The Future of the Exclusionary Rule in North Carolina

TL;DR Quick Take: The legacy of North Carolina v. Rogers reaches beyond suppression hearings. It redefines how courts balance government trust against the structural necessity of constitutional discipline. Whether this evolution strengthens justice or weakens liberty depends on how future courts interpret the limits of “reasonableness” in applying the Good Faith Exception to the Exclusionary Rule.

I. Constitutional Remedies and the Philosophy of Enforcement

Constitutional rights mean little without remedies that make them enforceable. The framers of the US Constitution understood this when they created mechanisms to restrain power through process.

North Carolina’s founders, through Article I of the North Carolina State Constitution, carried that same idea forward.

Rights were not designed as ceremonial guarantees. They were intended to function as working tools of accountability – Bill Powers, Attorney at Law

The exclusionary rule developed to make that accountability real.

When Weeks v. United States (1914) declared that illegally seized evidence must be excluded, the Supreme Court tied constitutional language to enforceable consequence. Mapp v. Ohio (1961) extended that logic to the states, ensuring that rights under the Fourth Amendment were not optional for state actors.

State v. Rogers transforms that structure.

By converting exclusion from a rule of necessity into a rule of policy, the Court risks reducing constitutional remedies to discretionary favors. In the long run, that shift affects far more than suppression hearings. It alters how courts understand the relationship between law and power itself.

II. The North Carolina Tradition of Judicial Independence

Few states possess a constitutional legacy as rich as North Carolina’s.

From Bayard v. Singleton (1787) forward, the state’s judiciary recognized its duty to strike down unlawful acts of government, even when those acts carried legislative or executive approval.

The principle of judicial review predates Marbury v. Madison and remains a defining feature of North Carolina’s constitutional history.

That tradition assumes that state courts in North Carolina do not simply interpret federal standards.

They develop and enforce their own.

Article I, Section 20, prohibiting general warrants, is one of the oldest and most explicit expressions of that independence.

It reflects a belief that liberty depends not on federal alignment, but on state vigilance.

By equating Article I, Section 20 with the federal Fourth Amendment, Rogers blurs that independence.

North Carolina’s Constitution, once a distinct voice, risks becoming an echo.

III. The Pragmatic Appeal of “Good Faith”

The appeal of the good faith exception is understandable.

It promises fairness to officers who act under judicial authorization or existing law.

It acknowledges that mistakes can occur without misconduct or nefarious purpose.

Unfortunately, such pragmatism comes at a constitutional price.

The Rule of Law depends on predictability, not trust.

Judicial remedies are designed precisely because the state cannot be the sole judge of its own conduct.

Rogers rules the statutory good faith exception in N.C.G.S. § 15A-974 applies only to statutory violations and simultaneously adopts the judicial good faith exception for constitutional violations under Article I, Section 20.

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That reasoning softens the constitutional edges that make judicial oversight meaningful.

History suggests that power rarely abuses itself intentionally.

The most dangerous expansions of authority occur when courts relax standards for seemingly good reasons such as efficiency, urgency, or faith in institutional reliability.

Those same justifications appeared throughout British colonial governance and later inspired the state and federal prohibitions against general warrants.

Good faith, as Rogers defines it, is not a test of constitutionality. It is a test of credibility.

One might reasonably infer that is not what the framers had in mind when they wrote the Fourth Amendment or Article I, Section 20.

IV. Procedural Realities After Rogers

For criminal defense lawyers, Rogers changes the strategic landscape.

In certain instances, pretrial motions to suppress will now likely demand more than showing a constitutional violation.

They will require overcoming the presumption that an officer acted in objectively reasonable reliance on judicial authorization or established procedure.

That is a higher and more practical burden than the theoretical inquiry into deterrence.

Courts no longer ask whether exclusion might prevent future misconduct, they ask whether any well-trained officer could have believed the search lawful.

Trial judges will therefore focus less on the legality of the search itself and more on the perceived reasonableness of law enforcement conduct.

Appellate courts, bound by the language of “objective reliance,” will be reluctant to disturb trial-level rulings that uphold admissibility.

