In United States v. Calandra, the constitutional underpinnings of the exclusionary rule set out in Mapp v. Ohio were loosened. The Court concluded that the exclusionary rule was no longer an inherent part of the Constitution but a judicially created remedy designed to safeguard fourth amendment rights generally through its deterrent effect. A common thread running through other Burger Court decisions about the exclusionary rule is that the exclusionary rule need not be applied in an automatic fashion to situations where deterrence is of minimal or no effect. On several occasions, the Supreme Court has come to the brink then shied away from creating the 'good faith' exception. This is because the drafting of the exception would have been a difficult process: too broad an exception would effectively abolish the exclusionary rule, and too narrow an exception would be unnecessary. In United States v. Leon and the companion case of Massachusetts v. Sheppard, the Burger Court opted to focus on the 'good faith' exception restricted to cases involving technical violations of the search warrant requirement. In such cases, the police would have acted in good faith upon a warrant they believed to be valid, but which would subsequently be ruled invalid. The Court has correctly struck a balance between the interests of society in obtaining justice based upon truth and the interest of the fourth amendment in providing privacy safeguards for citizens. It remains for the lower courts to check the efficacy of the new rule and to hone its application. Seventy-three footnotes are listed.