U.S. Supreme Court Mapp v. Ohio, 367
U.S. 643 (1961) Mapp v. Ohio No. 236 Argued March 29, 1961 Decided June 19, 1961 367
U.S. 643 APPEAL FROM THE SUPREME COURT OF OHIO MR. JUSTICE CLARK delivered the opinion of the Court.

															Appellant stands convicted of knowingly having had in her
possession and under her control certain lewd and lascivious books,
pictures, and photographs in violation of § 2905.34 of Ohio's
Revised Code. [ Footnote 1 ] As
officially stated in the syllabus to its opinion, the Supreme Court
of Ohio found that her conviction was valid though "based primarily
upon the introduction in evidence of lewd and lascivious books and
pictures unlawfully seized during an unlawful search of defendant's
home . . . ." 170 Ohio St. 427-428, 166 N.E.2d 387,
388. [644 ]

															On May 23, 1957, three Cleveland police officers arrived at
appellant's residence in that city pursuant to information that "a
person [was] hiding out in the home, who was wanted for questioning
in connection with a recent bombing, and that there was a large
amount of policy paraphernalia being hidden in the home." Miss Mapp
and her daughter by a former marriage lived on the top floor of the
two-family dwelling. Upon their arrival at that house, the officers
knocked on the door and demanded entrance, but appellant, after
telephoning her attorney, refused to admit them without a search
warrant. They advised their headquarters of the situation and
undertook a surveillance of the house.

															The officers again sought entrance some three hours later when
four or more additional officers arrived on the scene. When Miss
Mapp did not come to the door immediately, at least one of the
several doors to the house was forcibly opened [ Footnote 2 ] and the policemen gained
admittance. Meanwhile Miss Mapp's attorney arrived, but the
officers, having secured their own entry, and continuing in their
defiance of the law, would permit him neither to see Miss Mapp nor
to enter the house. It appears that Miss Mapp was halfway down the
stairs from the upper floor to the front door when the officers, in
this highhanded manner, broke into the hall. She demanded to see
the search warrant. A paper, claimed to be a warrant, was held up
by one of the officers. She grabbed the "warrant" and placed it in
her bosom. A struggle ensued in which the officers recovered the
piece of paper and as a result of which they handcuffed appellant
because she had been "belligerent" [645 ]

															in resisting their official rescue of the "warrant" from her
person. Running roughshod over appellant, a policeman "grabbed"
her, "twisted [her] hand," and she "yelled [and] pleaded with him"
because "it was hurting." Appellant, in handcuffs, was then
forcibly taken upstairs to her bedroom where the officers searched
a dresser, a chest of drawers, a closet and some suitcases. They
also looked into a photo album and through personal papers
belonging to the appellant. The search spread to the rest of the
second floor including the child's bedroom, the living room, the
kitchen and a dinette. The basement of the building and a trunk
found therein were also searched. The obscene materials for
possession of which she was ultimately convicted were discovered in
the course of that widespread search.

															At the trial, no search warrant was produced by the prosecution,
nor was the failure to produce one explained or accounted for. At
best, "There is, in the record, considerable doubt as to whether
there ever was any warrant for the search of defendant's home." 170
Ohio St. at 430, 166 N.E.2d at 389. The Ohio Supreme Court believed
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 found determinative the fact that the evidence had not
been taken "from defendant's person by the use of brutal or
offensive physical force against defendant." 170 Ohio St. at 431,
166 N.E.2d at 389-390.

															The State says that, even if the search were made without
authority, or otherwise unreasonably, it is not prevented from
using the unconstitutionally seized evidence at trial, citing Wolf v. Colorado , 338 U. S. 25 (1949), in
which this Court did indeed hold "that, in a prosecution in a State
court for a State crime, the Fourteenth Amend- [646 ]

															ment does not forbid the admission of evidence obtained by an
unreasonable search and seizure." At p. 33. On this appeal, of
which we have noted probable jurisdiction, 364 U.S. 868, it is
urged once again that we review that holding. [ Footnote 3 ]

															I

															Seventy-five years ago, in Boyd v. United States , 116 U. S. 616 ,
630 (1886), considering the Fourth [ Footnote 4 ] and Fifth Amendments as running "almost into
each other" [ Footnote 5 ] on the
facts before it, this Court held that the doctrines of those
Amendments "apply to all invasions on the part of the government and its
employes of the sanctity of a man's home and the privacies of life.
It is not the breaking of his doors, and the rummaging of his
drawers, [647 ] that constitutes the essence of the offence; but it is the
invasion of his indefeasible right of personal security, personal
liberty and private property. . . . Breaking into a
house and opening boxes and drawers are circumstances of
aggravation; but any forcible and compulsory extortion of a man's
own testimony or of his private papers to be used as evidence to
convict him of crime or to forfeit his goods, is within the
condemnation . . . [of those Amendments]." The Court noted that "constitutional provisions for the security of person and
property should be liberally construed. . . . It is
the duty of courts to be watchful for the constitutional rights of
the citizen, and against any stealthy encroachments thereon." At p.
635. In this jealous regard for maintaining the integrity of
individual rights, the Court gave life to Madison's prediction that
"independent tribunals of justice . . . will be naturally
led to resist every encroachment upon rights expressly stipulated
for in the Constitution by the declaration of rights." I Annals of
Cong. 439 (1789). Concluding, the Court specifically referred to
the use of the evidence there seized as "unconstitutional." At p.
638. Less than 30 years after Boyd , this Court, in Weeks v. United States , 232 U. S. 383 (1914),
stated that "the Fourth Amendment . . . put the courts of the
United States and Federal officials, in the exercise of their power
and authority, under limitations and restraints [and]
. . . forever secure[d] the people, their persons,
houses, papers and effects against all unreasonable searches and
seizures under the guise of law . . . , and the duty of
giving to it force and effect is obligatory upon all entrusted
under our Federal system with the enforcement of the laws." At pp.
391-392. [648 ]

															Specifically dealing with the use of the evidence
unconstitutionally seized, the Court concluded "If letters and private documents can thus be seized and held
and used in evidence against a citizen accused of an offense, the
protection of the Fourth Amendment declaring his right to be secure
against such searches and seizures is of no value, and, so far as
those thus placed are concerned, might as well be stricken from the
Constitution. The efforts of the courts and their officials to
bring the guilty to punishment, praiseworthy as they are, are not
to be aided by the sacrifice of those great principles established
by years of endeavor and suffering which have resulted in their
embodiment in the fundamental law of the land." At p. 393. Finally, the Court in that case clearly stated that use of the
seized evidence involved "a denial of the constitutional rights of
the accused." At pp. 398. Thus, in the year 1914, in the Weeks case, this Court "for the first time" held that, "in
a federal prosecution, the Fourth Amendment barred the use of
evidence secured through an illegal search and seizure." Wolf
v. Colorado, supra , at 28. This Court has ever since required
of federal law officers a strict adherence to that command which
this Court has held to be a clear, specific, and constitutionally
required--even if judicially implied--deterrent safeguard without
insistence upon which the Fourth Amendment would have been reduced
to "a form of words." Holmes, J., Silverthorne Lumber Co. v.
United States , 251 U. S. 385 , 392
(1920). It meant, quite simply, that "conviction by means of
unlawful seizures and enforced confessions . . . should
find no sanction in the judgments of the courts . . . ," Weeks v. United States, supra , at 392, and that such
evidence "shall not be used at all." Silverthorne Lumber Co. v.
United States, supra , at 392. [649 ]

