JUSTICE BLACKMUN delivered the opinion of the Court.

In United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897 (1984), this Court ruled that the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule does not apply to evidence obtained by police officers who acted in objectively reasonable reliance upon a search warrant issued by a neutral magistrate, but where the warrant was ultimately found to be unsupported by probable cause. See also Massachusetts v. Sheppard, 468 U.S. 981 (1984). The present case presents the question whether a similar exception to the exclusionary rule should be recognized when officers act in objectively reasonable reliance upon a statute authorizing warrantless administrative searches, but where the statute is ultimately found to violate the Fourth Amendment.

I

The State of Illinois, as part of its Vehicle Code, has a comprehensive statutory scheme regulating the sale of motor vehicles and vehicular parts. See Ill. Rev. Stat., ch. 95 1/2, ¶¶ 5-100 to 5-801 (1985). A person who sells motor vehicles, or deals in automotive parts, or processes automotive scrap metal, or engages in a similar business must obtain a license from the Illinois Secretary of State. ¶¶ 5-101, 5-102, 5-301. A licensee is required to maintain a detailed record of all motor vehicles and parts that he purchases or sells, including the identification numbers of such vehicles and parts, and the dates of acquisition and disposition. ¶ 5-401.2. In 1981, the statute in its then form required a licensee to permit state officials to inspect these records "at any reasonable time during the night or day" and to allow "examination of the premises of the licensee's established place of business for the purpose of determining the accuracy of required records." Ill. Rev. Stat., ch. 95 1/2, ¶ 5-401(e) (1981).

Respondents in 1981 operated Action Iron Metal, Inc., an automobile wrecking yard located in the city of Chicago. Detective Leilan K. McNally of the Chicago Police Department regularly inspected the records of wrecking yards pursuant to the state statute. Tr. 12. On the morning of July 5, 1981, he entered respondents' yard. Id., at 7. He identified himself as a police officer to respondent Lucas, who was working at the yard, and asked to see the license and records of vehicle purchases. Lucas could not locate the license or records, but he did produce a paper pad on which approximately five vehicle purchases were listed. Id., at 25-26. McNally then requested and received permission from Lucas to look at the cars in the yard. Upon checking with his mobile computer the serial numbers of several of the vehicles, McNally ascertained that three of them were stolen. Also, the identification number of a fourth had been removed. McNally seized the four vehicles and placed Lucas under arrest. Id., at 8-9, 16-17. Respondent Krull, the holder of the license, and respondent Mucerino, who was present at the yard the day of the search, were arrested later. Respondents were charged with various criminal violations of the Illinois motor vehicle statutes.

The state trial court (the Circuit Court of Cook County) granted respondents' motion to suppress the evidence seized from the yard. App. 20-21. Respondents had relied on a federal-court ruling, issued the day following the search, that ¶ 5-401(e), authorizing warrantless administrative searches of licensees, was unconstitutional. See Bionic Auto Parts Sales, Inc. v. Fahner, 518 F. Supp. 582 (ND Ill. 1981), aff'd in part, vacated in part, and remanded in part, 721 F.2d 1072 (CA7 1983). The Federal District Court in that case had concluded that the statute permitted officers unbridled discretion in their searches and was therefore not "`a constitutionally adequate substitute for a warrant.'" 518 F. Supp., at 585-586, quoting Donovan v. Dewey, 452 U.S. 594, 603 (1981). The state trial court in the instant case agreed that the statute was invalid and concluded that its unconstitutionality "affects all pending prosecutions not completed." App. 20. On that basis, the trial court granted respondents' motion to suppress the evidence. Id., at 20-21.

