the federal context. In some circumstances, we have granted greater
constitutional protections under Article I, Section 10, of the state constitution than the
federal counterpart affords. See Carter, 697 N.W.2d at 209, 211 (holding that a dog sniff
outside a storage unit is a search under Article I, Section 10, though it is not a search under
the Fourth Amendment); In re Welfare of B.R.K., 658 N.W.2d 565, 578 (Minn. 2003)
(holding that short-term social guests have a reasonable expectation of privacy in a home
under Article I, Section 10, though there is no such expectation under the Fourth
Amendment). As Lindquist recognized, however, these cases dealt with the provision of
constitutional rights, not the availability of constitutional remedies. 869 N.W.2d at 872.
Deciding whether there was a constitutional violation is a “ ‘separate, analytically distinct
issue’ ” from determining the remedy for the violation. Id. (quoting Davis, 564 U.S. at
243). Therefore, that jurisprudence is inapposite in deciding whether the exclusionary rule
applies. See id.

17
 Notably, the facts here are fundamentally different from those underlying our

reasoning in Lindquist. In Lindquist, the police acted in accordance with Minnesota law,

as established by binding appellate precedent, when conducting the challenged search. The

officers in Lindquist did not act unlawfully; their actions were based on an appellate court’s

misinterpretation of law. The mistake in Lindquist was ours, given that Shriner and

Netland were decided incorrectly, as we learned from the Supreme Court’s decision in

McNeely, which abrogated our earlier holdings. See Lindquist, 869 N.W.2d at 871 (“When

the law changes after a search such that the search now violates the Fourth Amendment to

the U.S. Constitution or Article I, Section 10 of the Minnesota Constitution, any error rests

with judges and not the police.”). Because law enforcement could not be held responsible

for a change in the law, applying the good-faith exception was appropriate.

Additionally, there was little risk that the exception announced in Lindquist would

easily extend to other circumstances, as the government actors involved in the

constitutional violation, the police officers, engaged in conduct that was neither wrongful

nor negligent. The Lindquist holding was confined to circumstances in which a search or

seizure is lawful when it occurs, but the legal basis for that search or seizure is subsequently

overturned. 869 N.W.2d at 865, 876. Further, the holding only extended to circumstances

in which the overturned precedent favored the State’s position, an additional limit on its

reach. Id. at 873 (“Another limiting factor is that the exception applies only when a case

overrules binding appellate precedent that previously worked in the State’s favor.”).

In contrast, the facts here show that court administration made clerical errors that

resulted in an unlawful search, for which they can properly be held responsible.

18
Specifically, court employees failed to inform the Rice County Sheriff’s Office records

division that Malecha’s warrant was recalled in December 2020, and the Office was then

unable to remove it from its files and the national database, as it was never informed that

the warrant was quashed. In March 2021, because of the error by court personnel, police

mistakenly and unlawfully arrested Malecha pursuant to the quashed warrant that still

appeared valid in their database.

Unlike Lindquist, here the constitutional violation was closely connected to the

government error because the arrest and search were premised on a quashed warrant that

court employees failed to update, making the arrest and search unlawful when they

occurred, rather than being lawful in the moment, but subsequently deemed

unconstitutional. The difficulty of distinguishing between errors of police on the one hand,

and courts on the other, in an interbranch, computerized warrant database is another critical

difference between the present circumstances and Lindquist. Only an appellate court can

announce changes in law, but errors like the one at issue here may stem from either (or

both) the courts or law enforcement. Thus, the reasoning in Lindquist was more easily

confined to its facts.

Because Lindquist does not control, our decision instead turns on whether excluding

the illegally obtained evidence will serve the remedial goals of the exclusionary rule. The

“central purpose” of Minnesota’s exclusionary rule is to deter police misconduct.

Lindquist, 869 N.W.2d at 871 (“Like the Supreme Court, we have identified deterrence of

police misconduct as the central purpose of the exclusionary rule.” (emphasis added)). Our

precedent, however, does not limit us to considering whether exclusion deters only police

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misconduct. 4 See id. Rather, because the police and courts work together to manage

government records, particularly the arrest warrant database, it is appropriate here to

consider whether exclusion would deter government misconduct generally, including

negligent misconduct. Justice Ginsburg recognized that the exclusion of evidence may

deter even negligent conduct in her Evans dissent, stating “[i]t has been suggested that an

exclusionary rule cannot deter carelessness, but can affect only intentional or reckless

misconduct. This suggestion runs counter to a premise underlying all of negligence

law—that imposing liability for negligence, i.e., lack of due care, creates an incentive to

act with greater care.” Evans, 514 U.S. at 29 n.5 (Ginsburg, J., dissenting).