															There are in the cases of this Court some passing references to
the Weeks rule as being one of evidence. But the plain and
unequivocal language of Weeks --and its later paraphrase in Wolf --to the effect that the Weeks rule is of
constitutional origin, remains entirely undisturbed. In Byars
v. United States , 273 U. S. 28 (1927), a
unanimous Court declared that "the doctrine [cannot]
. . . be tolerated under our constitutional
system , that evidences of crime discovered by a federal
officer in making a search without lawful warrant may be used
against the victim of the unlawful search where a timely challenge
has been interposed." At pp. 29-30 (emphasis added). The Court, in Olmstead v. United States , 277 U. S. 438 (1928), in
unmistakable language restated the Weeks rule: "The striking outcome of the Weeks case and those which
followed it was the sweeping declaration that the Fourth Amendment,
although not referring to or limiting the use of evidence in
courts, really forbade its introduction if obtained by government
officers through a violation of the Amendment." At p. 462. In McNabb v. United States , 318 U. S. 332 (1943), we
note this statement: "[A] conviction in the federal courts, the foundation of which
is evidence obtained in disregard of liberties deemed fundamental
by the Constitution, cannot stand. Boyd v. United States
. . . Weeks v. United States. . . . And
this Court has, on Constitutional grounds, set aside convictions,
both in the federal and state courts, which were based upon
confessions 'secured by protracted and repeated questioning of
ignorant and untutored persons, in whose minds the power of
officers was greatly mag- [650 ] nified' . . . or 'who have been unlawfully held
incommunicado without advice of friends or counsel.'
. . ." At pp. 339-340. Significantly, in McNabb , the Court did then pass on to
formulate a rule of evidence, saying, "[i]n the view we take of the
case, however, it becomes unnecessary to reach the Constitutional
issue, [for] . . . [t]he principles governing the
admissibility of evidence in federal criminal trials have not been
restricted . . . to those derived solely from the
Constitution." At pp. 340-341.

															II

															In 1949, 35 years after Weeks was announced, this
Court, in Wolf v. Colorado, supra , again for the first
time, [ Footnote 6 ] discussed
the effect of the Fourth Amendment upon the States through the
operation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It
said: "[W]e have no hesitation in saying that, were a State
affirmatively to sanction such police incursion into privacy, it
would run counter to the guaranty of the Fourteenth Amendment." At
pp. 28. Nevertheless, after declaring that the "security of one's
privacy against arbitrary intrusion by the police" is "implicit in
the concept of ordered liberty' and, as such, enforceable against
the States through the Due Process Clause," cf. Palko v.
Connecticut , 302
U. S. 319 (1937), and announcing that it "stoutly adhere[d]" to
the Weeks decision, the Court decided that the Weeks exclusionary rule would not then be imposed upon the
States as "an essential ingredient of the right." 338 U.S. at
27-29. The Court's reasons for not considering essential to the [651 ]

															right to privacy, as a curb imposed upon the States by the Due
Process Clause, that which decades before had been posited as part
and parcel of the Fourth Amendment's limitation upon federal
encroachment of individual privacy, were bottomed on factual
considerations.

															While they are not basically relevant to a decision that the
exclusionary rule is an essential ingredient of the Fourth
Amendment as the right it embodies is vouchsafed against the States
by the Due Process Clause, we will consider the current validity of
the factual grounds upon which Wolf was based.

															The Court in Wolf first stated that "[t]he contrariety
of views of the States" on the adoption of the exclusionary rule of Weeks was "particularly impressive" (At pp. 29); and, in
this connection, that it could not "brush aside the experience of
States which deem the incidence of such conduct by the police too
slight to call for a deterrent remedy . . . by overriding
the [States'] relevant rules of evidence." At pp. 31-32. While, in
1949, prior to the Wolf case, almost two-thirds of the
States were opposed to the use of the exclusionary rule, now,
despite the Wolf case, more than half of those since
passing upon it, by their own legislative or judicial decision,
have wholly or partly adopted or adhered to the Weeks rule. See Elkins v. United States , 364 U. S. 206 , Appendix,
pp. 224-232 (1960). Significantly, among those now following the
rule is California, which, according to its highest court, was
"compelled to reach that conclusion because other remedies have
completely failed to secure compliance with the constitutional
provisions. . . ." People v. Cahan , 44 Cal. 2d
434 , 445, 282 P.2d 905, 911 (1955). In connection with this
California case, we note that the second basis elaborated in Wolf in support of its failure to enforce the exclusionary
doctrine against the States was that "other means of protection"
have been afforded "the [652 ]

															right to privacy." [ Footnote
7 ] 338 U.S. at 30. The experience of California that such other
remedies have been worthless and futile is buttressed by the
experience of other States. The obvious futility of relegating the
Fourth Amendment to the protection of other remedies has, moreover,
been [653 ]

															recognized by this Court since Wolf . See Irvine v.
California , 347
U. S. 128 , 137 (1954).

															Likewise, time has set its face against what Wolf called the "weighty testimony" of People v. Defore , 242
N.Y. 13, 150 N.E. 585 (1926). There, Justice (then Judge) Cardozo,
rejecting adoption of the Weeks exclusionary rule in New
York, had said that "[t]he Federal rule as it stands is either too
strict or too lax." 242 N.Y. at 22, 150 N.E. at 588. However, the
force of that reasoning has been largely vitiated by later
decisions of this Court. These include the recent discarding of the
"silver platter" doctrine which allowed federal judicial use of
evidence seized in violation of the Constitution by state agents, Elkins v. United States, supra; the relaxation of the
formerly strict requirements as to standing to challenge the use of
evidence thus seized, so that now the procedure of exclusion,
"ultimately referable to constitutional safeguards," is available
to anyone even "legitimately on [the] premises" unlawfully
searched, Jones v. United States , 362 U. S. 257 , 266-267
(1960); and, finally, the formulation of a method to prevent state
use of evidence unconstitutionally seized by federal agents, Rea v. United States , 350 U. S. 214 (1956).
Because there can be no fixed formula, we are admittedly met with
"recurring questions of the reasonableness of searches," but less
is not to be expected when dealing with a Constitution, and, at any
rate, "[r]easonableness is in the first instance for the [trial
court] . . . to determine." United States v.
Rabinowitz , 339
U. S. 56 , 63 (1950).

