State v. Rogers

• Court: Supreme Court of North Carolina
• Decided: October 17, 2025
• Docket: 377PA22
• Status: Published

Opinion

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF NORTH CAROLINA

No. 377PA22

Filed 17 October 2025

STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA

v. MARTY DOUGLAS ROGERS

On discretionary review pursuant to N.C.G.S. § 7A-31 of a unanimous,

unpublished decision of the Court of Appeals, No. COA21-707 (N.C. Ct. App. Dec. 6,

2022) reversing an order denying a motion to suppress entered on 26 February 2021

by Judge Phyllis M. Gorham in Superior Court, New Hanover County, and ordering

that defendant is entitled to a new trial. Heard in the Supreme Court on 22 April

2025.

Jeff Jackson, Attorney General, by Caden William Hayes, Assistant Attorney General, for the State-appellant.

Glenn Gerding, Appellate Defender, by Sterling Rozear, Assistant Appellate Defender, for defendant-appellee.

NEWBY, Chief Justice.

In this case we address the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule. We

do so in the context of determining whether the statutory good faith exception

contained in N.C.G.S. § 15A-974 applies when a police officer obtains cell-site location

information (CSLI) pursuant to an order (the Section 2703(d) Order) that the Court

of Appeals later determined was not supported by probable cause as required by the STATE V. ROGERS

Opinion of the Court

Constitutions of the United States and North Carolina. Section 15A-974 requires the

exclusion of evidence in two situations: (1) when the evidence’s “exclusion is required

by the Constitution of the United States or the Constitution of the State of North

Carolina”; or (2) when law enforcement obtained the evidence in “substantial

violation of” Chapter 15A’s provisions. We conclude that the statutory good faith

exception under section 15A-974 does not apply here because, as written, such

exception only applies when evidence is obtained in substantial violation of Chapter

15A’s provisions, not when evidence is obtained in violation of the Constitutions of

the United States or North Carolina. Nevertheless, because our ultimate task in this

case is to determine whether the trial court properly denied defendant’s motion to

suppress, we also consider whether the Constitutions of the United States or North

Carolina require the exclusion of the disputed CSLI. We conclude that they do not

and therefore hold that the trial court properly denied defendant’s motion to

suppress. Accordingly, we reverse the Court of Appeals’ decision reversing the trial

court’s order and ordering that defendant be granted a new trial.

I. Background & Procedural History

In July 2019, a known confidential source informed Detective Donald Wenk of

the New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office that defendant was trafficking and

distributing large quantities of cocaine in New Hanover County. In light of this

information, Detective Wenk applied to the trial court for a sealed “order authorizing

[(1)] installation and monitoring of a pen register and/or trap and trace device, [(2)]

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GPS and geo-location pursuant to N.C.G.S. §§ 15A-260[ to ]-264, and [(3)] . . . the

production of records and other information pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 2703(d).”1

(Capitalization modified.) Detective Wenk specifically sought records for a cell phone

reportedly used by defendant. In support of this application, Detective Wenk detailed

the following information he had received from the confidential source:

During the month of July 2019, Detective D. Wenk received information from a [c]onfidential [s]ource that . . . [defendant] is responsible for Trafficking/Distributing large quantities of [c]ocaine in New Hanover County. The [c]onfidential [s]ource[,] herein referred to as CS, stated that he/she has been to [defendant’s] residence on multiple occasion[s] and has seen large quantities of [c]ocaine and has had numerous conversations inquiring about purchasing [c]ocaine. The CS further explained that [defendant] would make trips to Hayward, California[,] to purchase and transport trafficking amounts of [c]ocaine back to Wilmington, [North Carolina,] on multiple occasions. Det. Wenk, utilizing a law enforcement data base [sic], retrieved a photograph of [defendant]. Det. Wenk showed the CS the photograph of [defendant]. The CS identified the photograph of [defendant] as the individual who he/she knew to possess, transport, and make trips to Hayward, California[,] for trafficking in [c]ocaine. Within the last [seventy-two] hours Det. Wenk received further information from the CS who stated [defendant] was about to make another trip to Hayward,

1 Subsection 2703(d) allows “court[s] of competent jurisdiction” to grant an “order for

disclosure under subsection (b) [(Contents of wire or electronic communications in a remote computing service)] or (c) [(Records concerning electronic communication service or remote computing service)] . . . if the governmental entity offers specific and articulable facts showing that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the contents of a wire or electronic communication, or the records or other information sought, are relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation.” 18 U.S.C. § 2703(d). The Supreme Court of the United States deems the capture of cell phone location records to be a search under the Fourth Amendment and therefore requires law enforcement to have probable cause to capture the data. Carpenter v. United States, 138 S. Ct. 2206, 2217, 2220–21 (2018).

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California[,] to purchase a trafficking amount of [c]ocaine and transport it back to Wilmington[,] [North Carolina]. The CS provided a phone number . . . for [defendant]. The CS stated that this telephone number is the number that he/she has always contacted [defendant] on. Det. Wenk researched the phone number utilizing a law enforcement database provided by the CS. The phone number listed for [defendant] is the same number provided by the CS.

(Emphasis omitted.)

On 2 August 2019, the trial court determined there was probable cause to

believe that defendant was trafficking cocaine and that defendant was using the

identified cell phone. The trial court also decided there was “ ‘probable cause’ to

believe that ‘historical records or other historical information’ . . . related to the target

telephone[ ] . . . [was] ‘relevant and material’ and w[ould] be of ‘material aid’ to th[e]

ongoing criminal investigation.” The trial court therefore approved Detective Wenk’s

application, thereby allowing law enforcement to, among other things, access

defendant’s CSLI “without geographical limits for the period of time ranging from

[thirty] days prior to the date this order is signed and expiring [thirty] days from such

date.”

Defendant’s cell phone carrier provided defendant’s CSLI, which updated

approximately every fifteen minutes, to law enforcement. Detective Wenk noticed

that on 17 August 2019 at approximately 5:00 a.m., defendant’s cell phone left

Wilmington then headed west across the country. The cell phone arrived in Hayward,

California, at 9:30 p.m. on 20 August 2019, where it stayed for approximately twenty

to thirty minutes, and then began its trip back to Wilmington.

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An officer spotted defendant’s vehicle as it crossed North Carolina’s southern

border on Interstate 95 and began to follow it back to Wilmington. Officers

subsequently stopped defendant’s vehicle on the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge in New

Hanover County and searched its interior. Inside, the officers discovered trafficking

amounts of cocaine. A grand jury later indicted defendant for trafficking in cocaine

by possession, trafficking in cocaine by transportation, possession with the intent to

sell or deliver a Schedule II controlled substance, and maintaining a vehicle for

keeping and selling controlled substances.

Pursuant to Article 53 of Chapter 15A, N.C.G.S. §§ 15A-971 to -980 (2019)

(“Motion to Suppress Evidence”), defendant moved to suppress “all evidence including

but not limited to any information resulting from an unlawful GPS [t]racking of [his]

cell phone, any data from pen registers,” and any other evidence seized in two

additional searches. The trial court orally denied the motion, determining that

reasonable suspicion supported the Section 2703(d) Order and the stop of defendant’s

vehicle. Defendant entered an Alford plea to trafficking in cocaine and possession

with the intent to sell or deliver cocaine but appealed the denial of his suppression

motion.2

The Court of Appeals awarded defendant a new trial. State v. Rogers, No.

2 “An Alford plea is a type of guilty plea recognized by North Carolina’s General Court

of Justice in which a criminal defendant accepts that the State has sufficient evidence to convict him, but the defendant does not actually admit his guilt.” State v. Taylor, 374 N.C. 710, 719 n.3, 843 S.E.2d 46, 52 n.3 (2020).

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21-707, slip op. at 25–26 (N.C. Ct. App. Dec. 6, 2022) (unpublished). The court

determined that Detective Wenk’s “application was not supported by probable cause,

as required by the Fourth Amendment, and the trial court issued its [Section] 2703(d)

Order permitting law enforcement officers to obtain [d]efendant’s historical CSLI

data in violation of his constitutional rights.” Id. at 22 (first citing Carpenter, 138

S. Ct. at 2221, and then citing State v. Gore, 272 N.C. App. 98, 104, 846 S.E.2d 295,

299 (2020)).

Before granting defendant a new trial, the Court of Appeals considered the

State’s argument that the so-called “good faith exception” to the exclusionary rule

exempted the CSLI data from suppression. Id. Relying on State v. Carter, 322 N.C.

709, 370 S.E.2d 553 (1988), where this Court stated, without explanation, that Article

I, Section 20 of our state constitution contains an exclusionary rule with no good faith

exception, the Court of Appeals stated that it was “bound . . . to disagree” with the

State. Rogers, slip op. at 22. But the court observed in closing that “this case could

present an additional opportunity for our Supreme Court to formally adopt the

legislature’s proposed good[ ]faith exception to the exclusionary rule under the North

Carolina Constitution and expressly overrule Carter.” Id. at 24–25.

The State petitioned this Court for discretionary review, pointing this Court to

Session Law 2011-6, which is codified at section 15A-974, where the General

Assembly adopted a good faith exception and specifically requested that this Court

reconsider and overrule Carter. Thus, the State asserted that “this Court should take

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this issue up for review and formally overrule Carter.” (Underlining omitted; italics

added.) By special order, this Court allowed review to consider “whether the good

faith exception under N.C.G.S. § 15A-974 applies.”

II. Analysis

A. Standard of Review

When reviewing the denial of a motion to suppress, our “scope of review . . . is

‘strictly limited to determining whether the trial judge’s underlying findings of fact

are supported by competent evidence, in which event they are conclusively binding

on appeal, and whether those factual findings in turn support the judge’s ultimate

conclusions of law.’ ” State v. Bone, 354 N.C. 1, 7, 550 S.E.2d 482, 486 (2001) (quoting

State v. Cooke, 306 N.C. 132, 134, 291 S.E.2d 618, 619 (1982)). “[T]he trial court’s

conclusions of law are fully reviewable” de novo, and “this Court reviews the decision

of the Court of Appeals for any error of law.” State v. Malone, 373 N.C. 134, 145, 833

S.E.2d 779, 786–87 (2019). Ultimately, “[t]he question for review is whether the

ruling of the trial court was correct and not whether the reason given therefor is

sound or tenable. The crucial inquiry for this Court is admissibility and whether the

ultimate ruling was supported by the evidence.” State v. Austin, 320 N.C. 276, 290,

357 S.E.2d 641, 650 (1987) (citing State v. Blackwell, 246 N.C. 642, 644, 99 S.E.2d

867, 869 (1957)). Thus, “[a] correct decision of a lower court will not be disturbed on

review simply because an insufficient or superfluous reason is assigned.” Id.

