BACKGROUND: Ms. Dollree Mapp and her daughter lived in Cleveland, Ohio. After receiving information that an
individual wanted in connection with a recent bombing was hiding in Mapp's house, the Cleveland police knocked on her
door and demanded entrance. Mapp called her attorney and subsequently refused to let the police in when they failed to
produce a search warrant. After several hours of surveillance and the arrival of more officers, the police again sought entrance to the house. Although Mapp did not allow them to enter, they gained access by forcibly opening at least one door.
Once the police were inside the house, Mapp confronted them and demanded to see their warrant. One of the officers held
up a piece of paper claiming it was a search warrant. Mapp grabbed the paper but an officer recovered it and handcuffed
Mapp "because she had been belligerent". Dragging Mapp upstairs, officers proceeded to search not only her room, but
also her daughter's bedroom, the kitchen, dinette, living room, and basement.
In the course of the basement search, police found a trunk containing "lewd and lascivious" books, pictures, and photographs. As a result, Mapp was arrested for violating Ohio's criminal law prohibiting the possession of obscene materials.
At trial, the court found her guilty of the violation based on the evidence presented by the police. When Mapp's attorney
questioned the officers about the alleged warrant and asked for it to be produced, the police were unable or unwilling to
do so. Nonetheless, Mapp was found guilty and sentenced to 1 to 7 years in the Ohio Women's Reformatory.
Upon her conviction, Mapp appealed her case 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. Because the search
was unlawful, he maintained, the evidence was illegally obtained and must also be excluded. In its ruling, the Supreme
Court of Ohio recognized that "a reasonable argument" could be made that the conviction should be reversed "because the
'methods' employed to obtain the [evidence]. . . were such as to 'offend' a sense of justice." But the Court also stated that
the materials were admissible evidence. The Court explained its ruling by differentiating between evidence that was
peacefully seized from an inanimate object (the trunk) rather than forcibly seized from an individual. Based on this decision, Mapp's appeal was denied and her conviction upheld.
Mapp appealed again to the Supreme Court of the United States. The case came down to this fundamental question: may
evidence obtained through a search in violation of the Fourth Amendment be admissible in state criminal proceedings?
The Fourth Amendment states "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against
unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause . . . and
particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." The Fourth Amendment, however, does not define when a search or seizure is "unreasonable" nor does it specify how evidence obtained from an
"unreasonable" search should be treated.
While never previously addressing the specific question presented by Mapp's case, the Supreme Court of the United
States had made attempts to determine what constitutes a reasonable search and what evidence can be used in court. It
first wrestled with these issues in Boyd v. United States (1886) when the Court declared that "any forcible and compulsory extortion of a man's own . . . private papers to be used as evidence to convict him of a crime . . . is within the condemnation of . . . [the Fourth Amendment]. Later, in Weeks v. United States (1914), the Court ruled that the Fourth Amendment "put the courts of the United States and federal officials . . . under limitations . . . and forever secure[d] the people,
their persons, houses, papers and effects against all unreasonable searches and seizures. . . ." By including only United
States and federal officials in its ruling, however, the Court still left open the question of whether evidence unlawfully
seized could be used in a state criminal court proceeding. In Wolf v. Colorado (1949) the Court for the first time discussed the effect of the Fourth Amendment on the states. It concluded that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment incorporated, or made applicable to the states, the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. However, the ruling in Wolf also made clear that "in a prosecution in a State court for a State crime the Fourteenth Amendment does not
forbid the admission of evidence obtained by an unreasonable search and seizure." In other words, the exclusionary rule
did not apply to the states.
Some states, including Ohio, felt that they should be able to make their own determination regarding the admissibility of
illegally obtained evidence. Nevertheless, in 1960 the Supreme Court of the United States agreed to hear Mapp's case and
reconsider the decision it had reached in Wolf by determining whether the U.S. Constitution prohibited state officials
from using evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The decision in Mapp v. Ohio was handed down in
1961.
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Questions:
1. In your opinion, was Dollree Mapp justified in denying
the police entrance to her house? Explain your reasoning.
2. The Fourth Amendment states "The right of the people to
be secure . . . against unreasonable searches and seizures
shall not be violated . . . " If you were a justice for the Supreme Court of Ohio what, if anything, would you find unreasonable in the search of Mapp's house? Explain.
3. Why didn't the Court's decision in Wolf protect Mapp?
4. The Supreme Court of the United States has to balance
the protection of the rights of individuals against the protection of society. If the police had not searched Mapp's house
they would never have found the trunk containing "lewd and
lascivious books". With this in mind, do you think the rights
of Mapp or society should have been given more weight?
Why?
5. Complete the chart on the next page based on your reading.
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Key Excerpts from the Majority Opinion
The case was decided six to three.
Justice Clark delivered the opinion of the Court.
