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the Sixth Amendment is unmistakably clear:  "In all crimi-

nal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a

speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury."82  The

Constitution calls for jury trials even though they are

not the most efficient trial procedure available.

Policymakers cannot do anything about that (short of

amending the Constitution itself).  To paraphrase Justice

Scalia, the president and Congress are not at liberty to

conduct a cost-benefit analysis of constitutional guaran-

tees and then adjust the meaning of those guarantees to

comport with their findings.83  That is why the executive

and legislative branches must respect the Fourth Amendment

and the judicial branch's warrant-issuing prerogative--even

if a new study is conducted and conclusively shows that

the exclusionary rule fails to satisfy cost-benefit crite-

ria.

The Rule Provides No Remedy for the Innocent

Because the exclusionary rule typically shields per-

sons who otherwise would probably be convicted, it has no

bearing on innocent people who have wrongly been subjected

to search and seizure.  But the objection that the rule

provides no remedy for such people can be very misleading

since it does not take into account the nature of the

judicial process.

The judiciary, after all, can only review the cases

that are brought to court by the prosecution.  As Justice

Robert Jackson once observed, "There may be, and I am con-

vinced that there are, many unlawful searches of homes and

automobiles of innocent people which turn up nothing

incriminating, in which no arrest is made, about which

. . . we never hear."84  The cases that ultimately reach

the courtroom have already been filtered through a selec-

tion process controlled by the executive branch.  When the

police conduct a warrantless raid on a home or business

but find nothing incriminating, the matter is almost

always dropped.  Obviously, the executive branch is not

anxious to bring such matters to court because doing so

would only reveal the extent of its lawlessness.

It is important to note, however, that proponents of

the exclusionary rule wholeheartedly support legislative

measures that would give a legal remedy to innocent vic-

tims of illegal searches--but "as a supplement to, not a

substitute for, the exclusionary rule."85