The Appellate Court of Illinois, First Judicial District, vacated the trial court's ruling and remanded the case for further proceedings. Id., at 22. It observed that recent developments in the law indicated that Detective McNally's good-faith reliance on the state statute might be relevant in assessing the admissibility of evidence, but that the trial court should first make a factual determination regarding McNally's good faith. Id., at 25. It also observed that the trial court might wish to reconsider its holding regarding the unconstitutionality of the statute in light of the decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit upholding the amended form of the Illinois statute. See Bionic Auto Parts Sales, Inc. v. Fahner, 721 F.2d 1072 (CA7 1983). On remand, however, the state trial court adhered to its decision to grant respondents' motion to suppress. It stated that the relevant statute was the one in effect at the time McNally searched respondents' yard, and that this statute was unconstitutional for the reasons stated by the Federal District Court in Bionic. It further concluded that because the good faith of an officer is relevant, if at all, only when he acts pursuant to a warrant, Detective McNally's possible good-faith reliance upon the statute had no bearing on the case. App. 32-35.

The Supreme Court of Illinois affirmed. 107 Ill.2d 107, 481 N.E.2d 703 (1985). It first ruled that the state statute, as it existed at the time McNally searched respondents' yard, was unconstitutional. It noted that statutes authorizing warrantless administrative searches in heavily regulated industries had been upheld where such searches were necessary to promote enforcement of a substantial state interest, and where the statute "`in terms of [the] certainty and regularity of its application, provide[d] a constitutionally adequate substitute for a warrant.'" Id., at 116, 481 N.E.2d, at 707, quoting Donovan v. Dewey, 452 U.S., at 603. Although acknowledging that the statutory scheme authorizing warrantless searches of licensees furthered a strong public interest in preventing the theft of automobiles and the trafficking in stolen automotive parts, the Illinois Supreme Court concluded that the statute violated the Fourth Amendment because it "vested State officials with too much discretion to decide who, when, and how long to search." 107 Ill.2d, at 116, 481 N.E.2d, at 707.

The court rejected the State's argument that the evidence seized from respondents' wrecking yard should nevertheless be admitted because the police officer had acted in good-faith reliance on the statute authorizing such searches. The court observed that in Michigan v. DeFillippo, 443 U.S. 31 (1979), this Court had upheld an arrest and search made pursuant to an ordinance defining a criminal offense, where the ordinance was subsequently held to violate the Fourth Amendment. The Illinois court noted that this Court in DeFillippo had contrasted the ordinance then before it, defining a substantive criminal offense, with a procedural statute directly authorizing searches without a warrant or probable cause, and had stated that evidence obtained in searches conducted pursuant to the latter type of statute traditionally had not been admitted. 107 Ill.2d, at 118, 481 N.E.2d, at 708. Because the Illinois statute did not define a substantive criminal offense, but, instead, was a procedural statute directly authorizing warrantless searches, the Illinois Supreme Court concluded that good-faith reliance upon that statute could not be used to justify the admission of evidence under an exception to the exclusionary rule. Id., at 118-119, 481 N.E.2d, at 708.

We granted certiorari, 475 U.S. 1080 (1986), to consider whether a good-faith exception to the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule applies when an officer's reliance on the constitutionality of a statute is objectively reasonable, but the statute is subsequently declared unconstitutional.

II A

When evidence is obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment, the judicially developed exclusionary rule usually precludes its use in a criminal proceeding against the victim of the illegal search and seizure. Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383 (1914); Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 (1961). The Court has stressed that the "prime purpose" of the exclusionary rule "is to deter future unlawful police conduct and thereby effectuate the guarantee of the Fourth Amendment against unreasonable searches and seizures." United States v. Calandra, 414 U.S. 338, 347 (1974). Application of the exclusionary rule "is neither intended nor able to `cure the invasion of the defendant's rights which he has already suffered.'" United States v. Leon, 468 U.S., at 906, quoting Stone v. Powell, 428 U.S. 465, 540 (1976) (WHITE, J., dissenting). Rather, the rule "operates as `a judicially created remedy designed to safeguard Fourth Amendment rights generally through its deterrent effect, rather than a personal constitutional right of the party aggrieved.'" 468 U.S., at 906, quoting United States v. Calandra, 414 U.S., at 348.

