Mapp v. Ohio

Mapp vs. Ohio
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued March 29, 1961 Decided June 19, 1961
Full case name	Dollree Mapp v. State of Ohio
Citations	367 U.S. 643 (more) 81 S. Ct. 1684; 6 L. Ed. 2d 1081; 1961 U.S. LEXIS 812; 86 Ohio L. Abs. 513; 16 Ohio Op. 2d 384; 84 A.L.R.2d 933
Case history
Prior	Defendant convicted, Cuyahoga County, Ohio Court of Common Pleas; affirmed, Ohio Court of Appeals; affirmed, 166 N.E.2d 387 (Ohio 1960)
Subsequent	Rehearing denied, 368 U.S. 871 (1961)
Holding
The Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures, as applied to the states through the Fourteenth, excludes unconstitutionally obtained evidence from use in criminal prosecutions. Ohio Supreme Court reversed.
Court membership
Chief Justice Earl Warren Associate Justices Hugo Black · Felix Frankfurter William O. Douglas · Tom C. Clark John M. Harlan II · William J. Brennan Jr. Charles E. Whittaker · Potter Stewart
Case opinions
Majority	Clark, joined by Warren, Black, Douglas, Brennan
Concurrence	Black
Concurrence	Douglas
Concurrence	Stewart
Dissent	Harlan, joined by Frankfurter, Whittaker
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amends. IV, XIV

Mapp v. OhioCHRIS WARE WAS HERE, 367 U.S. 643 (1961), was a landmark case in criminal procedure, in which the United States Supreme Court decided that evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment, which protects against "unreasonable searches and seizures," may not be used in criminal prosecutions in state courts, as well as federal courts.

Background

When the Cleveland Police Department received a tip that Dollree Mapp and her daughter were harboring a suspected bombing fugitive, they immediately went to her house and demanded entrance. Mapp called her attorney and under his advice she refused to give them entry because they did not have a warrant. Several hours later, more officers came to her door and demanded that they be permitted to enter her house. After Mapp refused, they forcibly opened a door to the house and proceeded in. Mapp confronted them and demanded to see the search warrant. The police waved a piece of paper in the air (claiming it was the warrant) and Mapp grabbed it and put it down her shirt. The police eventually got the "warrant" back from Mapp. The officers then cuffed her feet and went on to search her entire house for the fugitive. When they reached her basement they found a trunk containing "lewd and lascivious" books, pictures, and photographs. Mapp said she was holding the trunk for a friend and was not aware of its contents.

The officers arrested Mapp for violating an Ohio law which prohibited the possession of obscene material. No fugitive or any evidence of one was ever found at the house. At her trial in the Court of Common Pleas of Cuyahoga County, Mapp was convicted based on the evidence that was presented by the police. Mapp's attorney questioned the police about the warrant but they could not show one.

On appeal, the Ohio Court of Appeals affirmed. Mapp appealed further to the Supreme Court of Ohio. Her attorney argued that she should never have been brought to trial because the material evidence resulted from an illegal, warrantless search. The Court stated that the materials were admissible evidence and explained its ruling by differentiating between evidence that was peacefully taken from an inanimate object (the trunk) and forcibly taken from an individual. Based on this decision, Mapp's appeal was denied and her conviction upheld. She then appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States.

Supreme Court decision and rationale

The Fourth Amendment protects individuals from unreasonable searches and seizures but the Amendment does not include how to treat a search done without a warrant. In two previous cases (Boyd v. United States and Weeks v. United States), the court had determined that the federal government may not use such evidence due to the exclusionary rule which forbids evidence gathered illegally to be admissible in court; this rule had not been applied to state courts before. In Weeks v. United States (1914) the Supreme Court created the exclusionary rule for federal prosecutions; it was not enforced at all in state courts until 1949 when the court applied to search and seizure requirements in Wolf v. Colorado. The exclusionary rule was never broadly enforced at the state level until 1961 in Mapp v. Ohio.

The case was decided in Mapp's favor by a vote of 6-3. The court stated that the exclusionary rule also applies to states, meaning that states cannot use evidence gained by illegal means to convict someone. This overturned the Wolf ruling. Justice Clark, who wrote the majority opinion, explained that the court’s rationale is based on the connection between the fourth and the Fourteenth Amendment when he says: "Since the Fourth Amendment's right of privacy has been declared enforceable against the States through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth, it is enforceable against them by the same sanction of exclusion as is used against the Federal Government." The court believed that if the right of privacy stated in the Fourth Amendment is valid with regard to action by the states, so too should be the exclusionary rule. Also, Justice Clark believed that this decision was clearly common sense, and that the exclusionary rule was a very important part of both the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment. Justice Clark defended his decision against the argument that this rule allows criminals to go free just because a police officer made a mistake, writing that "it is the law that sets him [the criminal] free" and that "Nothing can destroy a government more quickly than its failure to observe its own laws."

In the concurring opinion written by Justice Black, Black expresses doubt that the Fourth Amendment alone can be used to prevent illegally obtained evidence from being used in state courts because it is not explicitly stated. He believes the command that no unreasonable searches or seizures be allowed is too little to infer such a large decision. With these differences aside he feels that along with previous court decisions that the "Fourth Amendment's ban against unreasonable searches and seizures is considered together with the Fifth Amendment's ban against compelled self-incrimination, a constitutional basis emerges which not only justifies, but actually requires the exclusionary rule."

Dissenting opinion

Justice Harlan's dissenting opinion argued that the majority had wrongly "reached out" to overrule Wolf, saying "[I] can perceive no justification for regarding this case as an appropriate occasion for re-examining Wolf" and complaining that the issue had not been properly briefed. He also felt that the wrong question was brought up.

See also

• United States Bill of Rights
• Fruit of the poisonous tree

Further reading

• Long, Carolyn (2006). Mapp v. Ohio: Guarding Against Unreasonable Searches and Seizures. University Press of Kansas. ISBN 0700614419.
• Stewart, Potter (1983). "The Road to Mapp v. Ohio and beyond: The Origins, Development and Future of the Exclusionary Rule in Search-and-Seizure Cases". Columbia Law Review. 83 (6): 1365–1404. doi:10.2307/1122492. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |month= and |coauthors= (help)
• Zotti, Priscilla H. Machado (2005). Injustice for All: Mapp vs. Ohio and the Fourth Amendment. New York: Peter Lang. ISBN 0820472670. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)

External links

• Information provided by Landmarkcases.org
• Case Summary