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The quiet danger of Rogers in DUI – Impaired Driving Enforcement

In impaired driving investigations, probable cause is most often established through standardized field sobriety testing, the NHTSA protocols for HGN, Walk and Turn, and One-Leg Stand.

Those procedures, whatever their flaws, create measurable benchmarks.

They allow courts to determine whether an arresting officer’s conclusion of impairment was objectively supported.

That structure is what makes probable cause a testable legal standard rather than a matter of intuition.

Rogers, as decided, does not alter judicial review of probable cause for warrantless arrests.

The opinion addresses good-faith reliance on a judicially authorized order and adopts a constitutional good-faith exception for that setting.

That said, one can readily see how the logic might expand.

If good-faith reliance becomes the organizing principle for admissibility, later cases could be asked to extend it beyond warrants and orders.

That would shift litigation from whether a violation occurred to whether the officer’s reliance was objectively reasonable.

That is the quiet risk practitioners should watch. Its logic is pervasive.

By elevating objectively reasonable reliance over the underlying basis for belief, it allows officers to rely on what appears compliant rather than what is compliant – Bill Powers, NC DUI Defense Lawyer

If an officer believes the tests were properly administered or that some combination of cues justified arrest, that belief could eventually suffice, even if the administration deviated from NHTSA standards.

The opinion’s logic, transposed into DWI cases, would serve to express the thought, “As long as the officer acted in good faith and followed a process that seemed valid, probable cause survives.”

That would strip the NHTSA standards of their constitutional function and reduce them to internal training guidance rather than a boundary defining reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment and Article I, Section 20.

The collapse of measurable reasonableness

DWI arrests are anchored to something concrete, including objective indicators established by the field tests and corroborated by observable facts.

After Rogers, reasonableness risks floating free from those anchors.

A magistrate who signs an implied-consent warrant, a chemical analyst who reads a form, and an officer who believes he followed procedure could fall within the “objectively reasonable” umbrella.

Once the courts treat those procedural mandates as conclusive, there would be no meaningful check on whether probable cause actually existed.

The only remaining question is whether the officer’s belief looked plausible in hindsight.

The doctrine protects the appearance of compliance rather than the substance of it.

V. Accountability as the Measure of Liberty

The exclusionary rule was never about letting the guilty go free.

It was about teaching government that rights are not optional. Rogers reframes that lesson as an exercise in forgiveness.

Accountability, not convenience, defines constitutional legitimacy.

When courts elevate good faith above legality, they change the function of the judiciary from guardian to partner.

The risk is not that officers will act maliciously, but that courts will stop asking the hard questions that keep power honest.

North Carolina’s founders distrusted general warrants precisely because they trusted human nature too much to rely on it unrestrained – Bill Powers, North Carolina Lawyer

The exclusionary rule is the modern echo of that distrust.

Its inconvenience is not a flaw. It is the price of freedom functioning as designed.

VI. The Fork in the Road

The future of the Exclusionary Rule in North Carolina depends on what happens next.

If Rogers becomes the ceiling of constitutional enforcement, the Exclusionary Rule will fade into irrelevance.

Perhaps that what some want and believe is right.

If trial and appellate courts reclaim the principle that constitutional rights require constitutional remedies, the doctrine may still survive in practice, even under narrowed precedent.

Whether suppression remains available will determine whether North Carolina still possesses a functioning state remedy for unconstitutional acts.

VII. The Future of Constitutional Accountability in North Carolina

Liberty rarely disappears through open defiance of the Constitution. It fades when procedural limits are treated as inconveniences.

State v. Rogers reflects a shift.

The opinion does not reject constitutional principle, it redefines obedience to it.

When good faith substitutes for scrutiny, and institutional trust replaces measurable reasonableness, the boundary between legality and convenience begins to blur.

Whether Rogers becomes a lasting precedent or a cautionary moment will depend on the courts that follow it and on the lawyers who continue to test its limits.

The purpose of process has never been to obstruct government. It has been to discipline it. That discipline is what separates constitutional law from administrative order.

Bill Powers and the Powers Law Firm represent clients in complex criminal and impaired driving matters including Felony Serious Injury by Vehicle, Felony Death by Vehicle charges, and remain deeply engaged in protecting the fairness of process that defines real justice. To learn more or discuss your case, TEXT call 704-342-4357