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. Were it otherwise . . . the freedom from state invasions of privacy would be so ephemeral and so
neatly severed from its conceptual nexus with the freedom from all brutish means of coercing evidence as not to merit
this Court's high regard as a freedom "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty." . . . in extending the substantive protections of due process to all constitutionally unreasonable searches—state or federal—it was logically and constitutionally
necessary that the exclusion doctrine—an essential part of the right to privacy-be also insisted upon as an essential
ingredient of the right. . . .
. . . our holding that the exclusionary rule is an essential part of both the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments is not only
the logical dictate of prior cases, but it also makes very good sense. There is no war between the Constitution and common sense.
Federal-state cooperation in the solution of crime under constitutional standards will be promoted, if only by recognition
of their now mutual obligation to respect the same fundamental criteria in their approaches.
There are those who say, as did Justice (then Judge) Cardozo, that under our constitutional exclusionary doctrine "[t]he
criminal is to go free because the constable has blundered." . . . In some cases this will undoubtedly be the result. But,
as was said in Elkins, "there is another consideration-the imperative of judicial integrity." . . . The criminal goes free, if
he must, but it is the law that sets him free. Nothing can destroy a government more quickly than its failure to observe
its own laws, or worse, its disregard of the charter of its own existence.
. . . Our decision, founded on reason and truth, gives to the individual no more than that which the Constitution guarantees him, to the police officer no less than that to which honest law enforcement is entitled, and, to the courts, that judicial integrity so necessary in the true administration of justice.
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Questions:
6. The majority identifies several reasons why evidence gained in an illegal search cannot legally be used
against a defendant during trial. Why do they say that such a rule is constitutionally necessary?
7. The majority insists that to allow illegally seized evidence during trial would destroy the government. Explain.
8. What foundation of U.S. government is the Court referring to when it states, "Nothing can destroy a government more quickly than its . . . disregard of the character of it own existence"?
Key Excerpts from the Concurring Opinion
The case was decided six to three.
Justice Black delivered a concurring opinion.
I am still not persuaded that the Fourth Amendment, standing alone, would be enough to bar the introduction
into evidence against an accused of papers and effects seized from him in violation of its commands. For the
Fourth Amendment does not itself contain any provision expressly precluding the use of such evidence, and I
am extremely doubtful that such a provision could properly be inferred from nothing more than the basic
command against unreasonable searches and seizures. Reflection on the problem, however, in the light of cases coming before the Court since Wolf, has led me to conclude that when 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.
Question:
9. How does his reasoning differ from that in the majority opinion?
Key Excerpts from the Dissenting Opinion
The case was decided six to three.
Justice Harlan delivered the dissenting opinion.
In overruling the Wolf case the Court, in my opinion, has forgotten the sense of judicial restraint which, with
due regard for stare decisis, is one element that should enter into deciding whether a past decision of this
Court should be overruled. Apart from that I also believe that the Wolf rule represents sounder Constitutional
doctrine than the new Wolf rule, which now replaces it.
From the Court's statement of the case one would gather that the central, if not controlling, issue on this appeal is whether illegally state-seized evidence is Constitutionally admissible in a state prosecution, an issue
which would of course face us with the need for re-examining Wolf. However, such is not the situation. For,
although that question was indeed raised here and below among appellant's subordinate points, the new and
pivotal issue brought to the Court by this appeal is whether §2905.34 of the Ohio Revised Code making criminal the mere knowing possession or control of obscene material, and under which appellant has been convicted, is consistent with the rights of free thought and expression assured against state action by the Fourteenth
Amendment. That was the principal issue, which was decided by the Ohio Supreme Court, which was tendered by appellant's Jurisdictional Statement, and which was briefed and argued in this Court.
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In this posture of things, I think it fair to say that five members of this Court have simply "reached out" to
overrule Wolf. With all respect for the views of the majority, and recognizing that stare decisis carries different
weight in Constitutional adjudication than it does in nonconstitutional decision, I can perceive no justification
for regarding this case as an appropriate occasion for re-examining Wolf...
It seems to me that justice might well have been done in this case without overturning a decision on which the
administration of criminal law in many of the States has long justifiably relied...
I would not impose upon the States this federal exclusionary remedy.
Our concern herem is not with the desirability of that [exclusionary] rule but only with the question whether
the States are Constitutionally free to follow it or not as they themselves determine…
The preservation of a proper balance between state and federal responsibility in the administration of criminal
justice demands patience on the part of those who might like to see things move faster among the States in this
respect.
Questions:
10. According to Justice Harlan, what was the primary issue raised by the appellant?
11. What was the issue that the Court ultimately decided?
12. What does Justice Harlan think of the fact that the Court decided a different issue than the one that was
originally raised? How does he feel about the decision itself?
13. Does Justice Harlan support the notion of states controlling their own criminal justice systems or of the
federal government making decisions for them?
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