															It therefore plainly appears that the factual considerations
supporting the failure of the Wolf Court to include the Weeks exclusionary rule when it recognized the
enforceability of the right to privacy against the States in 1949,
while not basically relevant to the constitutional consideration,
could not, in any analysis, now be deemed controlling. [654 ]

															III

															Some five years after Wolf , in answer to a plea made
here Term after Term that we overturn its doctrine on applicability
of the Weeks exclusionary rule, this Court indicated that
such should not be done until the States had "adequate opportunity
to adopt or reject the [ Weeks ] rule." Irvine v.
California, supra , at 134. There again, it was said: "Never until June of 1949 did this Court hold the basic search
and seizure prohibition in any way applicable to the states under
the Fourteenth Amendment." Ibid. And only last Term, after again carefully reexamining the Wolf doctrine in Elkins v. United States, supra ,
the Court pointed out that "the controlling principles" as to
search and seizure and the problem of admissibility "seemed clear"
(At pp. 212) until the announcement in Wolf "that the Due
Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment does not itself require
state courts to adopt the exclusionary rule" of the Weeks case. At pp. 213. At the same time, the Court pointed out, "the
underlying constitutional doctrine which Wolf established
. . . that the Federal Constitution . . .
prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures by state officers" had
undermined the "foundation upon which the admissibility of
state-seized evidence in a federal trial originally
rested. . . ." Ibid. The Court concluded
that it was therefore obliged to hold, although it chose the
narrower ground on which to do so, that all evidence obtained by an
unconstitutional search and seizure was inadmissible in a federal
court regardless of its source. Today we once again examine Wolf's constitutional documentation of the right to
privacy free from unreasonable state intrusion, and, after its
dozen years on our books, are led by it to close the only [655 ]

															courtroom door remaining open to evidence secured by official
lawlessness in flagrant abuse of that basic right, reserved to all
persons as a specific guarantee against that very same unlawful
conduct. We hold that all evidence obtained by searches and
seizures in violation of the Constitution is, by that same
authority, inadmissible in a state court.

															IV

															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, then, just as without the Weeks rule the
assurance against unreasonable federal searches and seizures would
be "a form of words," valueless and undeserving of mention in a
perpetual charter of inestimable human liberties, so too, without
that rule, 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." At the time that the Court held in Wolf that the Amendment was applicable to the States through the Due
Process Clause, the cases of this Court, as we have seen, had
steadfastly held that as to federal officers the Fourth Amendment
included the exclusion of the evidence seized in violation of its
provisions. Even Wolf "stoutly adhered" to that
proposition. The right to privacy, when conceded operatively
enforceable against the States, was not susceptible of destruction
by avulsion of the sanction upon which its protection and enjoyment
had always been deemed dependent under the Boyd, Weeks and Silverthorne cases. Therefore, in extending the
substantive protections of due process to all constitutionally
unreasonable searches--state or federal--it was [656 ]

															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 newly
recognized by the Wolf case. In short, the admission of
the new constitutional right by Wolf could not
consistently tolerate denial of its most important constitutional
privilege, namely, the exclusion of the evidence which an accused
had been forced to give by reason of the unlawful seizure. To hold
otherwise is to grant the right but, in reality, to withhold its
privilege and enjoyment. Only last year, the Court itself
recognized that the purpose of the exclusionary rule "is to
deter--to compel respect for the constitutional guaranty in the
only effectively available way--by removing the incentive to
disregard it." Elkins v. United States, supra , at 217.

															Indeed, we are aware of no restraint, similar to that rejected
today, conditioning the enforcement of any other basic
constitutional right. The right to privacy, no less important than
any other right carefully and particularly reserved to the people,
would stand in marked contrast to all other rights declared as
"basic to a free society." Wolf v. Colorado, supra , at 27.
This Court has not hesitated to enforce as strictly against the
States as it does against the Federal Government the rights of free
speech and of a free press, the rights to notice and to a fair,
public trial, including, as it does, the right not to be convicted
by use of a coerced confession, however logically relevant it be,
and without regard to its reliability. Rogers v. Richmond , 365 U. S. 534 (1961). And nothing could be more certain than that, when a coerced
confession is involved, "the relevant rules of evidence" are
overridden without regard to "the incidence of such conduct by the
police," slight or frequent. Why should not the same rule apply to
what is tantamount to coerced testimony by way of unconstitutional
seizure of goods, papers, effects, documents, etc.? We find
that, [657 ]

															as to the Federal Government, the Fourth and Fifth Amendments
and, as to the States, the freedom from unconscionable invasions of
privacy and the freedom from convictions based upon coerced
confessions do enjoy an "intimate relation" [ Footnote 8 ] in their perpetuation of "principles of
humanity and civil liberty [secured] . . . only after
years of struggle," Bram v. United States , 168 U. S. 532 , 543-544
(1897). They express "supplementing phases of the same
constitutional purpose to maintain inviolate large areas of
personal privacy." Feldman v. United States , 322 U. S. 487 , 489-490
(1944). The philosophy of each Amendment and of each freedom is
complementary to, although not dependent upon, that of the other in
its sphere of influence--the very least that together they assure
in either sphere is that no man is to be convicted on
unconstitutional evidence. Cf. Rochin v. California , 342 U. S. 165 ,
173 (1952).

															V

															Moreover, 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.
Presently, a federal prosecutor may make no use of evidence
illegally seized, but a State's attorney across the street may,
although he supposedly is operating under the enforceable
prohibitions of the same Amendment. Thus, the State, by admitting
evidence unlawfully seized, serves to encourage disobedience to the
Federal Constitution which it is bound to uphold. Moreover, as was
said in Elkins , "[t]he very essence of a healthy
federalism depends upon the avoidance of needless conflict
between [658 ]

															state and federal courts." 364 U.S. at 221. Such a conflict,
hereafter needless, arose this very Term in Wilson v.
Schnettler , 365
U. S. 381 (1961), in which, and in spite of the promise made by Rea , we gave full recognition to our practice in this
regard by refusing to restrain a federal officer from testifying in
a state court as to evidence unconstitutionally seized by him in
the performance of his duties. Yet the double standard recognized
until today hardly put such a thesis into practice. In
nonexclusionary States, federal officers, being human, were by it
invited to, and did, as our cases indicate, step across the street
to the State's attorney with their unconstitutionally seized
evidence. Prosecution on the basis of that evidence was then had in
a state court in utter disregard of the enforceable Fourth
Amendment. If the fruits of an unconstitutional search had been
inadmissible in both state and federal courts, this inducement to
evasion would have been sooner eliminated. There would be no need
to reconcile such cases as Rea and Schnettler ,
each pointing up the hazardous uncertainties of our heretofore
ambivalent approach.

															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. "However much in a particular case
insistence upon such rules may appear as a technicality that inures
to the benefit of a guilty person, the history of the criminal law
proves that tolerance of shortcut methods in law enforcement
impairs its enduring effectiveness." Miller v. United
States , 357 U.
S. 301 , 313 (1958). Denying shortcuts to only one of two
cooperating law enforcement agencies tends naturally to breed
legitimate suspicion of "working arrangements" whose results are
equally tainted. Byars v. United States , 273 U. S. 28 (1927); Lustig v. United States , 338 U. S. 74 (1949). [659 ]

															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." People v. Defore , 242 N.Y. at 21, 150 N.E. at 587. In some
cases, this will undoubtedly be the result. [ Footnote 9 ] But, as was said in Elkins ,
"there is another consideration--the imperative of judicial
integrity." 364 U.S. at 222. 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. As Mr.
Justice Brandeis, dissenting, said in Olmstead v. United
States , 277 U.
S. 438 , 485 (1928): "Our Government is the potent, the
omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole
people by its example. . . . If the Government
becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every
man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy." Nor can it
lightly be assumed that, as a practical matter, adoption of the
exclusionary rule fetters law enforcement. Only last year, this
Court expressly considered that contention and found that
"pragmatic evidence of a sort" to the contrary was not wanting. Elkins v. United States, supra , at 218. The Court noted
that "The federal courts themselves have operated under the
exclusionary rule of Weeks for almost half a cen- [660 ] tury; yet it has not been suggested either that the Federal
Bureau of Investigation [ Footnote 10 ] has thereby been rendered ineffective, or
that the administration of criminal justice in the federal courts
has thereby been disrupted. Moreover, the experience of the states
is impressive. . . . The movement towards the rule
of exclusion has been halting, but seemingly inexorable." Id. at 218-219. The ignoble shortcut to conviction left open to the State tends
to destroy the entire system of constitutional restraints on which
the liberties of the people rest. [ Footnote 11 ] Having once recognized that the right to
privacy embodied in the Fourth Amendment is enforceable against the
States, and that the right to be secure against rude invasions of
privacy by state officers is, therefore, constitutional in origin,
we can no longer permit that right to remain an empty promise.
Because it is enforceable in the same manner and to like effect as
other basic rights secured by the Due Process Clause, we can no
longer permit it to be revocable at the whim of any police officer
who, in the name of law enforcement itself, chooses to suspend its
enjoyment. 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.