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B. History of the Exclusionary Rule & Good Faith Exception

To begin, we briefly overview the history of the exclusionary rule and its good

faith exception. Since the early days of our statehood, our state constitution has

proscribed the use of “general warrants.” N.C. Const. of 1776, Declaration of Rights,

§ XI. Since the eighteenth century, the United States Constitution has likewise

forbidden “unreasonable searches and seizures,” generally requiring warrants that

“particularly describ[e] the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be

seized.” U.S. Const. amend. IV.3 Neither the United States Constitution nor its North

3 Both Article I, Section 20 and the Fourth Amendment aimed to ensure that citizens

were never again subjected to the manifest evils of “general warrants.” See Stanford v. Texas, 379 U.S. 476, 481, 85 S. Ct. 506, 509–10 (1965); State v. Hilton, 378 N.C. 692, 713, 862 S.E.2d 806, 821 (2021). Originating in the sixteenth century, such warrants granted the Crown’s agents “roving commissions to search where they pleased in order to suppress and destroy the literature of dissent.” Stanford, 379 U.S. at 482, 85 S. Ct. at 510; see also 2 Thomas Erskine May, The Constitutional History of England 246 (Boston, Crosby & Nichols 1864) (describing general warrants as providing no charge or suspect, no named party, and no evidence of a crime). Closer to the Founding, “warrants were sometimes more specific in content, but they typically authorized the arrest and search of the premises of all persons connected with the publication of a particular libel, or the arrest and seizure of all the papers of a named person thought to be connected with a libel.” Stanford, 379 U.S. at 482–83, 85 S. Ct. at 510. The Founding Fathers particularly loathed the writ of assistance. Id. at 482, 85 S. Ct. at 510 (“[T]he Fourth Amendment was most immediately the product of contemporary revulsion against a regime of writs of assistance . . . .”). These devices “had given customs officials blanket authority to search where they pleased for goods imported in violation of the British tax laws.” Id. at 481, 85 S. Ct. at 510. “[I]n addition to authorizing search without limit of place, [writs of assistance] had no fixed duration.” Marcus v. Search Warrants, 367 U.S. 717, 729 n.22, 81 S. Ct. 1708, 1715 n.22 (1961). In effect, writs of assistance gave the executing officials complete discretion to search at will, thereby “plac[ing] the liberty of every man in the hands of every petty officer.” Id. (quoting William Tudor, The Life of James Otis 66 (Boston, Wells & Lilly 1823)). “[T]he consistent and overarching themes in colonial judicial resistance [to general warrants and writs of assistance] was opposition to their unparticularized nature and to the unconstrained discretion they therefore afforded a searcher.” Hilton, 378 N.C. at 714, 862 S.E.2d at 821 (first alteration in original) (quoting

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Carolina counterpart, however, specify what is to be done with evidence obtained

from an unconstitutional search or seizure. See Davis v. United States, 564 U.S. 229,

231, 236, 131 S. Ct. 2419, 2423, 2426 (2011); State v. Garner, 331 N.C. 491, 506, 417

S.E.2d 502, 510 (1992). Thus, for over 124 years of our Nation’s history, neither the

federal courts nor the courts of this state excluded evidence that had been obtained

from an unconstitutional search or seizure.4 See Carter, 322 N.C. at 713, 370 S.E.2d

at 556; State v. McGee, 214 N.C. 184, 185, 198 S.E. 616, 616–17 (1938).

In 1914, however, the Supreme Court decided Weeks v. United States and held

that federal courts must suppress evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth

Amendment, rendering it unusable against the defendant at trial. 232 U.S. at 398,

34 S. Ct. at 346. The Supreme Court has since clarified that the federal exclusionary

“rule is prudential rather than constitutionally mandated.” Pa. Bd. of Prob. & Parole

v. Scott, 524 U.S. 357, 363, 118 S. Ct. 2014, 2019 (1998); see also United States v.

Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 905–06, 104 S. Ct. 3405, 3411 (1984) (rejecting theories “that the

exclusionary rule is a necessary corollary of the Fourth Amendment or . . . required

by the conjunction of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments”).

Because Weeks only concerned the Fourth Amendment, it did not immediately

impact state courts. See 232 U.S. at 398, 34 S. Ct. at 346 (“[T]he [Fourth] Amendment

Fabio Arcila, Jr., In the Trenches: Searches and the Misunderstood Common-Law History of Suspicion and Probable Cause, 10 Univ. Pa. J. Const. L. 1, 13 (2007) (emphases added)). 4 In fact, all American jurisdictions except for Iowa applied this rule. See State v. Sheridan, 96 N.W. 730, 731 (Iowa 1903).

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is not directed to individual misconduct of [non-federal] officials.”); see also State v.

Fowler, 172 N.C. 905, 913, 90 S.E. 408, 411 (1916). Therefore, in the decades following

Weeks, our courts continued to adhere to the traditional rule that evidence obtained

in violation of Article I, Section 20 could be used at trial. See McGee, 214 N.C. at 185,

198 S.E. at 616–17.

Then, in 1937, the General Assembly enacted our state’s first exclusionary rule

(section 15-27).5 This statutory exclusionary rule applied only as far as its terms

provided, see State v. Vanhoy, 230 N.C. 162, 164–65, 52 S.E.2d 278, 280 (1949), and

it did not have “the force and effect of rendering incompetent evidence obtained

through a search without a warrant,” McGee, 214 N.C. at 186, 198 S.E. at 617

(emphasis added). The courts operated thusly for the next several decades: federal

courts generally excluded evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment,

while the courts of this state only excluded evidence when required by statute.

In 1949, the Supreme Court incorporated “the core of the Fourth Amendment”

into the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, rendering it “enforceable

against the States.” Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U.S. 25, 27–28, 69 S. Ct. 1359, 1361 (1949).

Simultaneously, however, the Supreme Court declined to incorporate the federal

5 “Any officer who shall sign and issue or cause to be signed and issued a search

warrant without first requiring the complainant or other person to sign an affidavit under oath and examining said person or complainant in regard thereto shall be guilty of a misdemeanor; and no facts discovered by reason of the issuance of such illegal search warrant shall be competent as evidence in the trial of any action.” An Act to Require All Peace Officers in the State of North Carolina to Give Bond for the Faithful Discharge of His or Her Duty, ch. 339, § 1½, 1937 N.C. Sess. Laws 670, 671 (codified at N.C. Code of 1943, § 15-27).

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exclusionary rule. Id. at 33, 69 S. Ct. at 1364. Thus, the status quo ante remained.

In 1951, the General Assembly amended section 15-27 to expand the statutory

exclusionary rule. The amendment provided that “no facts discovered or evidence

obtained without a legal search warrant in the course of any search, made under

conditions requiring the issuance of a search warrant, shall be competent as evidence

in the trial of any action.” An Act to Make Inadmissible in Evidence Any Facts

Discovered or Evidence Obtained in the Course of an Illegal Search, ch. 644, § 1, 1951

N.C. Sess. Laws 601, 601 (codified as amended at N.C. Code of 1943, § 15-27 (Cum.

Supp. 1951)).6

Ten years later, in Mapp v. Ohio, the Supreme Court incorporated the federal

exclusionary rule into the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause, “hold[ing]

that all evidence obtained by searches and seizures in violation of the [Federal]

Constitution is, by that same authority, inadmissible in a state court.” 367 U.S. 643,

6 In 1957, the General Assembly also enacted section 15-27.1, which provided:

The provision of this Article shall apply to search warrants issued for any purpose including those issued pursuant to the provisions of G.S. 18-13. No facts discovered or evidence obtained by reason of the issuance of an illegal search warrant or without a legal search warrant in the course of any search, made under conditions requiring a search warrant, shall be competent as evidence in the trial of any action. An Act Amending Article 4, Chapter 15 of the General Statutes Relating to the Issuance of Search Warrants and to the Competence of Evidence Obtained in Making Searches, ch. 496, § 1, 1957 N.C. Sess. Laws 460, 460 (codified at N.C.G.S. § 15-27.1 (1965)). It did so in response to decisions of this Court holding that section 15-27’s exclusionary rule was inapplicable to warrants issued under section 18-13. See, e.g., State v. Mock, 259 N.C. 501, 503–04, 130 S.E.2d 863, 865 (1963); State v. McLamb, 235 N.C. 251, 255–56, 69 S.E.2d 537, 540 (1952).

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655, 81 S. Ct. 1684, 1691 (1961). Thereafter, “the [S]tates [were] no longer free to

adopt or reject at will the exclusionary rule as a means of enforcing the Fourth

Amendment in state courts.” State v. Colson, 274 N.C. 295, 306, 163 S.E.2d 376, 384

(1968). As a matter of state law, evidence continued to be suppressed only under the

statutory exclusionary rule. See, e.g., id.; State v. Stevens, 264 N.C. 737, 740–41, 142

S.E.2d 588, 591–92 (1965).

About a decade after the Supreme Court’s decision in Mapp, however, this

Court began conflating the protections against unreasonable searches and seizures

of the state constitution with those of the Federal Constitution. Specifically, this

Court sometimes supported its statements that evidence resulting from

unconstitutional searches and seizures must be suppressed with bare citations to the

Fourth Amendment and Article I, Section 20 (or its predecessor). See State v. Reams,

277 N.C. 391, 395–96, 178 S.E.2d 65, 67–68 (1970) (providing no analysis of the state

constitution), overruled on other grounds by, State v. Worsley, 336 N.C. 268, 443

S.E.2d 68 (1994); State v. Small, 293 N.C. 646, 656, 239 S.E.2d 429, 436 (1977) (same).