In this age of expansive and rapidly evolving technology use, separating the

record-keeping practices of police from those of court administration is no easy task. Id.

at 29 (Ginsburg, J., dissenting) (“In this electronic age, particularly with respect to

recordkeeping, court personnel and police officers are not neatly compartmentalized actors.

4
Although the Supreme Court has declined to consider any reason justifying
exclusion beyond deterrence, this court has never used such absolute language, instead
emphasizing that deterrence is a purpose, but not the only purpose, of exclusion. Lindquist,
869 N.W.2d at 871; State v. Hardy, 577 N.W.2d 212, 217 (Minn. 1998) (“[T]he primary
purpose of the exclusionary rule is to deter police misconduct.” (emphasis added)). For
example, we have previously recognized preserving judicial integrity as a goal of the
exclusionary rule. See State v. Lucas, 372 N.W.2d 731, 737 (Minn. 1985) (applying an
exclusionary rule analysis to determine the admissibility, in a Minnesota prosecution, of
evidence obtained in another state, “[t]aking into account the several policy reasons
underlying the exclusionary rule,” and concluding that the trial court correctly refused to
exclude evidence because there was no police misconduct to deter, nor would admitting
the evidence “compromise judicial integrity”); State v. Earnest, 293 N.W.2d 365, 371–72
(Minn. 1980) (Rogosheske, J., concurring specially) (acknowledging the exclusionary
rule’s “dual purposes of deterring future unlawful police misconduct and preserving the
integrity of the courts,” then arguing that exclusion should not be available as a remedy in
the probation system).

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Instead, they serve together to carry out the State’s information-gathering objectives.”). As

occurred here, an arrest warrant database relies on interbranch coordination to accurately

supply and update warrant information, and on state actors to act diligently in doing so.

This diligence is necessary to protect the Article I, Section 10, guarantee to be free from

unreasonable search and seizure.

Thus, in addition to the central object of deterring unlawful police conduct, we

recognize other purposes served by exclusion, including the related goal of more generally

deterring unlawful government conduct.

Here, we conclude that when police obtain evidence during a search incident to

arrest on a quashed warrant that appears active to law enforcement because of a clerical

court error, exclusion serves the purpose of deterring unlawful government conduct. We

recognize that applying the exclusionary rule can deter even clerical errors and provide a

powerful incentive to the government to promote the prompt and careful updating of

computer records. If government actors generally, rather than only law enforcement, know

that the negligent failure to communicate the recall of an arrest warrant will result in the

exclusion of evidence obtained pursuant to that warrant, those actors will have an incentive

to exercise better judgment, act with greater diligence, and implement improved policies

to avoid the costs associated with such errors.

Applying the exclusionary rule here establishes that court employees, not only law

enforcement officers, are held to account for errors that result in constitutional violations.

Imposing the sanction of exclusion here promotes the public perception of fairness in the

judicial process, particularly as illegally obtained evidence would otherwise be admitted

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by the same court system whose personnel caused the error that led to the unlawful search

or seizure.

Relatedly, we emphasize that, under these facts and in accordance with our

exclusionary rule jurisprudence, the benefits of excluding illegally obtained evidence

outweigh the costs when the constitutional violation stems from a court clerical error. See

Lindquist, 869 N.W.2d at 871 (“When the law changes after a search such that the search

now violates the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution or Article I, Section 10 of

the Minnesota Constitution, any error rests with judges and not the police. ‘Excluding

evidence in such cases deters no police misconduct and imposes substantial social costs.’ ”

(quoting Davis, 564 U.S. at 249)). Under these circumstances, exclusion deters unlawful

government conduct by incentivizing individual diligence, and best practices and policies

generally. Although here, Malecha happened to have drugs on her person, in other

instances, a similar mistake could result in the arrest and search of a wholly innocent

individual. This hypothetical highlights the importance of deterring court errors,

particularly in areas of substantial, interbranch coordination, like the warrant database.

In contrast to these benefits, here there are minimal costs to exclusion, as clerical

court errors rarely result in warrantless searches and seizures, and exclusion simply puts

the government in the same position as it would have been absent the infringement.

The benefits of excluding the illegally obtained evidence here outweigh the costs.

Therefore, we hold that under the Minnesota Constitution, the good-faith exception to the

exclusionary rule does not extend to a search and arrest based on a quashed warrant that

appears active to law enforcement because of a clerical error of court administration. We

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decline here, however, as we did in Lindquist, to announce a broad rule rejecting the use

of the good-faith exception under any other circumstances.

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, we reverse the decision of the court of appeals and

reinstate the district court order dismissing the charges.

Reversed.

PROCACCINI, J., not having been a member of this court at the time of submission,

took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.

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