Mapp v. Ohio
Citation of Case: 367 U.S. 643; 81 S. Ct. 1684; 6 L.Ed.2d 1081 (1961)
Facts: Cleveland police came to Mapp's home on 23 May, 1957, acting on information that someone was hiding there. This person was wanted for questioning and the police had information that not only the person but the equipment used for a recent bombing was hidden in the home. They demanded to enter but Miss Mapp refused because her attorney advised that she not allow them to enter without a search warrant. The officers contacted headquarters and begin a surveillance of the house. Three hours later there were more officers on the scene and they once again asked for entrance to the home. She did not answer the door immediately and one of her doors was then forced open by police. Miss Mapp's attorney arrived and officers would not let him come in or see his client. Miss Mapp lived on the second floor but officers broke into a hallway leading to the basement. They produced a paper that they claimed was a search warrant and Miss Mapp took the paper and placed it inside of her shirt near her breast. There was a struggle between Miss Mapp and several officers and the piece of paper was recovered. Miss Mapp was also handcuffed as officers stated she was being belligerent. One of her hands was twisted sharply by the officers and she informed him that he was hurting her and asked that he stop. She was then led to her bedroom and her personal papers, dresser, closets, suitcases, and anything else...
K. Comment: I agree with the majority opinion. The Constitution is the absolute guiding law of the land, and the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees that its protections will be extended to state actions. The Fourth Amendment guarantees a right to privacy and assures citizens that they will be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. The Fourth Amendment also imposes a warrant requirement for the majority of searches, so that most searches
The privilege against self-incrimination originally came to pass through colonial history. It went against both the moral and physical compulsion of taking an oath to what was believed to be a vengeful God and having a pious soul. It also became a defensive weapon against society and the laws and proceedings that often took place, in that it allowed a person to insist that they did not have to
The U.S., however, is the only industrial democracy, common law or otherwise, in which courts must throw out tainted evidence in criminal trials. The U.S. Supreme Court decisions establishing and expanding on this principle have collectively come to be known as the "exclusionary rule." Although the rule had its origins in arguments about the morality of obtaining a conviction while relying on improperly obtained evidence, its primary modern justification
Exclusionary Rule be Abolished? The exclusionary rule states that evidence that has been illegally obtained may not be used within the confines of a criminal trial to convict a party, even if that party was clearly guilty of the crime in question (Exclusionary, 2006). There have been many cases where this rule has been used, and because of that, too many guilty people have gone free. The most significant case,
" The Fourteenth Amendment explicitly provided the same limitations on the individual state's as existed for the federal government in regards to civil liberties and protections, and therefore the same exclusionary rule based on the Fourth Amendment was held to apply to state proceedings. This directly overturned the ruling in Wolf v. Colorado, which stated explicitly that the Fourteenth Amendment did not disallow illegally obtained evidence from being used in
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