As with any remedial device, application of the exclusionary rule properly has been restricted to those situations in which its remedial purpose is effectively advanced. Thus, in various circumstances, the Court has examined whether the rule's deterrent effect will be achieved, and has weighed the likelihood of such deterrence against the costs of withholding reliable information from the truth-seeking process. See, e. g., United States v. Janis, 428 U.S. 433, 454 (1976) (evidence obtained by state officers in violation of Fourth Amendment may be used in federal civil proceeding because likelihood of deterring conduct of state officers does not outweigh societal costs imposed by exclusion); United States v. Calandra, 414 U.S., at 351-352 (evidence obtained in contravention of Fourth Amendment may be used in grand jury proceedings because minimal advance in deterrence of police misconduct is outweighed by expense of impeding role of grand jury).

In Leon, the Court held that the exclusionary rule should not be applied to evidence obtained by a police officer whose reliance on a search warrant issued by a neutral magistrate was objectively reasonable, even though the warrant was ultimately found to be defective. On the basis of three factors, the Court concluded that there was no sound reason to apply the exclusionary rule as a means of deterring misconduct on the part of judicial officers who are responsible for issuing warrants. First, the exclusionary rule was historically designed "to deter police misconduct rather than to punish the errors of judges and magistrates." 468 U.S., at 916. Second, there was "no evidence suggesting that judges and magistrates are inclined to ignore or subvert the Fourth Amendment or that lawlessness among these actors requires application of the extreme sanction of exclusion." Ibid. Third, and of greatest importance to the Court, there was no basis "for believing that exclusion of evidence seized pursuant to a warrant will have a significant deterrent effect on the issuing judge or magistrate." Ibid. The Court explained: "Judges and magistrates are not adjuncts to the law enforcement team; as neutral judicial officers, they have no stake in the outcome of particular criminal prosecutions." Id., at 917. Thus, the threat of exclusion of evidence could not be expected to deter such individuals from improperly issuing warrants, and a judicial ruling that a warrant was defective was sufficient to inform the judicial officer of the error made.

The Court then considered whether application of the exclusionary rule in that context could be expected to alter the behavior of law enforcement officers. In prior cases, the Court had observed that, because the purpose of the exclusionary rule is to deter police officers from violating the Fourth Amendment, evidence should be suppressed "only if it can be said that the law enforcement officer had knowledge, or may properly be charged with knowledge, that the search was unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment." United States v. Peltier, 422 U.S. 531, 542 (1975); see also Michigan v. Tucker, 417 U.S. 433, 447 (1974). Where the officer's conduct is objectively reasonable, the Court explained in Leon,

"`[e]xcluding the evidence will not further the ends of the exclusionary rule in any appreciable way; for it is painfully apparent that . . . the officer is acting as a reasonable officer would and should act in similar circumstances. Excluding the evidence can in no way affect his future conduct unless it is to make him less willing to do his duty.'" United States v. Leon, 468 U.S., at 920, quoting Stone v. Powell, 428 U.S., at 539-540 (WHITE, J., dissenting).

The Court in Leon concluded that a deterrent effect was particularly absent when an officer, acting in objective good faith, obtained a search warrant from a magistrate and acted within its scope. "In most such cases, there is no police illegality and thus nothing to deter," 468 U.S., at 920-921. It is the judicial officer's responsibility to determine whether probable cause exists to issue a warrant, and, in the ordinary case, police officers cannot be expected to question that determination. Because the officer's sole responsibility after obtaining a warrant is to carry out the search pursuant to it, applying the exclusionary rule in these circumstances could have no deterrent effect on a future Fourth Amendment violation by the officer. Id., at 921.