Ostensibly, this Court recognized that, because the federal exclusionary rule now

applied to the States, the federal rule provided the functional baseline protection.

This Court did not independently analyze the meaning of our state constitution;

rather, in both cases, it simply lumped the state constitution in with the Federal

Constitution before ultimately determining that no unconstitutional searches or

seizures took place, meaning exclusion was unnecessary in any event. See Reams, 277

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N.C. at 395–400, 178 S.E.2d at 67–70; see also Small, 293 N.C. at 656, 239 S.E.2d at

436.

Throughout the 1970s, the General Assembly enacted sweeping reforms to the

criminal justice system. Among them, the legislature reworded the statutory

exclusionary rule and recodified it as section 15A-974. An Act to Amend the Laws

Relating to Pretrial Criminal Procedure, ch. 1286, § 1, 1973 N.C. Sess. Laws (2d Sess.

1974) 490, 543 (codified as amended at N.C.G.S. § 15A-974 (1975)). Pertinently, this

statutory exclusionary rule provided: “Upon timely motion, evidence must be

suppressed if: . . . . Its exclusion is required by the Constitution of the United States

or the Constitution of the State of North Carolina.” N.C.G.S. § 15A-974(1) (1975).7

This Court quickly identified, however, that if there is “no constitutionally mandated

7 The remainder of section 15A-974 provided:

Upon timely motion, evidence must be suppressed if: .... (2) It is obtained as a result of a substantial violation of the provisions of this Chapter. In determining whether a violation is substantial, the court must consider all the circumstances including:

a. The importance of the particular interest violated;

b. The extent of the deviation from lawful conduct;

c. The extent to which the violation was wilful [sic];

d. The extent to which exclusion will tend to deter future violations of this Chapter.

An Act to Amend the Laws Relating to Pretrial Criminal Procedure, ch. 1286, § 1, 1973 N.C. Sess. Laws (2d Sess. 1974) at 543 (codified as amended at N.C.G.S. § 15A-974 (1975)).

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exclusionary rule bar[ring] the admission of [evidence,] . . . [N.C.]G.S. § 15A-974(1)

does not require that [the evidence] be suppressed.” State v. Richardson, 295 N.C.

309, 322, 245 S.E.2d 754, 763 (1978).

As these developments were unfolding, the Supreme Court steadily

“abandoned the old, ‘reflexive’ application of [the exclusionary rule].” Davis, 564 U.S.

at 238, 131 S. Ct. at 2427. The Court began to “impose more rigorous weighing of the

[exclusionary rule’s] cost and deterrence benefits,” id., illustrating that the

exclusionary rule is a prudential, judicially created rule, see Herring v. United States,

555 U.S. 135, 139, 129 S. Ct. 695, 699 (2009) (“The Fourth Amendment . . . ‘contains

no provision expressly precluding the use of evidence obtained in violation of its

commands,’ . . . ” (quoting Arizona v. Evans, 514 U.S. 1, 10, 115 S. Ct. 1185, 1191

(1995)). This led to the recognition of several exceptions. See, e.g., Nix v. Williams,

467 U.S. 431, 104 S. Ct. 2501 (1984) (inevitable discovery doctrine).

Relevant here, in 1984, the Supreme Court adopted a good faith exception to

the federal exclusionary rule, allowing “evidence obtained in objectively reasonable

good faith reliance on a subsequently invalidated search warrant” to be admitted.

Leon, 468 U.S. at 922, 104 S. Ct. at 3420. The Court did so because of the “marginal

or nonexistent benefits produced by suppressing” such evidence. Id. And since, the

Supreme Court has “applied th[e] ‘good[ ]faith’ exception across a range of cases,”

including those involving “searches conducted in reasonable reliance on subsequently

invalidated statutes.” Davis, 564 U.S. at 238–39, 131 S. Ct. at 2428.

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Notably, the same year that the Supreme Court decided Leon, this Court

decided State v. Arrington. 311 N.C. 633, 319 S.E.2d 254 (1984). In that case, this

Court recognized that it had never held that an exclusionary rule arises out of Article

I, Section 20 of our state constitution, though some cases had so implied. Id. at

643–44, 319 S.E.2d at 261 (first citing Small, 293 N.C. 646, 239 S.E.2d 429, and then

citing Reams, 277 N.C. 391, 178 S.E.2d 65, and then citing Colson, 274 N.C. 295, 163

S.E.2d 376).

Four years after Leon and Arrington, however, this Court decided State v.

Carter. There this Court pronounced that our state constitution does contain an

exclusionary rule. Carter, 322 N.C. at 712, 370 S.E.2d at 555. Then this Court

considered and rejected the argument that state law independently included a good

faith exception to the state exclusionary rule. See id. at 710, 724, 370 S.E.2d at 554,

562. This Court’s rationale, however, was unclear. Although this Court novelly

pronounced that “[o]ur state constitution, like the Federal Constitution, requires the

exclusion of evidence obtained by unreasonable search and seizure,” id. at 712, 370

S.E.2d at 555, it also recognized that the state exclusionary rule was “public policy”

brought about by “statute rather than by judicial creation,” id. at 714, 718–19, 721,

723–24, 370 S.E.2d at 556, 559–62. This Court ultimately stated that “[i]f a good faith

exception is to be applied to this public policy, let it be done by the legislature, the

body politic responsible for the formation and expression of matters of public policy.”

Id.

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The decision in Carter left our state’s exclusionary rule and good faith

exception jurisprudence muddled and confused, engendering much legal debate.

Compare, e.g., Gore, 272 N.C. App. at 112–13, 846 S.E.2d at 304 (Dillon, J., concurring

in part & concurring in the result in part) (stating that “Carter . . . did not hold that

the absence of a good faith exception under state law . . . was a constitutional matter”

but rather was “a matter of public policy within the purview of our General

Assembly’s lawmaking authority”), with, e.g., State v. Smith, 124 N.C. App. 565, 576,

478 S.E.2d 237, 244 (1996) (“[U]nder North Carolina’s Constitution, no good faith

exception exists which might ‘save’ the fruits of a search made pursuant to an

invalidated warrant.” (citing Carter, 322 N.C. at 724, 370 S.E.2d at 562)). In 2011,

the General Assembly interjected and enacted Session Law 2011-6 to amend section

15A-974, as indicated by the underlined text quoted below:

The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:

SECTION 1: [N.C.]G.S. [§] 15A-974 reads as rewritten:

Ҥ 15A-974. Exclusion or suppression of unlawfully obtained evidence.

(a) Upon timely motion, evidence must be suppressed if:

(1) Its exclusion is required by the Constitution of the United States or the Constitution of the State of North Carolina; or

(2) It is obtained as a result of a substantial violation of the provisions of this Chapter. . . .

....

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Evidence shall not be suppressed under this subdivision if the person committing the violation of the provision or provisions under this Chapter acted under the objectively reasonable, good faith belief that the actions were lawful.

. . . .”

SECTION 2. The General Assembly respectfully requests that the North Carolina Supreme Court reconsider, and overrule, its holding in State v. Carter that the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule which exists under federal law does not apply under North Carolina State law.

An Act to Provide for the Adoption of the Good Faith Exception to the Exclusionary

Rule into State Law, S.L. 2011-6, §§ 1–2, 2011 N.C. Sess. Laws 10, 10–11 (underlining

changed to italics for “State v. Carter”).

C. Section 15A-974’s Good Faith Exception

With this background in mind, we are poised to analyze whether the good faith

exception under N.C.G.S. § 15A-974 applies. When construing section 15A-974, the

cardinal goal is to accomplish the intent of the legislature. See, e.g., State v. Jones,

359 N.C. 832, 835, 616 S.E.2d 496, 498 (2005). Like all statutes, section 15A-974 is

merely a codification of the underlying session law, which is the actual act of the

General Assembly. Therefore, “the statement of a legislative enactment contained in

the Session Laws is controlling over the statement codified in the General Statutes.”

Custom Molders, Inc. v. Am. Yard Prods., Inc., 342 N.C. 133, 137, 463 S.E.2d 199, 202

(1995). “[W]hen the language . . . is clear and unambiguous[,] there is no room for

judicial construction and the court must give the statute its plain and definite

-17- STATE V. ROGERS

meaning without superimposing provisions or limitations not contained within the

statute.” State v. Williams, 291 N.C. 442, 446, 230 S.E.2d 515, 517 (1976).

Section 15A-974 requires the exclusion of two kinds of evidence. Subdivision

15A-974(a)(1) compels the exclusion of evidence that must be excluded under the

Federal Constitution or the state constitution, whereas subdivision 15A-974(a)(2)

requires the exclusion of evidence that is obtained in “substantial violation of”

Chapter 15A’s various provisions. Although the last sentence of subsection

15A-974(a) unquestionably creates a good faith exception, the statute’s plain

language indicates that it applies only to evidence that must be excluded under

subdivision 15A-974(a)(2). This is because section 15A-974’s good faith exception

limits its scope to evidence obtained by a “person committing the violation of the

provision or provisions under [Chapter 15A].” N.C.G.S. § 15A-974(a)(2) (2023). This

directive correlates only to the evidence that must be excluded under subdivision

15A-974(a)(2). See id.

This interpretation is consistent with separation of powers. It shows that the

General Assembly recognized that if an exclusionary rule arises out of our state

constitution, only this Court could determine that such exclusionary rule has a good

faith exception. See Bayard v. Singleton, 1 N.C. (Mart.) 5, 6–7 (1787) (“[N]o act

th[e General Assembly] could pass[ ] could by any means repeal or alter the

constitution . . . .”). Thus, the General Assembly prescribed a good faith exception to

evidence that would otherwise be excluded because it was obtained in violation of

-18- STATE V. ROGERS

Chapter 15A’s provisions, but it did not—and indeed, could not—prescribe a good

faith exception to evidence that would be excluded pursuant to any exclusionary rule

arising out of our state constitution.