															The judgment of the Supreme Court of Ohio is reversed, and the
cause remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this
opinion. Reversed and remanded. [661 ]

															MR. JUSTICE BLACK, concurring.

															For nearly fifty years, since the decision of this Court in Weeks v. United States , [ Footnote 1 ] federal courts have refused to permit the
introduction into evidence against an accused of his papers and
effects obtained by "unreasonable searches and seizures" in
violation of the Fourth Amendment. In Wolf v. Colorado ,
decided in 1948, however, this Court held 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." [ Footnote 2 ] I concurred in that holding on these
grounds: "For reasons stated in my dissenting opinion in Adamson v.
California , 332 U. S. 46 ,
68, I agree with the conclusion of the Court that the Fourth
Amendment's prohibition of 'unreasonable searches and seizures' is
enforceable against the states. Consequently, I should be for
reversal of this case if I thought the Fourth Amendment not only
prohibited 'unreasonable searches and seizures,' but also, of
itself, barred the use of evidence so unlawfully obtained. But I
agree with what appears to be a plain implication of the Court's
opinion that the federal exclusionary rule is not a command of the
Fourth Amendment, but is a judicially created rule of evidence
which Congress might negate." [ Footnote 3 ] 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 [662 ]

															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.

															The close interrelationship between the Fourth and Fifth
Amendments, as they apply to this problem, [ Footnote 4 ] has long been recognized and,
indeed, was expressly made the ground for this Court's holding in Boyd v. United States. [ Footnote 5 ] There, the Court fully discussed this
relationship and declared itself "unable to perceive that the
seizure of a man's private books and papers to be used in evidence
against him is substantially different from compelling him to be a
witness against himself." [ Footnote 6 ] It was upon this ground that Mr. Justice
Rutledge largely relied in his dissenting opinion in the Wolf case. [ Footnote
7 ] And, although I rejected the argument at that time, its
force has, for me at least, become compelling with the more
thorough understanding of the problem brought on by recent cases.
In the final analysis, it seems to me that the Boyd doctrine, though perhaps not required by the express language of
the Constitution, strictly construed, is amply justified from an
historical standpoint, soundly based in reason, [663 ]

															and entirely consistent with what I regard to be the proper
approach to interpretation of our Bill of Rights--an approach well
set out by Mr. Justice Bradley in the Boyd case: "[C]onstitutional provisions for the security of person and
property should be liberally construed. A close and literal
construction deprives them of half their efficacy, and leads to
gradual depreciation of the right, as if it consisted more in sound
than in substance. It is the duty of the courts to be watchful for
the constitutional rights of the citizen, and against any stealthy
encroachments thereon." [ Footnote 8 ] The case of Rochin v. California , [ Footnote 9 ] which we decided three years
after the Wolf case, authenticated, I think, the soundness
of Mr. Justice Bradley's and Mr. Justice Rutledge's reliance upon
the interrelationship between the Fourth and Fifth Amendments as
requiring the exclusion of unconstitutionally seized evidence. In
the Rochin case, three police officers, acting with
neither a judicial warrant nor probable cause, entered Rochin's
home for the purpose of conducting a search, and broke down the
door to a bedroom occupied by Rochin and his wife. Upon their entry
into the room, the officers saw Rochin pick up and swallow two
small capsules. They immediately seized him and took him in
handcuffs to a hospital, where the capsules [664 ]

															were recovered by use of a stomach pump. Investigation showed
that the capsules contained morphine, and evidence of that fact was
made the basis of his conviction of a crime in a state court.

															When the question of the validity of that conviction was brought
here, we were presented with an almost perfect example of the
interrelationship between the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. Indeed,
every member of this Court who participated in the decision of that
case recognized this interrelationship and relied on it, to some
extent at least, as justifying reversal of Rochin's conviction. The
majority, though careful not to mention the Fifth Amendment's
provision that "[n]o person . . . shall be compelled in
any criminal case to be a witness against himself," showed at least
that it was not unaware that such a provision exists, stating:
"Coerced confessions offend the community's sense of fair play and
decency. . . . It would be a stultification of the
responsibility which the course of constitutional history has cast
upon this Court to hold that, in order to convict a man, the police
cannot extract by force what is in his mind, but can extract what
is in his stomach." [ Footnote 10 ] The methods used by the police thus were,
according to the majority, "too close to the rack and the screw to
permit of constitutional differentiation," [ Footnote 11 ] and the case was reversed on
the ground that these methods had violated the Due Process Clause
of the Fourteenth Amendment in that the treatment accorded Rochin
was of a kind that "shocks the conscience," "offend[s] a sense of
justice'" and fails to "respect certain decencies of civilized
conduct." [ Footnote
12 ]

															I concurred in the reversal of the Rochin case, but on
the ground that the Fourteenth Amendment made the Fifth Amendment's
provision against self-incrimination [665 ]

															applicable to the States and that, given a broad, rather than a
narrow, construction, that provision barred the introduction of
this "capsule" evidence just as much as it would have forbidden the
use of words Rochin might have been coerced to speak. [ Footnote 13 ] In reaching
this conclusion, I cited and relied on the Boyd case, the
constitutional doctrine of which was, of course, necessary to my
disposition of the case. At that time, however, these views were
very definitely in the minority, for only MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS and I
rejected the flexible and uncertain standards of the "shock the
conscience test" used in the majority opinion. [ Footnote 14 ]

															Two years after Rochin , in Irvine v.
California , [ Footnote
15 ] we were again called upon to consider the validity of a
conviction based on evidence which had been obtained in a manner
clearly unconstitutional and arguably shocking to the conscience.
The five opinions written by this Court in that case demonstrate
the utter confusion and uncertainty that had been brought about by
the Wolf and Rochin decisions. In concurring, MR.
JUSTICE CLARK emphasized the unsatisfactory nature of the Court's
"shock the conscience test," saying that this "test" "makes for
such uncertainty and unpredictability that it would be impossible
to foretell--other than by guesswork--just how brazen the invasion
of the intimate privacies of one's home must be in order to shock
itself into the protective arms of the Constitution. In truth, the
practical result of this ad hoc approach is simply that,
when five Justices are sufficiently revolted by local police
action, a conviction is overturned and a guilty man may go free.
[ Footnote 16 ] " [666 ]