B

The approach used in Leon is equally applicable to the present case. The application of the exclusionary rule to suppress evidence obtained by an officer acting in objectively reasonable reliance on a statute would have as little deterrent effect on the officer's actions as would the exclusion of evidence when an officer acts in objectively reasonable reliance on a warrant. Unless a statute is clearly unconstitutional, an officer cannot be expected to question the judgment of the legislature that passed the law. If the statute is subsequently declared unconstitutional, excluding evidence obtained pursuant to it prior to such a judicial declaration will not deter future Fourth Amendment violations by an officer who has simply fulfilled his responsibility to enforce the statute as written. To paraphrase the Court's comment in Leon: "Penalizing the officer for the [legislature's] error, rather than his own, cannot logically contribute to the deterrence of Fourth Amendment violations." Ibid.

Any difference between our holding in Leon and our holding in the instant case, therefore, must rest on a difference between the effect of the exclusion of evidence on judicial officers and the effect of the exclusion of evidence on legislators. Although these two groups clearly serve different functions in the criminal justice system, those differences are not controlling for purposes of this case. We noted in Leon as an initial matter that the exclusionary rule was aimed at deterring police misconduct. 468 U.S., at 916. Thus, legislators, like judicial officers, are not the focus of the rule. Moreover, to the extent we consider the rule's effect on legislators, our initial inquiry, as set out in Leon, is whether there is evidence to suggest that legislators "are inclined to ignore or subvert the Fourth Amendment." Ibid. Although legislators are not "neutral judicial officers," as are judges and magistrates, id., at 917, neither are they "adjuncts to the law enforcement team." Ibid. The role of legislators in the criminal justice system is to enact laws for the purpose of establishing and perpetuating that system. In order to fulfill this responsibility, legislators' deliberations of necessity are significantly different from the hurried judgment of a law enforcement officer "engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime." Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 14 (1948). Before assuming office, state legislators are required to take an oath to support the Federal Constitution. See U.S. Const., Art. VI, cl. 3. Indeed, by according laws a presumption of constitutional validity, courts presume that legislatures act in a constitutional manner. See e. g., McDonald v. Board of Election Comm'rs of Chicago, 394 U.S. 802, 808-809 (1969); see generally 1 N. Singer, Sutherland on Statutory Construction § 2.01 (4th ed. 1985).

There is no evidence suggesting that Congress or state legislatures have enacted a significant number of statutes permitting warrantless administrative searches violative of the Fourth Amendment. Legislatures generally have confined their efforts to authorizing administrative searches of specific categories of businesses that require regulation, and the resulting statutes usually have been held to be constitutional. See, e. g., Donovan v. Dewey, 452 U.S. 594 (1981); United States v. Biswell, 406 U.S. 311 (1972); Colonnade Catering Corp. v. United States, 397 U.S. 72 (1970); United States v. Jamieson-McKames Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 651 F.2d 532 (CA8 1981), cert. denied, 455 U.S. 1016 (1982); see also 3 W. LaFave, Search and Seizure § 10.2, pp. 132-134, n. 89.1 (Supp. 1986) (collecting cases). Thus, we are given no basis for believing that legislators are inclined to subvert their oaths and the Fourth Amendment and that "lawlessness among these actors requires application of the extreme sanction of exclusion." United States v. Leon, 468 U.S., at 916.

Even if we were to conclude that legislators are different in certain relevant respects from magistrates, because legislators are not officers of the judicial system, the next inquiry necessitated by Leon is whether exclusion of evidence seized pursuant to a statute subsequently declared unconstitutional will "have a significant deterrent effect," ibid., on legislators enacting such statutes. Respondents have offered us no reason to believe that applying the exclusionary rule will have such an effect. Legislators enact statutes for broad, programmatic purposes, not for the purpose of procuring evidence in particular criminal investigations. Thus, it is logical to assume that the greatest deterrent to the enactment of unconstitutional statutes by a legislature is the power of the courts to invalidate such statutes. Invalidating a statute informs the legislature of its constitutional error, affects the admissibility of all evidence obtained subsequent to the constitutional ruling, and often results in the legislature's enacting a modified and constitutional version of the statute, as happened in this very case. There is nothing to indicate that applying the exclusionary rule to evidence seized pursuant to the statute prior to the declaration of its invalidity will act as a significant, additional deterrent. Moreover, to the extent that application of the exclusionary rule could provide some incremental deterrent, that possible benefit must be weighed against the "substantial social costs exacted by the exclusionary rule." Id., at 907. When we indulge in such weighing, we are convinced that applying the exclusionary rule in this context is unjustified.