Here the Court of Appeals determined that defendant’s motion to suppress the

CSLI should have been allowed in accordance with subdivision 15A-974(a)(1) because

the CSLI was obtained in violation of defendant’s constitutional rights. Rogers, slip

op. at 22. The Court of Appeals did not conclude, and the parties do not contend, that

the CSLI was obtained as a result of substantial violations of Chapter 15A’s

provisions, thereby implicating subdivision 15A-974(a)(2). In fact, the Court of

Appeals determined that defendant procedurally waived any such argument. Rogers,

slip op. at 12. Thus, the good faith exception contained in subdivision 15A-974(a)(2)

cannot prevent the CSLI from being suppressed.

D. Suppression Analysis Under Subdivision 15A-974(a)(1)

As previously noted, though, the trial court denied defendant’s motion to

suppress, and the ultimate “inquiry for this Court is admissibility and whether the

ultimate ruling was supported by the evidence.” Austin, 320 N.C. at 290, 357 S.E.2d

at 650. Thus, we must decide whether the trial court was correct in denying

defendant’s motion to suppress. Id. Subdivision 15A-974(a)(1) requires trial courts to

suppress evidence only when “[i]ts exclusion is required by the Constitution of the

United States or the Constitution of the State of North Carolina.” N.C.G.S.

§ 15A-974(a)(1) (2023). After considering the parties’ briefs and the authorities

-19- STATE V. ROGERS

referenced therein, we conclude that neither the Federal Constitution nor the state

constitution required the exclusion of CSLI here. In conducting our analysis, we

accept the General Assembly’s request to “reconsider” Carter and clarify our

jurisprudence regarding Article I, Section 20 of our state constitution. See S.L.

2011-6, § 2, 2011 N.C. Sess. Laws at 10–11.

1. The Federal Constitution

We first consider whether the Federal Constitution requires exclusion of the

CSLI. We note that although subdivision 15A-974(a)(1) expressly requires courts to

consider whether the evidence’s “exclusion is required by the Constitution of the

United States,” N.C.G.S. § 15A-974(a)(1) (2023), courts would do so regardless of a

statutory provision. This is because the Fourth Amendment and the attendant

federal exclusionary rule have been incorporated into the Fourteenth Amendment’s

Due Process Clause and rendered applicable to the States. And in our system of dual

sovereignty, “[e]ven when a state constitutional provision provides less protection

than a parallel federal provision, . . . [state courts] must nevertheless apply the

Federal Constitution’s protections.” State v. Tirado, 387 N.C. 104, 112, 911 S.E.2d 51,

59 (2025). Indeed, because the Federal Constitution is “the supreme law of the land,

the rights it guarantees must be applied to every citizen by the courts of North

Carolina, so no citizen will be accorded lesser rights no matter how we construe the

state constitution.” Id. (quoting State v. Jackson, 348 N.C. 644, 648, 503 S.E.2d 101,

103 (1998)) (citation modified). In other words, North Carolina’s courts “must ensure

-20- STATE V. ROGERS

that the Federal Constitution’s protections are given full effect regardless of how [this

Court] construe[s] the state constitution.” Id. at 128, 911 S.E.2d at 69.

The Fourth Amendment provides:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

U.S. Const. amend. IV. As discussed, “[t]he Fourth Amendment . . . ‘contains no

provision expressly precluding the use of evidence obtained in violation of its

commands.’ ” Herring, 555 U.S. at 139, 129 S. Ct. at 699 (quoting Evans, 514 U.S. at

10, 115 S. Ct. at 1191). Yet the Supreme Court applies a judicially created

exclusionary rule that, “when applicable, forbids the use of improperly obtained

evidence at trial.” Id. at 139, 129 S. Ct. at 699 (emphasis added) (citing Weeks, 232

U.S. at 398, 34 S. Ct. at 346).

This federal “exclusionary rule is not an individual right and applies only

where it ‘result[s] in appreciable deterrence’ ” of police misconduct. Id. at 141, 129 S.

Ct. at 700 (alteration in original) (emphasis added) (quoting Leon, 468 U.S. at 909,

104 S. Ct. at 3413); see also State v. Julius, 385 N.C. 331, 341, 892 S.E.2d 854, 862

(2023) (“ ‘[T]he exclusionary rule serves to deter deliberate, reckless, or grossly

negligent conduct, or in some circumstances recurring or systemic negligence’ by law

enforcement.” (quoting Herring, 555 U.S. at 144, 129 S. Ct. at 702)). Thus, the

Supreme Court has not held rigidly to its exclusionary rule, applying it only “where

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its remedial objectives are thought most efficaciously served” and creating several

exceptions. United States v. Calandra, 414 U.S. 338, 348, 94 S. Ct. 613, 620 (1974).

The good faith exception allows “evidence obtained by officers acting in

reasonable reliance on a search warrant issued by a detached and neutral magistrate

but ultimately found to be unsupported by probable cause” to “be use[d] in the

prosecution’s case in chief.” Leon, 468 U.S. at 900, 104 S. Ct. at 3409; accord State v.

Welch, 316 N.C. 578, 588, 342 S.E.2d 789, 794 (1986). The Supreme Court adopted

the good faith exception because “where the officer’s conduct is objectively

reasonable, . . . [e]xcluding the evidence can in no way affect his future conduct unless

it is to make him less willing to do his duty.” Leon, 468 U.S. at 919–20, 104 S. Ct. at

3419 (quoting Stone v. Powell, 428 U.S. 465, 539–40, 96 S. Ct. 3037, 3073–74 (1976)

(White, J., dissenting)). And “when an officer acting with objective good faith has

obtained a search warrant from a judge or magistrate and acted within its scope[,]

[i]n most such cases, there is no police illegality and thus nothing to deter.” Id. at

920–21, 104 S. Ct. at 3419; see also id. at 921, 104 S. Ct. at 3419 (“In the ordinary

case, an officer cannot be expected to question the magistrate's probable-cause

determination or his judgment that the form of the warrant is technically sufficient.

‘Once the warrant issues, there is literally nothing more the policeman can do in

seeking to comply with the law.’ ” (quoting Stone, 428 U.S. at 498, 96 S. Ct. at 3054

(Burger, C.J., concurring)). Thus, the Fourth Amendment does not usually require

evidence obtained pursuant to a subsequently invalidated warrant to be excluded.

-22- STATE V. ROGERS

Notably, courts have extended the good faith exception to other forms of judicial

authorization, not just warrants. For example, this Court has extended the federal

good faith exception to cover an officer’s objectively reasonable reliance on the trial

court’s issuance of a nontestimonial identification order that is subsequently

invalidated. See Welch, 316 N.C. at 589, 342 S.E.2d at 795.

The good faith exception, however, is ultimately premised on whether law

enforcement’s reliance on judicial authorization was objectively reasonable.

See Herring, 555 U.S. at 142, 129 S. Ct. at 701 (“We (perhaps confusingly) called this

objectively reasonable reliance ‘good faith.’ ”). And although “ ‘a warrant issued by a

magistrate normally suffices to establish’ that a law enforcement officer has ‘acted in

good faith in conducting the search,’ ” Leon, 468 U.S. at 922, 104 S. Ct. at 3420

(quoting United States v. Ross, 456 U.S. 798 823 n.32, 102 S. Ct. 2157, 2172 n.32

(1982)), there are some instances when reliance on judicial authorization will not be

objectively reasonable, see id. at 923, 104 S. Ct. at 3421. An officer’s reliance would

not be objectively reasonable, and suppression would be required, if (1) the officer

gave the judge or magistrate information he “knew was false or would have known

was false except for his reckless disregard of the truth”; (2) “the issuing magistrate

wholly abandoned his judicial role” as a neutral and detached arbiter; (3) the officer’s

affidavit was “so lacking in indicia of probable cause as to render official belief in its

existence entirely unreasonable”; and/or (4) a warrant is “so facially deficient . . . that

the executing officers cannot reasonably presume it to be valid” (i.e., it “fail[s] to

-23- STATE V. ROGERS

particularize the place to be searched or the things to be seized”). Id. (first citing

Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154, 164–65, 171–72, 98 S. Ct. 2674, 2681, 2684–85

(1978), then citing Lo-Ji Sales, Inc. v. New York, 442 U.S. 319, 326–27, 99 S. Ct. 2319,

2324–25 (1979), then citing Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 610–11, 95 S. Ct. 2254,

2265–66 (1975) (Powell, J., concurring in part), and then citing Massachusetts v.

Sheppard, 468 U.S. 981, 988–91, 104 S. Ct. 3424, 3428–30 (1984)).

In this analysis, “[t]he suppression of evidence should ‘always be[ ] our last

resort, not our first impulse.’ ” Julius, 385 N.C. at 341, 892 S.E.2d at 862 (alteration

in original) (quoting Hudson v. Michigan, 547 U.S. 586, 591, 126 S. Ct. 2159, 2163

(2006)). After all, the exclusionary rule exacts “substantial social costs,” namely,

“imped[ing] . . . the truth-finding functions of judge and jury,” and permitting “some

guilty defendants [to] go free or receive reduced sentences as a result of favorable plea

bargains.” Leon, 468 U.S. at 907, 104 S. Ct. at 3412 (quoting in part United States v.

Payner, 447 U.S. 727, 734, 100 S. Ct. 2349, 2445 (1980)). We are also guided by the

Supreme Court’s admonition that “[s]earches pursuant to a warrant will rarely

require any deep inquiry into reasonableness.” Id. at 922, 104 S. Ct. at 3420 (quoting

Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S 213, 267, 103 S. Ct. 2317, 2347 (1983) (White, J., concurring

in judgment)).

The State contends that Detective Wenk’s reliance on the Section 2703(d)

Order to obtain the CSLI data was objectively reasonable, bringing the challenged

evidence within the good faith exception. Defendant, however, maintains that even if

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we apply the good faith exception analysis to the facts of this case, the exception does

not apply here because it was objectively unreasonable for the officers to rely on the

order. We agree with the State.

Detective Wenk had been investigating allegations of cocaine trafficking and

had spoken with a confidential source before he applied for the Section 2703(d) Order.