															Only one thing emerged with complete clarity from the Irvine case--that is that seven Justices rejected the
"shock the conscience" constitutional standard enunciated in the Wolf and Rochin cases. But even this did not
lessen the confusion in this area of the law, because the continued
existence of mutually inconsistent precedents, together with the
Court's inability to settle upon a majority opinion in the Irvine case, left the situation at least as uncertain as
it had been before. [ Footnote 17 ] Finally, today, we clear up that
uncertainty. As I understand the Court's opinion in this case, we
again reject the confusing "shock the conscience" standard of the Wolf and Rochin cases and, instead, set aside
this state conviction in reliance upon the precise, intelligible
and more predictable constitutional doctrine enunciated in the Boyd case. I fully agree with Mr. Justice Bradley's
opinion that the two Amendments upon which the Boyd doctrine rests are of vital importance in our constitutional scheme
of liberty, and that both are entitled to a liberal, rather than a
niggardly, interpretation. The courts of the country are entitled
to know with as much certainty as possible what scope they cover.
The Court's opinion, in my judgment, dissipates the doubt and
uncertainty in this field of constitutional law, and I am
persuaded, for this and other reasons stated, to depart from my
prior views, to accept the Boyd doctrine as controlling in
this state case, and to join the Court's judgment and opinion,
which are in accordance with that constitutional doctrine.

															MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, concurring.

															Though I have joined the opinion of the Court, I add a few
words. This criminal proceeding started with a lawless search and
seizure. The police entered a home [667 ]

															forcefully, and seized documents that were later used to convict
the occupant of a crime.

															She lived alone with her fifteen-year-old daughter in the
second-floor flat of a duplex in Cleveland. At about 1:30 in the
afternoon of May 23, 1957, three policemen arrived at this house.
They rang the bell, and the appellant, appearing at her window,
asked them what they wanted. According to their later testimony,
the policemen had come to the house on information from "a
confidential source that there was a person hiding out in the home
who was wanted for questioning in connection with a recent
bombing." [ Footnote 1 ] To
the appellant's question, however, they replied only that they
wanted to question her, and would not state the subject about which
they wanted to talk.

															The appellant, who had retained an attorney in connection with a
pending civil matter, told the police she would call him to ask if
she should let them in. On her attorney's advice, she told them she
would let them in only when they produced a valid search warrant.
For the next two and a half hours, the police laid siege to the
house. At four o'clock, their number was increased to at least
seven. Appellant's lawyer appeared on the scene, and one of the
policemen told him that they now had a search warrant, but the
officer refused to show it. Instead, going to the back door, the
officer first tried to kick it in and, when that proved
unsuccessful, he broke the glass in the door and opened it from the
inside.

															The appellant, who was on the steps going up to her flat,
demanded to see the search warrant, but the officer refused to let
her see it, although he waved a paper in front of her face. She
grabbed it and thrust it down the front of her dress. The policemen
seized her, took the paper [668 ]

															from her, and had her handcuffed to another officer. She was
taken upstairs, thus bound, and into the larger of the two bedrooms
in the apartment; there she was forced to sit on the bed.
Meanwhile, the officers entered the house and made a complete
search of the four rooms of her flat and of the basement of the
house.

															The testimony concerning the search is largely nonconflicting.
The approach of the officers; their long wait outside the home,
watching all its doors; the arrival of reinforcements armed with a
paper; [ Footnote 2 ]
breaking into the house; putting their hands on appellant and
handcuffing her; numerous officers ransacking through every room
and piece of furniture while the appellant sat, a prisoner in her
own bedroom. There is direct conflict in the testimony, however, as
to where the evidence which is the basis of this case was found. To
understand the meaning of that conflict, one must understand that
this case is based on the knowing possession [ Footnote 3 ] of four little pamphlets, a
couple of photographs, and a little pencil doodle--all of which are
alleged to be pornographic.

															According to the police officers who participated in the search,
these articles were found, some in appellant's [669 ]

															dressers and some in a suitcase found by her bed. According to
appellant, most of the articles were found in a cardboard box in
the basement; one in the suitcase beside her bed. All of this
material, appellant--and a friend of hers--said were odds and ends
belonging to a recent boarder, a man who had left suddenly for New
York and had been detained there. As the Supreme Court of Ohio read
the statute under which appellant is charged, she is guilty of the
crime whichever story is true.

															The Ohio Supreme Court sustained the conviction even though it
was based on the documents obtained in the lawless search. For, in
Ohio, evidence obtained by an unlawful search and seizure is
admissible in a criminal prosecution, at least where it was not
taken from the "defendant's person by the use of brutal or
offensive force against defendant." State v. Mapp , 170
Ohio St. 427, 166 N.E.2d at 388, syllabus 2; State v.
Lindway , 131 Ohio St. 166, 2 N.E.2d 490. This evidence would
have been inadmissible in a federal prosecution. Weeks v.
United States , 232 U. S. 383 ; Elkins
v. United States , 364 U. S. 206 . For, as
stated in the former decision, "The effect of the Fourth Amendment
is to put the courts of the United States and Federal officials, in
the exercise of their power and authority, under limitations and
restraints. . . ." Id. 391-392. It was
therefore held that evidence obtained (which in that case was
documents and correspondence) from a home without any warrant was
not admissible in a federal prosecution.

															We held in Wolf v. Colorado , 338 U. S. 25 , that the
Fourth Amendment was applicable to the States by reason of the Due
Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. But a majority held
that the exclusionary rule of the Weeks case was not
required of the States, that they could apply such sanctions as
they chose. That position had the necessary votes to carry the day.
But, with all respect, it was not the voice of reason or
principle. [670 ]

															As stated in the Weeks case, if evidence seized in
violation of the Fourth Amendment can be used against an accused,
"his right to be secure against such searches and seizures is of no
value, and . . . might as well be stricken from the
Constitution." 232 U.S. at 393.

															When we allowed States to give constitutional sanction to the
"shabby business" of unlawful entry into a home (to use an
expression of Mr. Justice Murphy, Wolf v. Colorado , at
46), we did indeed rob the Fourth Amendment of much meaningful
force. There are, of course, other theoretical remedies. One is
disciplinary action within the hierarchy of the police system,
including prosecution of the police officer for a crime. Yet, as
Mr. Justice Murphy said in Wolf v. Colorado , at 42,
"Self-scrutiny is a lofty ideal, but its exaltation reaches new
heights if we expect a District Attorney to prosecute himself or
his associates for well meaning violations of the search and
seizure clause during a raid the District Attorney or his
associates have ordered."

															The only remaining remedy, if exclusion of the evidence is not
required, is an action of trespass by the homeowner against the
offending officer. Mr. Justice Murphy showed how onerous and
difficult it would be for the citizen to maintain that action, and
how meagre the relief even if the citizen prevails. 338 U.S. 42-44.
The truth is that trespass actions against officers who make
unlawful searches and seizures are mainly illusory remedies.

															Without judicial action making the exclusionary rule applicable
to the States, Wolf v. Colorado , in practical effect,
reduced the guarantee against unreasonable searches and seizures to
"a dead letter," as Mr. Justice Rutledge said in his dissent. See 338 U.S. at 47. Wolf v. Colorado, supra , was decided in 1949. The
immediate result was a storm of constitutional controversy which
only today finds its end. I believe that this is an appropriate
case in which to put an end to the asymmetry which Wolf imported into the law. See [671 ] Stefanelli v. Minard , 342 U. S. 117 ; Rea v.
United States , 350 U. S. 214 ; Elkins
v. United States, supra; Monroe v. Pape , 365 U. S. 167 . It is an
appropriate case because the facts it presents show--as would few
other cases--the casual arrogance of those who have the
untrammelled power to invade one's home and to seize one's
person.

