The U.S. Supreme Court, concerned with what it considers the drastic social costs of the exclusionary rule, has sought to confine its operation to the deterrence of unlawful police conduct. Under this doctrine, admissibility of evidence is contingent upon proof by the State that the evidence in question would inevitably have been discovered in the course of investigation. Admissibility is not contingent upon the good faith of law enforcement officials. In a series of decisions, beginning with Silverthorne v. U.S. and culminating in Nix v. Williams, the U.S. Supreme Court appears committed to a course that seeks to fine-tune the operation of the exclusionary rule so as to protect both constitutional values and the truth-seeking process. Application of the doctrine in a number of State and Federal courts suggests that the doctrine is gaining full acceptance in criminal trials. 53 footnotes.