The Exclusionary Rule Revisited

Authors

Nuno Garoupa
Murat C. Mungan, Texas A&M University School of LawFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-2022

Journal Title

Journal of Legal Studies

ISSN

0047-2530

DOI

10.1086/716323

Abstract

We revisit the economic theory of exclusionary rules. First, we show that more exclusion may induce enforcers to conduct more searches, contrary to the standard notion that more exclusion leads to fewer searches. Second, we identify and investigate the complexities that arise when enforcers may harass suspects (imposing significant costs without legal proceedings) instead of conducting legal searches. If one attempts to choose the optimal exclusionary rule naively (for example, by ignoring the possibility of harassment by enforcers), the chosen rule will exclude evidence more often than is optimal. We explore social welfare considerations and discuss policy implications based on our formal results.

First Page

209

Last Page

248

Num Pages

40

Volume Number

51

Issue Number

1

Publisher

The University of Chicago Press

Recommended Citation

Nuno Garoupa & Murat C. Mungan, The Exclusionary Rule Revisited, 51 J. Legal Stud. 209 (2022).
Available at: https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/facscholar/1821