Eleventh Circuit Declines To Extend Exclusionary Rule To Supervised Release Revocation Proceedings
On March 15, 2016, Jeffery Hill was released from prison under conditions and supervision. He remained on release without incident until he was arrested during a traffic stop on December 26, 2018. That day, Hill was stopped by law enforcement while operating a vehicle for crossing the centerline of a roadway.
As a result of the stop, law enforcement found marijuana, two packages of Swisher Sweets (characterized as paraphernalia), a quantity of cash, and a weapon in the console. Hill was arrested while on supervised release for unlawful possession of marijuana in the first degree, possession of a firearm, and possession of drug paraphernalia.
During proceedings to revoke Hill’s supervised release, Hill filed a motion to suppress evidence seized during the traffic stop from the revocation proceedings. The district court found that the exclusionary rule did not apply to the revocation proceedings and denied Hill’s motion to suppress. Hill filed an appeal with the U.S. District Court for the Eleventh Circuit, and argued that the evidence collected during the traffic stop should have been suppressed.
As noted by the Eleventh Circuit, “[t]he Supreme Court has not extended the exclusionary rule to proceedings outside the criminal trial context.” At the time of the decision, the Eleventh Circuit also has not “addressed in a published decision whether the exclusionary rule applies to the revocation of supervised release proceedings.” However, the court of appeals stated that “every circuit that has faced the issue has found that the exclusionary rule does apply in supervised released proceedings.” The court specifically referenced decisions by the Fourth Circuit, Fifth Circuit, Sixth Circuit, Seventh Circuit, Eighth Circuit, and Ninth Circuit.
On appeal, Hill did not directly argue that the exclusionary rule should apply to supervised release revocation proceedings. Rather, he made “general” arguments that the evidence seized should have been suppressed. The court expected Hill to address the Supreme Court’s hesitancy to extend the exclusionary rule as a result of the “substantial social costs” that accompany it. The court of appeals stated that these costs include: its toll on the “truthfinding process,” “incompatibility with the ‘traditionally flexible, administrative procedures of parole revocation,’” and “frequent necessity for ‘extensive litigation to determine whether particular evidence must be excluded.’” The court also referenced that the Supreme Court has observed that “[t]he likelihood that illegally obtained evidence will be excluded from trial provides deterrence against Fourth Amendment violations, and the remote possibility that the subject is a parolee and that the evidence may be admitted at a parole revocation proceeding surely has little if any, effect on the officer’s incentives.”
Because Hill did not specifically argue that the exclusionary rule should apply to supervisory release proceedings and because the Supreme Court has not determined that the exclusionary rule applies in that context, the court of appeals declined to extend the exclusionary rule here and affirmed the district court’s denial of Hill’s motion to suppress.
Read the full case: United States v. Hill.
This case law update was written by Michael J. Sgarlat, Associate Attorney, Shaw Bransford & Roth, PC.
For thirty years, Shaw Bransford & Roth P.C. has provided superior representation on a wide range of federal employment law issues, from representing federal employees nationwide in administrative investigations, disciplinary and performance actions, and Bivens lawsuits, to handling security clearance adjudications and employment discrimination cases.