Respondents argue that the result in this case should be different from that in Leon because a statute authorizing warrantless administrative searches affects an entire industry and a large number of citizens, while the issuance of a defective warrant affects only one person. This distinction is not persuasive. In determining whether to apply the exclusionary rule, a court should examine whether such application will advance the deterrent objective of the rule. Although the number of individuals affected may be considered when "weighing the costs and benefits," ibid., of applying the exclusionary rule, the simple fact that many are affected by a statute is not sufficient to tip the balance if the deterrence of Fourth Amendment violations would not be advanced in any meaningful way.

We also do not believe that defendants will choose not to contest the validity of statutes if they are unable to benefit directly by the subsequent exclusion of evidence, thereby resulting in statutes that evade constitutional review. First, in Leon, we explicitly rejected the argument that the goodfaith exception adopted in that case would "preclude review of the constitutionality of the search or seizure" or would cause defendants to lose their incentive to litigate meritorious Fourth Amendment claims. We stated that "the magnitude of the benefit conferred on defendants by a successful [suppression] motion makes it unlikely that litigation of colorable claims will be substantially diminished." Id., at 924, and n. 25. In an effort to suppress evidence, a defendant has no reason not to argue that a police officer's reliance on a warrant or statute was not objectively reasonable and therefore cannot be considered to have been in good faith. Second, unlike a person searched pursuant to a warrant, a person subject to a statute authorizing searches without a warrant or probable cause may bring an action seeking a declaration that the statute is unconstitutional and an injunction barring its implementation. Indeed, that course of action was followed with respect to the statute at issue in this case. Several businesses brought a declaratory judgment suit in Federal District Court challenging ¶ 5-401(e) of the Illinois Vehicle Code (1981), and the provision was declared unconstitutional. See Bionic Auto Parts Sales, Inc. v. Fahner, 518 F. Supp., at 585. Subsequent to that declaration, respondents, in their state-court criminal trial, challenged the admissibility of evidence obtained pursuant to the statute. App. 13-17.

The Court noted in Leon that the "good-faith" exception to the exclusionary rule would not apply "where the issuing magistrate wholly abandoned his judicial role in the manner condemned in Lo-Ji Sales, Inc. v. New York, 442 U.S. 319 (1979)," or where the warrant was so facially deficient "that the executing officers cannot reasonably presume it to be valid." 468 U.S., at 923. Similar constraints apply to the exception to the exclusionary rule we recognize today. A statute cannot support objectively reasonable reliance if, in passing the statute, the legislature wholly abandoned its responsibility to enact constitutional laws. Nor can a law enforcement officer be said to have acted in good-faith reliance upon a statute if its provisions are such that a reasonable officer should have known that the statute was unconstitutional. Cf. Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982) ("[G]overnment officials performing discretionary functions, generally are shielded from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known"). As we emphasized in Leon, the standard of reasonableness we adopt is an objective one; the standard does not turn on the subjective good faith of individual officers. See United States v. Leon, 468 U.S., at 919, n. 20.