Seeking to investigate the allegations further, Detective Wenk applied to the trial

court for permission to, inter alia, monitor the disputed CSLI. His application

included all the statutorily required information. See N.C.G.S. § 15A-262(b)(1)–(2)

(2023); 18 U.S.C. § 2703(d). Detective Wenk included an affidavit that cataloged the

information he had learned to that point, specifically including the information from

the confidential source regarding defendant’s cocaine trafficking and distribution

operation and trips to California. On that basis, the trial court determined there was

probable cause and granted Detective Wenk’s application. Detective Wenk, in

reliance upon the Section 2703(d) Order, then monitored defendant’s CSLI as

permitted.

Following the trial court’s ruling, it was not Detective Wenk’s responsibility to

second-guess the trial court’s probable cause determination or the Section 2703(d)

Order’s legal sufficiency.8 Furthermore, defendant does not allege that Detective

Wenk acted in bad faith, such as by providing the trial court knowingly false

8 Unlike panels of judges sitting on appeal, a police officer is not expected to conduct

a thorough legal analysis to review whether a trial court has correctly determined that there was probable cause to search based upon information that the officer himself provided.

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information, nor does defendant suggest that the trial court “wholly abandoned [its]

judicial role.”

At most, defendant maintains that the good faith exception cannot apply here

because Detective Wenk’s application and affidavit were “bare bones,” meaning they

were “so lacking in indicia of probable cause” that the Section 2703(d) Order was “ ‘so

facially deficient’ that reliance upon it was not reasonable.” Defendant mistakenly

blends several of Leon’s limitations on the good faith exception. Nevertheless, we

disagree with defendant’s underlying premises.

First, the Section 2703(d) Order was not “facially deficient” as meant in Leon.

The Supreme Court used “facially deficient” to describe a warrant that did not

particularly describe the place to be searched or the thing to be seized. Here, however,

the Section 2703(d) Order clearly identified what was to be searched—CSLI related

to defendant’s cell phone. Second, Detective Wenk’s affidavit was not “bare bones,”

and it was not “so lacking . . . as to render official belief in [probable cause’s] existence

entirely unreasonable.” Leon, 468 U.S. at 923, 104 S. Ct. at 3421 (emphasis added)

(quoting Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 610–11, 95 S. Ct. 2254, 2265 (1975)

(Powell, J., concurring in part)); cf. United States v. Perez, 393 F.3d 457, 462 (4th Cir.

2004) (concluding that an officer’s reliance on a warrant “was objectively reasonable”

even though “the information supplied . . . within the four corners of his affidavit le[ft]

much to be desired” by failing to clarify the informant’s identity, whether he was

known, and the basis for his reliability and credibility).

-26- STATE V. ROGERS

Ultimately, Detective Wenk did his job; he investigated, presented the known

information, and requested permission from a neutral, detached judge to search

defendant’s CSLI, receiving permission to do so. Although the Court of Appeals

subsequently ruled that the affidavit was insufficient to establish the requisite

probable cause, it was not incumbent upon Detective Wenk to forecast the legal

intricacies that would ultimately determine the order’s legality.

Our decision in this regard is like that in Welch. There a trial court issued a

nontestimonial identification order under Chapter 15A that a law enforcement officer

relied on to draw the defendant’s blood. Welch, 316 N.C. at 584–85, 589, 342 S.E.2d

at 792–93, 795. This Court ultimately determined that the blood draw violated the

Fourth Amendment, but it nevertheless noted that the officer

went before a superior court judge, a “detached and neutral magistrate,” who issued a nontestimonial identification order based on an affidavit that set forth facts establishing (1) probable cause to believe that an offense punishable by imprisonment for more than one year had been committed, (2) reasonable grounds to suspect that the defendant[ ] committed the offense, and (3) [that] the results will materially aid in determining whether the person committed the offense [as required under N.C.G.S. § 15A-273 (1973)].

Id. at 589, 342 S.E.2d at 795. This Court therefore “decline[d] to apply the

exclusionary rule to this good[ ]faith violation of the [F]ourth [A]mendment” because

“the officer reasonably relied on the order that was issued by the judge” and “took

every reasonable step to comport with [F]ourth [A]mendment requirements.” Id.

Like the situation in Welch, it was objectively reasonable for Detective Wenk

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to rely on the trial court’s determination in the Section 2703(d) Order that there was

probable cause to collect the CSLI. Excluding the evidence here would not

meaningfully deter police misconduct because there was no such misconduct.

Detective Wenk followed proper steps to obtain the Section 2703(d) Order—he

submitted an application and affidavit to the trial court, then reasonably believed

that the trial court’s granting the Section 2703(d) Order deemed it legally sufficient.

Thus, “[t]o apply the [exclusionary] rule here would not serve to discourage police

misconduct and would only defeat justice for no good reason.” Id. at 589, 342 S.E.2d

at 792–93. We therefore hold Detective Wenk’s reliance on the Section 2703(d) Order

to be reasonable, and the evidence obtained therefrom to be covered by the federal

good faith exception. Accordingly, the CSLI’s exclusion is not “required by the

Constitution of the United States,” N.C.G.S. § 15A-974(a)(1) (2023), so subdivision

15A-974(a)(1) does not compel the exclusion of the CSLI on that basis.

2. The State Constitution

Having determined that the Federal Constitution does not compel exclusion of

the CSLI, we now turn to the state constitution. See N.C.G.S. § 15A-974(a)(1) (2023).

“Every [state] constitutional inquiry examines the text of the relevant provision, the

historical context in which the people of North Carolina enacted it, and this Court’s

precedents interpreting it.” Tirado, 387 N.C. at 115, 911 S.E.2d at 61. We start with

the plain language of the text because “[t]he people used that plain language to

express their intended meaning of the text when they adopted it.” Id. at 115–16, 911

-28- STATE V. ROGERS

S.E.2d at 61 (quoting Harper v. Hall, 384 N.C. 292, 297, 886 S.E.2d 393, 399 (2023)).

“Where the meaning is clear from the words used, we will not search for a meaning

elsewhere.” Cmty. Success Initiative v. Moore, 384 N.C. 194, 213, 886 S.E.2d 16, 33

(2023) (citation modified). We then use “the historical background against which the

people enacted the constitutional text . . . to isolate the provision’s meaning at the

time of ratification.” Tirado, 387 N.C. at 116, 911 S.E.2d at 61 (citation modified).

Finally, our inquiry is supplemented with “any on-point precedents from this Court

interpreting the provision.” Id. (quoting Cmty. Success, 384 N.C. at 213, 886 S.E.2d

at 33).

In Article I, Section 20, the people of North Carolina declared: “General

warrants, whereby any officer or other person may be commanded to search suspected

places without evidence of the act committed, or to seize any person or persons not

named, whose offense is not particularly described and supported by evidence, are

dangerous to liberty and shall not be granted.” N.C. Const. art. I, § 20. This provision

has appeared in every version of our constitution with little alteration to the text.9

9 Compare N.C. Const. art. I, § 20, with N.C. Const. of 1868, amends. of 1875, art. I,

§ 15 (“General warrants, whereby any officer or messenger may be commanded to search suspected places without evidence of the act committed, or to seize any person or persons not named, whose offence is not particularly described and supported by evidence, are dangerous to liberty and ought not to be granted.”), and N.C. Const. of 1868, art. I, § 15 (same), and N.C. Const. of 1776, amends. of 1835, Declaration of Rights, § 11 (“That general warrants, whereby any officer or messenger may be commanded to search suspected places, without evidence of the fact committed, or to seize any person or persons not named, whose offence is not particularly described and supported by evidence, are dangerous to liberty, and ought not to be granted.”), and N.C. Const. of 1776, Declaration of Rights, § XI (same except for differences in spelling and capitalization).

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Article I, Section 20’s plain text prohibits “general warrants,” and it specifically

identifies two kinds of warrants: “warrants to search suspected places and warrants

to arrest (‘to seize’) a person or persons.” John V. Orth & Paul Martin Newby, The

North Carolina State Constitution 73 (2d ed. 2013) [hereinafter State Constitution].

In the context of search warrants, Article I, Section 20 defines a general warrant as

one “without evidence of the act committed.” N.C. Const. art. I, § 20. In the context of

arrest warrants, it defines a general warrant as one in which the “person [is] . . . not

named” and the “offense is not particularly described and supported by evidence.” Id.

Thus, general warrants are “warrants that are not supported by evidence and that

do not name names.” Hilton, 378 N.C. at 713, 862 S.E.2d at 821 (quoting State

Constitution 73).

“[T]he ban on general warrants reflect[ed] the colonial experiences with abuses

of the procedures of criminal investigation by the authorities.” Id. at 713–14, 862

S.E.2d at 821 (quoting State Constitution 73). “[I]ndiscriminate searches and arrests”

authorized by general warrants “disturb[ed] the routines of ordinary life and

instill[ed] fear of the forces of law and order.” State Constitution 73. Thus, the people

required their state government to use specific warrants to investigate crimes. Id.

As we have discussed, however, Article I, Section 20 does not provide what is

to be done with evidence that has been obtained in violation of its provisions.

See Garner, 331 N.C. at 506, 417 S.E.2d at 510. Thus, as a matter of the constitutional

text, Article I, Section 20 does not require exclusion of such evidence at trial.

-30- STATE V. ROGERS

History and precedent confirm this textual conclusion. Indeed, for the first 161

years of our statehood, our courts did not apply an exclusionary rule to evidence

obtained by unconstitutional searches and seizures. See, e.g., McGee, 214 N.C. at 185,

198 S.E. at 616–17. In fact, despite the appearance of Article I, Section 20’s virtually

identical predecessors in every iteration of the state constitution, this Court expressly

disallowed the exclusion of competent, relevant evidence solely because it was

obtained in violation of the state constitution. See id. (collecting cases). And although

the General Assembly enacted a statutory exclusionary rule in 1937, this Court

clarified that the statute was “a modification, and not an abrogation, of the common

law rule,” refusing to “give[ ] [it] . . . force and effect” beyond its terms. Id. at 186, 198

S.E. at 617. In other words, this Court would only exclude evidence to the extent

required by statute; otherwise, the traditional rule continued uninterrupted. See id.;

see also Vanhoy, 230 N.C. at 164–65, 52 S.E.2d at 280; State v. Rhodes, 233 N.C. 453,

455, 64 S.E.2d 287, 289 (1951). Even following later amendments, this Court

continued to recognize the exclusionary rule only as a matter of statute. See, e.g.,

Colson, 274 N.C. at 306, 163 S.E.2d at 384; Stevens, 264 N.C. at 741, 142 S.E.2d at

592; Richardson, 295 N.C. at 322, 245 S.E.2d at 763.

