Most defendants lost to the exclusionary rule would have faced short jail terms anyway.

Evidence

Also, if the defendants in the “lost” cases had been convicted arid had received sentences comparable to those given to defendants convicted of the same offenses, almost two-thirds would have received jail sentences of less than 6 months.‘* These findings suggest few dangerous criminals are freed by the exclusionary rule. Of course, they do not determine whether the release of even a few such criminals is too heavy a price to pay for the exclusionary rule. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1864

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: an essay on how empirical cost-benefit studies of procedural rules still leave normative price-setting unanswered — the ‘too heavy a price’ coda is the hook.