III

Applying the principle enunciated in this case, we necessarily conclude that Detective McNally's reliance on the Illinois statute was objectively reasonable. On several occasions, this Court has upheld legislative schemes that authorized warrantless administrative searches of heavily regulated industries. See Donovan v. Dewey, 452 U.S. 594 (1981) (inspections of underground and surface mines pursuant to Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977); United States v. Biswell, 406 U.S. 311 (1972) (inspections of firearms dealers under Gun Control Act of 1968); Colonnade Catering Corp. v. United States, 397 U.S. 72 (1970) (inspections of liquor dealers under 26 U.S.C. § 5146(b) and 7606 (1964 ed.)). It has recognized that an inspection program may be a necessary component of regulation in certain industries, and has acknowledged that unannounced, warrantless inspections may be necessary "if the law is to be properly enforced and inspection made effective." United States v. Biswell, 406 U.S., at 316; Donovan v. Dewey, 452 U.S., at 603. Thus, the Court explained in Donovan that its prior decisions

"make clear that a warrant may not be constitutionally required when Congress has reasonably determined that warrantless searches are necessary to further a regulatory scheme and the federal regulatory presence is sufficiently comprehensive and defined that the owner of commercial property cannot help but be aware that his property will be subject to periodic inspections undertaken for specific purposes." Id., at 600.

In Donovan, the Court pointed out that a valid inspection scheme must provide, "in terms of the certainty and regularity of its application . . . a constitutionally adequate substitute for a warrant." Id., at 603. In Marshall v. Barlow's, Inc., 436 U.S. 307 (1978), to be sure, the Court held that a warrantless administrative search under § 8(a) of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 was invalid, partly because the "authority to make warrantless searches devolve[d] almost unbridled discretion upon executive and administrative officers, particularly those in the field, as to when to search and whom to search." Id., at 323. In contrast, the Court in Donovan concluded that the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977 imposed a system of inspection that was sufficiently tailored to the problems of unsafe conditions in mines and was sufficiently pervasive that it checked the discretion of Government officers and established "a predictable and guided federal regulatory presence." 452 U.S., at 604.

Under the standards established in these cases, Detective McNally's reliance on the Illinois statute authorizing warrantless inspections of licensees was objectively reasonable. In ruling on the statute's constitutionality, the Illinois Supreme Court recognized that the licensing and inspection scheme furthered a strong public interest, for it helped to "facilitate the discovery and prevention of automobile thefts." 107 Ill.2d, at 116, 481 N.E.2d, at 707. The court further concluded that it was "reasonable to assume that warrantless administrative searches are necessary in order to adequately control the theft of automobiles and automotive parts." Ibid. The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, upholding the amended version of the statute, pointed out that used-car and automotive-parts dealers in Illinois "are put on notice that they are entering a field subject to extensive state regulation." See Bionic Auto Parts Sales, Inc. v. Fahner, 721 F.2d, at 1079. The Illinois statute was thus directed at one specific and heavily regulated industry, the authorized warrantless searches were necessary to the effectiveness of the inspection system, and licensees were put on notice that their businesses would be subject to inspections pursuant to the state administrative scheme.

According to the Illinois Supreme Court, the statute failed to pass constitutional muster solely because the statute "vested State officials with too much discretion to decide who, when, and how long to search." 107 Ill.2d, at 116, 481 N.E.2d, at 707. Assuming, as we do for purposes of this case, that the Illinois Supreme Court was correct in its constitutional analysis, this defect in the statute was not sufficiently obvious so as to render a police officer's reliance upon the statute objectively unreasonable. The statute provided that searches could be conducted "at any reasonable time during the night or day," and seemed to limit the scope of the inspections to the records the businesses were required to maintain and to the business premises "for the purposes of determining the accuracy of required records." Ill. Rev. Stat., ch. 95 1/2, ¶ 5-401(e) (1981). While statutory provisions that circumscribe officers' discretion may be important in establishing a statute's constitutionality, the additional restrictions on discretion that might have been necessary are not so obvious that an objectively reasonable police officer would have realized the statute was unconstitutional without them. We therefore conclude that Detective McNally relied, in objective good faith, on a statute that appeared legitimately to allow a warrantless administrative search of respondents' business.

Accordingly, the judgment of the Supreme Court of Illinois is reversed, and the case is remanded to that court for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.