In 1968, after the Supreme Court decided Mapp, this Court decided State v.

Colson. In Colson, a criminal defendant argued that evidence should have been

excluded from trial because it was taken in violation of the Federal Constitution and

our state constitution. 274 N.C. at 305, 163 S.E.2d at 383. This Court, however, did

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not analyze whether any exclusionary rule arises out of our state constitution.

Instead, this Court discussed the history of the exclusionary rule, including the

Supreme Court’s pronouncement that the federal exclusionary rule arising out of the

Fourth Amendment applies to the States. Id. at 305–06, 163 S.E.2d at 383–84

(discussing Mapp, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S. Ct. 1684). This Court then likened the federal

exclusionary rule to our state statutory exclusionary rule. Id. at 306, 163 S.E.2d at

384.

But in the years following Colson, this Court began to sow seeds of confusion

into our constitutional criminal procedure jurisprudence. See Reams, 277 N.C. at

395–96, 178 S.E.2d at 67–68; Small, 293 N.C. at 656, 239 S.E.2d at 436. This Court,

without any constitutional analysis, simply cited the state constitution, the Federal

Constitution, and Colson to state that “evidence obtained by an unreasonable search

and seizure is inadmissible.” Reams, 277 N.C. at 395, 178 S.E.2d at 67; Small, 293

N.C. at 656, 239 S.E.2d at 436 (capitalization modified).10 It is notable that, in each

case, this Court cited both the Fourth Amendment to the Federal Constitution and

Article I, Section 20 (or its predecessor) of our state constitution. This Court went on

to decide in both cases that no unconstitutional search or seizure took place; thus, the

exclusionary rule was not implicated in either case. Reams, 277 N.C. at 395–400, 178

S.E.2d at 67–70; Small, 293 N.C. at 656, 239 S.E.2d at 436.

10 In Reams, this Court also cited Mapp and section 15-27. 277 N.C. at 395, 178 S.E.2d

at 67.

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Then in 1984, when presented with the question of whether an exclusionary

rule arises out of Article I, Section 20, this Court stated:

[A]pplication of the totality of circumstances test leads us to hold that there was a substantial basis for the finding of probable cause in the present case. Therefore, we need not consider or decide whether the guarantees against unreasonable searches and seizures in Article [I], Section 20 of the Constitution of North Carolina require the exclusion of evidence seized under a search warrant not supported by probable cause. See, e.g., State v. Small, 293 N.C. 646, 239 S.E.[2d] 429 (1977) (implying an exclusionary rule arising from Article [I], Section 20); State v. Reams, 277 N.C. 391, 178 S.E.[2d] 65 (1970) (same); State v. Colson, 274 N.C. 295, 163 S.E.[2d] 376 (1968) (same).

Arrington, 311 N.C. at 643–44, 319 S.E.2d at 261. This quote and the accompanying

citations show that, as of 1984, there was an implication that an exclusionary rule

arises out of Article I, Section 20, though the issue had never been decided.

Four years later, however, this Court announced for the first time that Article

I, Section 20 contains an exclusionary rule. Carter, 322 N.C. at 710, 712, 723–24, 370

S.E.2d at 554–55, 561–62. In Carter, this Court simply proclaimed, without

explanation, that Article I, Section 20 “requires the exclusion of evidence obtained by

unreasonable search and seizure.” Id. at 712, 370 S.E.2d at 555 (first citing Reams,

277 N.C. at 395, 178 S.E.2d at 67, and then citing Colson, 274 N.C. 295, 163 S.E.2d

376). After doing so, this Court analyzed whether this theretofore unknown

constitutional exclusionary rule contained a good faith exception, concluding that it

did not. Id. at 724, 370 S.E.2d at 562.

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As an initial note, we observe that Carter’s proclamation that an exclusionary

rule arises out of Article I, Section 20 is dubious. Indeed, Carter is a confused opinion.

This Court began by misunderstanding two of the Court’s prior decisions: State v.

Reams and State v. Colson. Specifically, this Court cited to Reams and Colson to

proclaim “[o]ur state constitution, like the Federal Constitution, requires the

exclusion of evidence obtained by unreasonable search and seizure.” Carter, 322 N.C.

at 712, 370 S.E.2d at 555. Neither of these decisions, however, supports the

proposition that an exclusionary rule stems from Article I, Section 20 (or its

predecessors). In Reams, this Court did nothing more than state “evidence obtained

by unreasonable search and seizure is inadmissible” and lump Article I, Section 20

into a string citation alongside section 15-27 and federal authorities, including the

Fourth Amendment. 277 N.C. at 395, 178 S.E.2d at 67.11 Similarly, although in

Colson this Court stated that “the [S]tates are no longer free to adopt or reject at will

the exclusionary rule as a means of enforcing the Fourth Amendment in state courts,”

274 N.C. at 306, 163 S.E.2d at 384 (emphasis added), this Court did not imply that

the state constitution had an analogous exclusionary rule. To the contrary, this Court

specifically observed that “[t]he federal exclusionary rule enunciated in Weeks became

statutory law in North Carolina long before Mapp by enactment.” Id. (emphases

added).

Additionally, Carter’s unprecedented pronouncement that an exclusionary rule

11 Any reliance on Small would be misplaced for the same reasons.

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arises out of Article I, Section 20 is undermined by the opinion itself, wherein this

Court counterintuitively acknowledged throughout that any state exclusionary rule

was the creature of statute, not of the state constitution. For instance, this Court

remarked that, in reference to the enactment of section 15-27, North Carolina’s

exclusionary rule was “[the State’s] expressed public policy since 1937.” Carter, 322

N.C. at 714, 370 S.E.2d at 556 (emphasis added); see also id. at 719, 721, 723, 370

S.E.2d at 559, 560, 561 (similar). The Court later observed that “North Carolina was

among a handful of [S]tates that adopted an exclusionary rule by statute rather than

by judicial creation.” Id. at 719, 370 S.E.2d at 559 (emphasis added). These

concessions further support the conclusion that, in Carter, this Court incorrectly

stated that Article I, Section 20 compels the exclusion of evidence obtained in

violation of its terms.

Then, when concluding that there was no good faith exception to Article I,

Section 20’s exclusionary rule, this Court remarkably proclaimed that it was the

General Assembly’s responsibility to adopt any such exception, observing that such a

determination should “be done by the legislature, the body politic responsible for the

formation and expression of matters of public policy.” Id. at 724, 370 S.E.2d at 562.

This proclamation reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of our constitutional

framework. If a state exclusionary rule were of constitutional pedigree, “no act

th[e General Assembly] could pass[ ] could by any means repeal or alter” it. Bayard,

1 N.C. (Mart.) at 6–7. This is because the state constitution, as the fundamental law

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of the land, prevails over inconsistent acts of the legislature. See id. Moreover, the

General Assembly may not dictate this Court’s interpretation of the state

constitution. See id.; cf. City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U.S. 507, 519, 117 S. Ct. 2157,

2164 (1997) (“Congress does not enforce a constitutional right by changing what the

right is.”).12 Thus, it would have been legally impossible for the General Assembly to

legislatively enact a good faith exception to any state constitutional exclusionary rule.

This internal inconsistency further underscores Carter’s lack of persuasiveness.

In addition to this crucial internal inconsistency, the most fundamental error

on the part of this Court in Carter is that, in announcing the existence of an

exclusionary rule in our state constitution and determining that such rule did not

contain a good faith exception, this Court did not evaluate Article I, Section 20’s text,

consider the historical context, or reconcile itself with precedents expressly

disclaiming any exclusionary rule other than as provided by statute. See id. at 712,

370 S.E.2d at 555. As we have explained, all three factors indicate that our

constitution does not express an exclusionary rule. Thus, this Court’s novel

proclamation in Carter that an exclusionary rule arises under Article I, Section 20

appears untenable.

What is more, in decisions in Carter’s aftermath, this Court began to

circumscribe it. For example, in State v. Garner, this Court acknowledged Carter’s

12 Of course, the General Assembly may initiate the amendment of the state constitution in compliance with Article XIII, Section 4.

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proclamation that the state constitution includes an exclusionary rule. 331 N.C. at

505–06, 417 S.E.2d at 510. Yet the Court noted that “there is no provision in our

[s]tate [c]onstitution which explicitly calls for the exclusionary rule,” id. at 504, 417

S.E.2d at 509 (acknowledging the defendant’s concession to this effect), and we

decisively rejected the defendant’s argument that Article I, Section 20 “calls for

‘broader’ protection than that of the Fourth Amendment,” id.; see also id. at 506, 417

S.E.2d at 510. This Court stated that “it is abundantly clear that the language of this

provision of our [c]onstitution, relating entirely to ‘general warrants[ ]’ of the past

(while still relevant to protect against any recurrence of the historic abuses specified),

should not be viewed as a vehicle for any inventive expansion of our law.” Id. at 506,

417 S.E.2d at 510 (emphasis added). Garner thus recognized that Carter’s declaration

of a state constitutional exclusionary rule lacked a basis in the constitutional text,

and it expressly declared instead that this Court would not use Article I, Section 20

to provide criminal defendants more protection than the Fourth Amendment, thereby

isolating Carter.

For all these reasons, Carter is expressly overruled. Without Carter, our

precedent only implies that an exclusionary rule arises from Article I, Section 20,

though it has never been formally decided. See Arrington, 311 N.C. at 643–44, 319

S.E.2d at 261. The parties, however, did not request this Court to consider whether

an exclusionary rule arises out of Article I, Section 20. The parties have only briefed

whether any exclusionary rule arising under Article I, Section 20 contains a good

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faith exception. Therefore, because we are not presented with the issue, we assume

without deciding that an exclusionary rule arises from Article I, Section 20 of our

state constitution. We leave that issue for a future case.