															It is also an appropriate case in the narrower and more
technical sense. The issues of the illegality of the search and the
admissibility of the evidence have been presented to the state
court, and were duly raised here in accordance with the applicable
Rule of Practice. [ Footnote
4 ] The question was raised in the notice of appeal, the
jurisdictional statement and in appellant's brief on the merits.
[ Footnote 5 ] It is true
that argument was mostly directed to another issue in the case, but
that is often the fact. See Rogers v. Richmond , 365 U. S. 534 , 535-540.
Of course, an earnest advocate of a position always believes that,
had he only an additional opportunity for argument, his side would
win. But, subject to the sound discretion of a court, all argument
must at last come to a halt. This is especially so as to an issue
about which this Court said last year that "The arguments of its
antagonists and of its proponents have been so many times
marshalled as to require no lengthy elaboration here." Elkins
v. United States, supra , 216.

															Moreover, continuance of Wolf v. Colorado in its full
vigor breeds the unseemly shopping around of the kind revealed in Wilson v. Schnettler , 365 U. S. 381 . Once
evidence, inadmissible in a federal court, is admissible in [672 ]

															a state court a "double standard" exists which, as the Court
points out, leads to "working arrangements" that, undercut federal
policy and reduce some aspects of law enforcement to shabby
business. The rule that supports that practice does not have the
force of reason behind it.

															Memorandum of MR. JUSTICE STEWART.

															Agreeing fully with Part I of MR. JUSTICE HARLAN's dissenting
opinion, I express no view as to the merits of the constitutional
issue which the Court today decides. I would, however, reverse the
judgment in this case, because I am persuaded that the provision of
§ 2905.34 of the Ohio Revised Code, upon which the petitioner's
conviction was based, is, in the words of MR. JUSTICE HARLAN, not
"consistent with the rights of free thought and expression assured
against state action by the Fourteenth Amendment."

															MR. JUSTICE HARLAN, whom MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER and MR. JUSTICE
WHITTAKER join, dissenting.

															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 rule
which now replaces it.

															I

															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 reexamining 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 [673 ]

															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, [ Footnote 1 ] 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. [ Footnote 2 ]
That was the principal issue which was decided by the Ohio Supreme
Court, [ Footnote 3 ] which
was tendered by appellant's Jurisdictional Statement, [ Footnote 4 ] and which was briefed
[ Footnote 5 ] and argued
[ Footnote 6 ] in this
Court. [674 ]

															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 dif- [675 ]

															ferent weight in Constitutional adjudication than it does in
nonconstitutional decision, I can perceive no justification for
regarding this case as an appropriate occasion for reexamining Wolf. The action of the Court finds no support in the rule that
decision of Constitutional issues should be avoided wherever
possible. For, in overruling Wolf , the Court, instead of
passing upon the validity of Ohio's § 2905.34, has simply chosen
between two Constitutional questions. Moreover, I submit that it
has chosen the more difficult and less appropriate of the two
questions. The Ohio statute which, as construed by the State
Supreme Court, punishes knowing possession or control of obscene
material, irrespective of the purposes of such possession or
control (with exceptions not here applicable) [ Footnote 7 ] and irrespective of whether the
accused had any reasonable opportunity to rid himself of the
material after discovering that it was obscene, [ Footnote 8 ] surely presents a
Constitutional [676 ]

															question which is both simpler and less far-reaching than the
question which the Court decides today. 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.

															Since the demands of the case before us do not require us to
reach the question of the validity of Wolf , I think this
case furnishes a singularly inappropriate occasion for
reconsideration of that decision, if reconsideration is indeed
warranted. Even the most cursory examination will reveal that the
doctrine of the Wolf case has been of continuing
importance in the administration of state criminal law. Indeed,
certainly as regards its "nonexclusionary" aspect, Wolf did no more than articulate the then existing assumption among the
States that the federal cases enforcing the exclusionary rule "do
not bind [the States], for they construe provisions of the Federal
Constitution, the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, not applicable to
the States." People v. Defore , 242 N.Y. 13, 20, 150 N.E.
585, 587. Though, of course, not reflecting the full measure of
this continuing reliance, I find that, during the last three Terms,
for instance, the issue of the inadmissibility of illegally
state-obtained evidence appears on an average of about fifteen
times per Term just in the in forma pauperis cases
summarily disposed of by us. This would indicate both that the
issue which is now being decided may well have untoward practical
ramifications respecting state cases long since disposed of in
reliance on Wolf , and that were we determined to reexamine
that doctrine, we would not lack future opportunity.

															The occasion which the Court has taken here is in the context of
a case where the question was briefed not at all and argued only
extremely tangentially. The unwisdom of overruling Wolf without full-dress argu- [677 ]

															ment is aggravated by the circumstance that that decision is a
comparatively recent one (1949) to which three members of the
present majority have at one time or other expressly subscribed,
one, to be sure, with explicit misgivings. [ Footnote 9 ] I would think that our
obligation to the States, on whom we impose this new rule, as well
as the obligation of orderly adherence to our own processes would
demand that we seek that aid which adequate briefing and argument
lends to the determination of an important issue. It certainly has
never been a postulate of judicial power that mere altered
disposition, or subsequent membership on the Court, is sufficient
warrant for overturning a deliberately decided rule of
Constitutional law.

															Thus, if the Court were bent on reconsidering Wolf , I
think that there would soon have presented itself an appropriate
opportunity in which we could have had the benefit of full briefing
and argument. In any event, at the very least, the present case
should have been set down for reargument, in view of the inadequate
briefing and argument we have received on the Wolf point.
To all intents and purpose,s the Court's present action amounts to
a summary reversal of Wolf , without argument.

															I am bound to say that what has been done is not likely to
promote respect either for the Court's adjudicatory process or for
the stability of its decisions. Having been unable, however, to
persuade any of the majority to a different procedural course, I
now turn to the merits of the present decision. [678 ]

															II

															Essential to the majority's argument against Wolf is
the proposition that the rule of Weeks v. United States , 232 U. S. 383 ,
excluding in federal criminal trials the use of evidence obtained
in violation of the Fourth Amendment, derives not from the
"supervisory power" of this Court over the federal judicial system,
but from Constitutional requirement. This is so because no one, I
suppose, would suggest that this Court possesses any general
supervisory power over the state courts. Although I entertain
considerable doubt as to the soundness of this foundational
proposition of the majority, cf. Wolf v. Colorado , 338
U.S. at 39-40 (concurring opinion), I shall assume, for present
purposes, that the Weeks rule "is of constitutional
origin."

															At the heart of the majority's opinion in this case is the
following syllogism: (1) the rule excluding in federal criminal
trials evidence which is the product of an illegal search and
seizure is "part and parcel" of the Fourth Amendment; (2) Wolf held that the "privacy" assured against federal
action by the Fourth Amendment is also protected against state
action by the Fourteenth Amendment, and (3) it is therefore
"logically and constitutionally necessary" that the Weeks exclusionary rule should also be enforced against the States.
[ Footnote 10 ]

															This reasoning ultimately rests on the unsound premise that,
because Wolf carried into the States, as part of "the
concept of ordered liberty" embodied in the Fourteenth Amendment,
the principle of "privacy" underlying the Fourth Amendment (338
U.S. at 27), it must follow that whatever configurations of the
Fourth Amendment have been developed in the particularizing federal
precedents are likewise to be deemed a part of "ordered
liberty," [679 ]

															and as such are enforceable against the States. For me, this
does not follow at all.