With that, we are left to decide whether any exclusionary rule arising under

Article I, Section 20 contains a good faith exception. The State asks us to adopt a good

faith exception in line with the federal good faith exception. While “we interpret the

North Carolina Constitution independently of the United States Supreme Court’s

interpretation of the Federal Constitution,” Tirado, 387 N.C. at 112, 911 S.E.2d at 59

(citing Holmes v. Moore, 384 N.C. 426, 437, 886 S.E.2d 120, 130 (2023)), we are

persuaded by the reasoning articulated by the Supreme Court for adopting a federal

good faith exception in Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 104 S. Ct. 3405. After all, when

“[c]onsidering the precise wording of Article I, Section 20, we find no support . . . that

the ‘text’ itself calls for ‘broader’ protection than that of the Fourth

Amendment.” Garner, 331 N.C. at 506, 417 S.E.2d at 510. Thus, we adopt the

Supreme Court’s reasoning in Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 104 S. Ct. 3405, to hold that there

is a good faith exception to any exclusionary rule arising from Article I, Section 20 of

our state constitution equivalent to the federal good faith exception to the

exclusionary rule arising out of the Fourth Amendment.

Finally, we apply our state good faith exception to the facts of this case. We

have already determined that the federal good faith exception applies here.

Therefore, our state good faith exception, being equivalent to the federal good faith

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exception, also applies. Accordingly, the exclusion of the CSLI is not “required by . . .

the Constitution of the State of North Carolina,” N.C.G.S. § 15A-974(a)(1) (2023),

meaning subdivision 15A-974(a)(1) does not compel exclusion of the CSLI on that

basis, see Richardson, 295 N.C. at 322, 245 S.E.2d at 763.

III. Conclusion

In sum, section 15A-974’s good faith exception applies only to evidence

obtained in substantial violation of Chapter 15A’s provisions. Thus, section 15A-974’s

good faith exception does not spare the CSLI from suppression in this instance.

Nevertheless, we conclude that the trial court correctly denied defendant’s motion to

suppress because neither the United States Constitution nor the North Carolina

Constitution require the exclusion of the CSLI. We accordingly reverse the decision

of the Court of Appeals.

REVERSED.

Justice DIETZ did not participate in the consideration or decision of this case.

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Earls, J., dissenting

Justice EARLS dissenting.

The exclusionary rule embodies “a more majestic conception” of constitutional

protections—one that “restrains the sovereign itself” and ensures that constitutional

“prohibitions are observed in fact.” Herring v. United States, 555 U.S. 135, 157 (2009)

(Ginsburg, J., dissenting). The principles State v. Carter, 322 N.C. 709 (1988),

embraced—judicial integrity, a constitutional right to a remedy, and a deterrence

model focused on shaping institutional behavior—are no less vital now than they

were in 1988 and in the decades since. This Court should stand by them. I would

reaffirm Carter and its progeny and hold that Article I, Section 20 requires exclusion

of unconstitutionally obtained evidence with no good faith exception. I respectfully

dissent.

I. Carter and North Carolina’s Exclusionary Rule

In basic terms, the state constitutional exclusionary rule prevents the state

from using evidence it obtained unlawfully against those accused of a crime in a court

of law. Nearly forty years ago, this Court in State v. Carter, rooted the state

exclusionary rule in three complementary principles: deterring police misconduct,

safeguarding judicial integrity, and ensuring that every right indeed has a remedy.

A court, we said, cannot hand down the law while profiting from its breach. On that

view, we declined to graft a good-faith exception onto the exclusionary rule. These

fundamental principles still emanate from Article I, Section 20 and are grounds to

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maintain Carter’s vitality.

Start with the hallmark constitutional value of judicial integrity. Courts are

not merely passive arbiters—they are co-equal branches of government bound by the

same constitutional constraints that limit the executive and legislative branches.

Justice Brandeis captured this principle powerfully:

Decency, security, and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, the omnipresent, teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example.

Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 485 (1928) (Brandeis, J., dissenting),

overruled by Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 352–53 (1967).

Carter embraced this understanding: “The preservation of the right to be

protected from unreasonable search and seizure guaranteed by our state constitution

demands that the courts of this state not condone violations thereof by admitting the

fruits of illegal searches into evidence.” Carter, 322 N.C. at 719. We recognized that

courts cannot maintain their legitimacy while profiting from constitutional

violations. As Justice Day wrote in Weeks v. United States:

The tendency of those who execute the criminal laws of the country to obtain conviction by means of unlawful seizures . . . should find no sanction in the judgments of the courts, which are charged at all times with the support of the Constitution, and to which people of all conditions have a right to appeal for the maintenance of such fundamental rights.

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232 U.S. 383, 392 (1914).

Judicial integrity is not some abstract aspiration—it is fundamental to the

separation of powers and the rule of law embedded in our constitutional structure.

Article IV, Section 1 of our state’s constitution vests “[t]he judicial power of the State”

in the courts. When courts admit evidence obtained through constitutional violations,

they exercise judicial power in furtherance of executive branch lawlessness. This

makes the judiciary complicit in constitutional violations, undermining the very

separation of powers the constitution establishes.

Moreover, extensive evidence supports that judicial integrity matters to

constitutional legitimacy. The North Carolina Code of Judicial Conduct’s first canon

requires judges to “uphold the integrity . . . of the judiciary.” Recent cases from this

Court emphasize this foundational principle: In re Clontz, 376 N.C. 128, 142 (2020)

(reprimanding conduct that “undermines public faith and confidence in the

judiciary”); Harper v. Hall, 384 N.C. 292, 373 (2023) (observing that a court’s

authority “ultimately rests on sustained public confidence in its moral sanction”).

Compellingly too, empirical evidence shows that the exclusionary rule serves

judicial integrity while the good faith exception undermines it. One study measured

public perceptions of judicial integrity and found that participants in the United

States had 62.47% confidence in courts when the exclusionary rule applied compared

to only 46.49% confidence when it did not apply. Matthew D. Kim, The Exclusionary

Rule and Judicial Integrity: An Empirical Study of Public Perceptions of the

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Exclusionary Rule, 87 Mo. L. Rev. 1061, 1099 (2022). The study found that the good

faith exception reduced public confidence by 7.97%. Id. at 1101. Thus it found

empirical evidence of “a resounding endorsement of the exclusionary rule on the basis

that it promotes judicial integrity. The exclusionary rule is effective in promoting

judicial integrity, and it should be applied more broadly, not more narrowly.” Id. at

114. Thus this underpinning of Carter’s reasoning continues to hold purchase—and a

good faith exception only undermines these foundational values.

Carter also correctly linked the exclusionary rule to Article I, Section 18’s

guarantee that “every person for an injury done him in his lands, goods, person, or

reputation shall have remedy by due course of law.” This open courts provision traces

to the Magna Carta—to King John’s pledge to his barons that, “To no one will we sell,

to no one will we deny or delay right or justice.” John V. Orth & Paul Martin Newby,

The North Carolina State Constitution 65 (2d ed. 2013).

The right to a remedy is central to that design. As Sir Edmund Coke explained

in the seventeenth century, open courts mean little if they do not redress wrongs. The

word “injury” in Section 18, drawn from the common-law concept of injuria, includes

the violation of legal rights—constitutional rights among them. See Comm. to Elect

Dan Forest v. Emps. Pol. Action Comm., 376 N.C. 558, 607 (2021).

The violation of Section 20 through an unlawful search constitutes a legal

injury that demands redress. As Carter recognized, alternative remedies like civil

suits against officers are ineffective in practice: “In the period of history between

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Weeks and Mapp, when the states were free to experiment with effective alternative

remedial devices, none were developed. The Mapp Court was forced to conclude that

‘other remedies have proved worthless and futile.’” Carter, 322 N.C. at 721 (quoting

Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 652 (1961)).

Carter catalogued the practical obstacles to civil remedies: “[T]he

disinclination of juries to doubt the testimony of police witnesses about conduct

undertaken to protect the public, the doctrine of sovereign immunity, the judgment-

proof character of the working police officer, and the difficulty that the aggrieved

plaintiff may encounter in finding and paying counsel to represent him in a damage

action.” Carter, 322 N.C. at 721.

Finally, Carter understood that deterrence operates institutionally, not merely

individually. As the Court explained: “One of the great purposes of the exclusionary

rule is to impose the template of the constitution on police training and practices.” Id.

The rule “is responsible for the systematic, in-depth training of police forces in the

law of search and seizure.” Id.

This Court concluded that “the exclusionary rule has been a potent force for

achieving its intended deterrent purpose. Warrants today are more carefully

prepared and scrutinized before issuance.” Id. This systemic effect serves the

constitutional purpose of constraining governmental power through institutional

incentives for compliance.

A good faith exception undermines this systemic deterrence. If officers know

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that seeking judicial authorization—even with weak probable cause—insulates them

from exclusion, the incentive shifts. Rather than carefully building probable cause to

ensure constitutional compliance, officers can present marginal cases to magistrates,

confident that their “good faith reliance” protects them from constitutional

accountability.

This creates perverse incentives: Why meticulously document probable cause

when thin affidavits + magistrate approval + good faith exception = admissible

evidence? Why invest in thorough investigation when shortcuts produce the same

result? Why train officers in constitutional nuances when “good faith” is enough?

The exception Carter declined, yet the majority now embraces, does not just

fail to deter—it actively encourages constitutional shortcuts. This is not speculation—

it is predictable human behavior responding to changed costs and benefits.

So notwithstanding the majority’s rewriting of our opinion in Carter, that case

did explain why Section 20 of North Carolina’s Constitution demands exclusion of

evidence gathered by violating its terms, and why those principles counsel against a

good faith exception. And it did not stand alone: The majority now claims that Colson,

Reams, Small, and Arrington only “implied” a state constitutional exclusionary rule

without ever holding one exists. But this fundamentally mischaracterizes that

precedent. In State v. Colson, 274 N.C. 295, 305–06 (1968), this Court held that

“evidence obtained by unreasonable search and seizure is inadmissible,” citing both

the Fourth Amendment and Article I, Section 15 (now Section 20) of the North

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Carolina Constitution. The Court explained that after Mapp, “the States are no longer

free to adopt or reject at will the exclusionary rule as a means of enforcing the Fourth

Amendment in state courts.” Id. at 306. Significantly, the Court also noted that “the

federal exclusionary rule enunciated in Weeks became statutory law in North

Carolina long before Mapp by enactment”—referring to North Carolina’s 1937

statutory exclusion, adopted 24 years before federal mandate.