															It cannot be too much emphasized that what was recognized in Wolf was not that the Fourth Amendment, as such, is
enforceable against the States as a facet of due process, a view of
the Fourteenth Amendment which, as Wolf itself pointed out
(338 U.S. at 26), has long since been discredited, but the
principle of privacy "which is at the core of the Fourth
Amendment." ( Id. at 27.) It would not be proper to expect
or impose any precise equivalence, either as regards the scope of
the right or the means of its implementation, between the
requirements of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. For the
Fourth, unlike what was said in Wolf of the Fourteenth,
does not state a general principle only; it is a particular
command, having its setting in a preexisting legal context on which
both interpreting decisions and enabling statutes must at least
build.

															Thus, even in a case which presented simply the question of
whether a particular search and seizure was constitutionally
"unreasonable"--say in a tort action against state officers--we
would not be true to the Fourteenth Amendment were we merely to
stretch the general principle of individual privacy on a
Procrustean bed of federal precedents under the Fourth Amendment.
But, in this instance, more than that is involved, for here we are
reviewing not a determination that what the state police did was
Constitutionally permissible (since the state court quite evidently
assumed that it was not), but a determination that appellant was
properly found guilty of conduct which, for present purposes, it is
to be assumed the State could Constitutionally punish. Since there
is not the slightest suggestion that Ohio's policy is
"affirmatively to sanction . . . police incursion into
privacy," (338 U.S. at 28), compare Marcus v. Search Warrants,
post , p. 717, what the Court is now doing is to impose [680 ]

															upon the States not only federal substantive standards of
"search and seizure", but also the basic federal remedy for
violation of those standards. For I think it entirely clear that
the Weeks exclusionary rule is but a remedy which, by
penalizing past official misconduct, is aimed at deterring such
conduct in the future.

															I would not impose upon the States this federal exclusionary
remedy. The reasons given by the majority for now suddenly turning
its back on Wolf seem to me notably unconvincing.

															First, it is said that "the factual grounds upon which Wolf was based" have since changed, in that more States
now follow the Weeks exclusionary rule than was so at the time Wolf was decided. While that is true, a recent survey
indicates that, at present, one-half of the States still adhere to
the common law non-exclusionary rule, and one, Maryland, retains
the rule as to felonies. Berman and Oberst, Admissibility of
Evidence Obtained by an Unconstitutional Search and Seizure, 55
N.W.L.Rev. 525, 532-533. But, in any case, surely all this is
beside the point, as the majority itself indeed seems to recognize.
Our concern here, as it was in Wolf , is not with the
desirability of that rule, but only with the question whether the
States are Constitutionally free to follow it or not as they may
themselves determine, and the relevance of the disparity of views
among the States on this point lies simply in the fact that the
judgment involved is a debatable one. Moreover, the very fact on
which the majority relies, instead of lending support to what is
now being done, points away from the need of replacing voluntary
state action with federal compulsion.

															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. Problems of criminal law
enforcement vary [681 ]

															widely from State to State. One State, in considering the
totality of its legal picture, may conclude that the need for
embracing the Weeks rule is pressing because other
remedies are unavailable or inadequate to secure compliance with
the substantive Constitutional principle involved. Another, though
equally solicitous of Constitutional rights, may choose to pursue
one purpose at a time, allowing all evidence relevant to guilt to
be brought into a criminal trial, and dealing with Constitutional
infractions by other means. Still another may consider the
exclusionary rule too rough-and-ready a remedy, in that it reaches
only unconstitutional intrusions which eventuate in criminal
prosecution of the victims. Further, a State after experimenting
with the Weeks rule for a time may, because of
unsatisfactory experience with it, decide to revert to a
non-exclusionary rule. And so on. From the standpoint of
Constitutional permissibility in pointing a State in one direction
or another, I do not see at all why "time has set its face against"
the considerations which led Mr. Justice Cardozo, then chief judge
of the New York Court of Appeals, to reject for New York in People v. Defore , 242 N.Y. 13, 150 N.E. 585, the Weeks exclusionary rule. For us, the question remains, as
it has always been, one of state power, not one of passing judgment
on the wisdom of one state course or another. In my view, this
Court should continue to forbear from fettering the States with an
adamant rule which may embarrass them in coping with their own
peculiar problems in criminal law enforcement.

															Further, we are told that imposition of the Weeks rule
on the States makes "very good sense," in that it will promote
recognition by state and federal officials of their "mutual
obligation to respect the same fundamental criteria" in their
approach to law enforcement, and will avoid " needless conflict
between state and federal courts.'" Indeed, the majority now finds
an incongruity [682 ]

															in Wolf's discriminating perception between the demands
of "ordered liberty" as respects the basic right of "privacy" and
the means of securing it among the States. That perception, resting
both on a sensitive regard for our federal system and a sound
recognition of this Court's remoteness from particular state
problems, is, for me, the strength of that decision.

															An approach which regards the issue as one of achieving
procedural symmetry or of serving administrative convenience surely
disfigures the boundaries of this Court's functions in relation to
the state and federal courts. Our role in promulgating the Weeks rule and its extensions in such cases as Rea,
Elkins , and Rios [ Footnote 11 ] was quite a different one than it is here.
There, in implementing the Fourth Amendment, we occupied the
position of a tribunal having the ultimate responsibility for
developing the standards and procedures of judicial administration
within the judicial system over which it presides. Here, we review
state procedures whose measure is to be taken not against the
specific substantive commands of the Fourth Amendment, but under
the flexible contours of the Due Process Clause. I do not believe
that the Fourteenth Amendment empowers this Court to mould state
remedies effectuating the right to freedom from "arbitrary
intrusion by the police" to suit its own notions of how things
should be done, as, for instance, the California Supreme Court did
in People v. Cahan , 44 Cal. 2d
434 , 282 P.2d 905, with reference to procedures in the
California courts, or as this Court did in Weeks for the
lower federal courts.

															A state conviction comes to us as the complete product of a
sovereign judicial system. Typically, a case will have been tried
in a trial court, tested in some final appel- [683 ]

															late court, and will go no further. In the comparatively rare
instance when a conviction is reviewed by us on due process
grounds, we deal then with a finished product in the creation of
which we are allowed no hand, and our task, far from being one of
over-all supervision, is, speaking generally, restricted to a
determination of whether the prosecution was constitutionally fair.
The specifics of trial procedure, which in every mature legal
system will vary greatly in detail, are within the sole competence
of the States. I do not see how it can be said that a trial becomes
unfair simply because a State determines that evidence may be
considered by the trier of fact, regardless of how it was obtained,
if it is relevant to the one issue with which the trial is
concerned, the guilt or innocence of the accused. Of course, a
court may use its procedures as an incidental means of pursuing
other ends than the correct resolution of the controversies before
it. Such indeed is the Weeks rule, but if a State does not
choose to use its courts in this way, I do not believe that this
Court is empowered to impose this much-debated procedure on local
courts, however efficacious we may consider the Weeks rule
to be as a means of securing Constitutional rights.