In State v. Reams, 277 N.C. 391, 395 (1970), this Court reiterated that

“[e]vidence obtained by unreasonable search and seizure is inadmissible,” citing the

Fourth and Fifth Amendments, Article I, Section 15, N.C.G.S. § 15-27, and Mapp. We

further reiterated that position in State v. Small, 293 N.C. 646, 656 (1977).1 This is

not doctrinal “implication by string citation”—this is application of established

doctrine. From 1968 to 1984, this Court consistently cited both federal and state

constitutions as requiring exclusion, applied exclusionary principles without

questioning their existence, and analyzed only whether violations occurred and

evidence needed to be suppressed.

This is the doctrinal landscape Carter inherited in 1988: decades of cases

treating state constitutional exclusion as established, with the new question being

whether North Carolina would follow the federal good faith exception that United

States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897 (1984) had just created four years earlier. Carter

1 In State v. Arrington, 311 N.C. 633 (1984), the Court was not presented with the

issue of whether to apply North Carolina’s exclusionary rule, because it expressly held that “there was a substantial basis for the finding of probable cause” in that case. Id. at 643.

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answered: No.

Now the majority takes this opportunity to expressly overrule Carter and those

cases that followed it. The majority’s willingness to discard thirty-seven years of

settled precedent undermines legal stability and predictability. State v. Garner, 331

N.C. 491, 505–06 (1992) (applying Carter’s exclusionary rule); State v. Scott, 343 N.C.

313, 327 (1996) (same); State v. Romano, 369 N.C. 678, 685 (2017) (same); Matter of

Freeman, 109 N.C. App. 100, 105 n.2 (1993) (same); State v. Smith, 124 N.C. App.

565, 578 (1996); State v. Daye, No. COA16-1119, 2017 WL 1650135, at *4 (N.C. Ct.

App. May 2, 2017) (unpublished) (same). Carter has been the foundation for countless

judicial decisions, prosecutorial choices, and police training programs. Overruling it

creates uncertainty about the scope of constitutional protections and signals that

constitutional rights are subject to the shifting political winds of judicial

appointments.

The majority offers weak justification for this dramatic departure from

precedent. Carter was not clearly erroneous—it reflected a careful analysis of

constitutional text, history, and policy considerations. The decision has proven

workable in practice and has created the systemic benefits it predicted: better police

training, more carefully scrutinized warrants, and improved constitutional

compliance. The majority now does little more than “change the time-honored

meaning of various portions of our constitution by interpreting the text with the

singular aim of reaching a desired outcome.” Harper, 384 N.C. at 379.

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II. The Majority’s “Assum[ing] Without Deciding” a Constitutional Exclusionary Rule Is Incoherent and Procedurally Unprecedented

As this detour through the fundamental principles underlying Carter and the

exclusionary rule shows, it is analytically essential to understand the purpose and

scope of a constitutional rule in order to know what exceptions might logically apply

to that rule. The majority purports to “assume without deciding that an exclusionary

rule arises from Article I, Section 20,” but then announces that any such rule is

subject to “good faith exception” akin to that under federal law. This approach is

logically impossible. One cannot rationally craft exceptions to a rule whose existence,

scope, and purposes remain undefined. The exception is wholly derivative of the

primary rule—it makes no sense to “assume” the rule while definitively declaring its

limitations.

The federal good faith exception exists because the Supreme Court held the

federal exclusionary rule is merely “a judicially created remedy designed to safeguard

Fourth Amendment rights generally through its deterrent effect.” Leon, 468 U.S. at

906. When an officer acts in good faith, “there is no police illegality and thus nothing

to deter.” Id. at 921. But this reasoning only works if deterrence is the rule’s sole

purpose. If the exclusionary rule also serves judicial integrity—if courts have an

independent constitutional obligation not to profit from constitutional violations—

then the officer’s good faith is irrelevant. The court still becomes complicit by

admitting the evidence. If the rule embodies a constitutional right to remedy under

Article I, Section 18—if every violation must have consequences—then the officer’s

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subjective mental state cannot eliminate that constitutional injury. Thus Carter’s

framework for our state’s exclusionary rule explains why a good faith exception is

unsupported in our constitutional scheme.

Thus the majority has it backwards. One must first understand what the rule

is and why it exists before determining when exceptions are appropriate. The

majority’s approach is like a doctor prescribing medication before diagnosing the

disease, or an architect adding windows to a building without first confirming it has

walls.

The majority’s approach is also unprecedented in American jurisprudence.

When the Supreme Court created the federal good faith exception in Leon, it first

definitively confirmed that the exclusionary rule was a prudential, judicially created

remedy, not constitutionally mandated. 468 U.S. at 905–06 (“We have frequently

questioned whether the exclusionary rule can have any deterrent effect when the

offending officers acted in the objectively reasonable belief that their conduct did not

violate the Fourth Amendment.”). Only after establishing this foundation for why the

rule exists in the first place did the Court consider any exceptions based on deterrence

rationales.

The majority’s “assume without deciding but create exceptions anyway”

approach is sui generis—and for good reason. It produces maximal judicial discretion

with minimum accountability. Future cases can either rely on today’s “assumption”

or reject it, depending on which outcome proves more convenient. Meanwhile, the

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majority has already limited whatever rule might exist through exceptions it adopted

without ever defining the rule’s contours.

The majority correctly recognizes that “the General Assembly may not dictate

this Court’s interpretation of the state constitution.” (citing Bayard v. Singleton, 1

N.C. (Mart.) 5, 6–7 (1787)). But just as the legislature cannot create exceptions to

constitutional rules, neither can this Court create exceptions to a constitutional rule

it refuses to even acknowledge exists.

Bayard established that “no act th[e General Assembly] could pass[ ] could by

any means repeal or alter the constitution.” 1 N.C. at 6–7. The same logic applies to

judicial erosion. If this Court can “assume” constitutional rules exist while

immediately limiting them through exceptions—all while reserving the right to later

declare the rules never existed—we have created a mechanism for constitutional

amendment by judicial fiat.

This violates the fundamental principle that courts lack power to revise the

constitution. As Alexander Hamilton explained in Federalist 78, the judiciary “will

always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution; because it

will be least in a capacity to annoy or injure them.” The Federalist No. 78, at 464

(Alexander Hamilton) (Clint Rossiter ed., 1961). While the executive “holds the sword

of the community” and the legislature “commands the purse,” the judiciary “has no

influence over either the sword or the purse” and “can take no active resolution

whatever.” Id. Hamilton emphasized that courts possess “neither force nor will, but

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merely judgment.” Id.

The majority’s approach exceeds this limited judicial power. By “assuming

without deciding” that a constitutional right exists while immediately crafting

exceptions to it—thereby weakening the right without definitively acknowledging its

existence—the majority exercises will rather than judgment. It reshapes

constitutional protections to achieve a preferred policy outcome (admitting

unconstitutionally obtained evidence) while avoiding accountability for honestly

declaring what the constitution requires.

True judicial judgment would require the Court to:

1. Examine Article I, Section 20’s text, history, and purposes;

2. Decide the scope of North Carolina’s exclusionary rule;

3. Determine whether that rule’s constitutional foundations permit

exceptions; and

4. Apply that holding to the facts before us

Instead, the majority substitutes its will for judgment by:

1. Refusing to examine whether the rule exists;

2. “Assuming” it does (or might), thereby failing to establish the rule’s

purpose or foundations;

3. Immediately adopting exceptions; and

4. Reserving the right to later declare the rule never existed

This is precisely the type of judicial overreach Hamilton warned against—courts

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using indirection and procedural gymnastics to achieve outcomes they lack authority

to mandate directly. If this Court believes Article I, Section 20 contains no

exclusionary rule, it should say so honestly. If it believes such a rule exists but

permits exceptions, it should conduct proper constitutional analysis before crafting

those exceptions. What it cannot do—consistent with its limited role as a court of

judgment rather than will—is reshape constitutional protections through the

backdoor of “assuming without deciding.”

The majority’s approach is particularly pernicious because it operates through

indirection. Rather than honestly confronting whether Article I, Section 20 contains

an exclusionary rule, the majority achieves the practical elimination of constitutional

protection while claiming to exercise restraint. This is not judgment—it is will. It is

not interpretation—it is amendment. And it is not restraint—it is the exercise of

power courts do not possess.

As Hamilton warned, when courts exceed their proper role and substitute will

for judgment, they threaten “the political rights of the Constitution” they are sworn

to uphold. The Federalist No. 78, at 464 (Alexander Hamilton). This is a separation

of powers violation dressed up as minimalism.

Moreover, the majority purports not to decide whether an exclusionary rule

exists. But by adopting a good faith exception, the majority is deciding that Article I,

Section 20’s protections for individuals are weaker and more limited than under

Carter. That is a decision about the scope and content of the constitutional rule.

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In any event, the majority cannot disclaim responsibility for the consequences

of its holding by hiding behind what it ostensibly did not decide. Whether achieved

directly or indirectly, the practical result is identical: evidence obtained through

constitutional violations will be admissible under the Court’s decision today. The

majority has made a constitutional decision while pretending it has not.

The majority abandons decades of precedent that have served this state well.

Its decision to expressly overrule Carter is deeply misguided and a betrayal of Carter’s

fundamental principles: judicial integrity, deterrence from police misconduct, and

ensuring that every right has a remedy. By adopting a good faith exception, it hollows

out the exclusionary rule that Carter so steadily protected. That is a decision about

the constitutional rule—achieved through indirection rather than honest analysis. As

James Madison warned in Federalist 62, when constitutional protections yield to

governmental convenience, we create “a state of things in which it may be said with

some truth that laws are made for the few, not for the many.” The Federalist No. 62,

at 379 (James Madison). The majority’s decision thus comes at the expense of

constitutional liberty and confidence in our rule of law. I would affirm the Court of

Appeals’ decision and reaffirm that State v. Carter remains the law of North Carolina.

I respectfully dissent.

Justice RIGGS joins in this dissenting opinion.

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