															Finally, it is said that the overruling of Wolf is
supported by the established doctrine that the admission in
evidence of an involuntary confession renders a state conviction
constitutionally invalid. Since such a confession may often be
entirely reliable, and therefore of the greatest relevance to the
issue of the trial, the argument continues, this doctrine is ample
warrant in precedent that the way evidence was obtained, and not
just its relevance, is constitutionally significant to the fairness
of a trial. I believe this analogy is not a true one. The "coerced
confession" rule is certainly not a rule that any illegally
obtained statements may not be used in evidence. I would suppose
that a statement which is procured during [684 ]

															a period of illegal detention, McNabb v. United States , 318 U. S. 332 ,
is, as much as unlawfully seized evidence, illegally obtained, but
this Court has consistently refused to reverse state convictions
resting on the use of such statements. Indeed, it would seem the
Court laid at rest the very argument now made by the majority when,
in Lisenba v. California , 314 U. S. 219 , a
state-coerced confession case, it said (at 235): "It may be assumed [that the] treatment of the petitioner [by
the police] . . . deprived him of his liberty without due
process, and that the petitioner would have been afforded
preventive relief if he could have gained access to a court to seek
it."

															"But illegal acts, as such, committed in the course of obtaining
a confession . . . do not furnish an answer to the
constitutional question we must decide. . . . The
gravamen of his complaint is the unfairness of the use of
his confessions, and what occurred in their procurement is relevant
only as it bears on that issue." (Emphasis supplied.) The point, then, must be that, in requiring exclusion of an
involuntary statement of an accused, we are concerned not with an
appropriate remedy for what the police have done, but with
something which is regarded as going to the heart of our concepts
of fairness in judicial procedure. The operative assumption of our
procedural system is that "Ours is the accusatorial, as opposed to
the inquisitorial system. Such has been the characteristic of
Anglo-American criminal justice since it freed itself from
practices borrowed by the Star Chamber from the Continent whereby
the accused was interrogated in secret for hours on end." Watts
v. Indiana , 338
U. S. 49 , 54. See Rogers v. Richmond , 365 U. S. 534 , 541. The
pressures brought to bear against an accused leading to a
confession, unlike an unconstitutional violation of privacy, do
not, apart [685 ]

															from the use of the confession at trial, necessarily involve
independent Constitutional violations. What is crucial is that the
trial defense to which an accused is entitled should not be
rendered an empty formality by reason of statements wrung from him,
for then "a prisoner . . . [has been] made the deluded
instrument of his own conviction." 2 Hawkins, Pleas of the Crown
(8th ed., 1824), c. 46, § 34. That this is a procedural
right , and that its violation occurs at the time his
improperly obtained statement is admitted at trial, is manifest.
For without this right, all the careful safeguards erected around
the giving of testimony, whether by an accused or any other
witness, would become empty formalities in a procedure where the
most compelling possible evidence of guilt, a confession, would
have already been obtained at the unsupervised pleasure of the
police.

															This, and not the disciplining of the police, as with illegally
seized evidence, is surely the true basis for excluding a statement
of the accused which was unconstitutionally obtained. In sum, I
think the coerced confession analogy works strongly against what the Court does today.

															In conclusion, it should be noted that the majority opinion in
this case is, in fact, an opinion only for the judgment overruling Wolf , and not for the basic rationale by which
four members of the majority have reached that result. For my
Brother BLACK is unwilling to subscribe to their view that the Weeks exclusionary rule derives from the Fourth Amendment
itself ( see ante , p. 661), but joins the majority opinion
on the premise that its end result can be achieved by bringing the
Fifth Amendment to the aid of the Fourth ( see ante pp.
662-665). [ Footnote
12 ] On that score I need only say that whatever the validity
of [686 ]

															the "Fourth-Fifth Amendment" correlation which the Boyd case ( 116 U.S.
616 ) found, see 8 Wigmore, Evidence (3d ed.1940), §
2184, we have only very recently again reiterated the
long-established doctrine of this Court that the Fifth Amendment
privilege against self-incrimination is not applicable to the
States. See Cohen v. Hurley , 366 U. S. 117 .

															I regret that I find so unwise in principle and so inexpedient
in policy a decision motivated by the high purpose of increasing
respect for Constitutional rights. But, in the last analysis, I
think this Court can increase respect for the Constitution only if
it rigidly respects the limitations which the Constitution places
upon it, and respects as well the principles inherent in its own
processes. In the present case, I think we exceed both, and that
our voice becomes only a voice of power, not of reason. Footnotes [ Footnote 1 ]

															The statute provides in pertinent part that

															"No person shall knowingly . . . have in his
possession or under his control an obscene, lewd, or lascivious
book [or] . . . picture. . . ."

															"Whoever violates this section shall be fined not less than two
hundred nor more than two thousand dollars or imprisoned not less
than one nor more than seven years, or both."

															[ Footnote 2 ]

															A police officer testified that "we did pry the screen door to
gain entrance"; the attorney on the scene testified that a
policeman "tried . . . to kick in the door" and then
"broke the glass in the door and somebody reached in and opened the
door and let them in"; the appellant testified that "[t]he back
door was broken."

															[ Footnote 3 ]

															Other issues have been raised on this appeal but, in the view we
have taken of the case, they need not be decided. Although
appellant chose to urge what may have appeared to be the surer
ground for favorable disposition, and did not insist that Wolf be overruled, the amicus curiae , who was
also permitted to participate in the oral argument, did urge the
Court to overrule Wolf. [ Footnote 4 ]

															"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, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly
describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to
be seized."

															[ Footnote 5 ]

															The close connection between the concepts later embodied in
these two Amendments had been noted at least as early as 1765 by
Lord Camden, on whose opinion in Entick v. Carrington , 19
Howell's State Trials 1029, the Boyd court drew heavily.
Lord Camden had noted, at 1073:

															"It is very certain that the law obligeth no man to accuse
himself, because the necessary means of compelling self-accusation,
falling upon the innocent as well as the guilty, would be both
cruel and unjust, and it should seem that search for evidence is
disallowed upon the same principle. There too, the innocent would
be confounded with the guilty."

															[ Footnote 6 ] See, however, National Safe Deposit Co. v. Stead , 232 U. S. 58 (1914), and Adams v. New York , 192 U. S. 585 (1904).

															[ Footnote 7 ]

															Less than half of the States have any criminal provisions
relating directly to unreasonable searches and seizures. The
punitive sanctions of the 23 States attempting to control such
invasions of the right of privacy may be classified as follows: Criminal Liability of Affiant for Malicious Procurement of
Search Warrant. --Ala.Code, 1958, Tit. 15, § 99; Alaska
Comp.Laws Ann., 1949, § 66-7-15; Ariz.Rev.Stat.Ann., 1956, §
13-1454; Cal.Pen.Code § 170; Fla.Stat., 1959, § 933.16; Ga.Code
Ann., 1953, § 27-301; Idaho Code Ann., 1948, § 18-709; Iowa Code
Ann., 1950, § 751.38; Minn.Stat.Ann., 1947, § 613.54;
Mont.Rev.Codes Ann., 1947, § 94-35-122; Nev.Rev.Stat. § 199.130,
199.140; N.J.Stat.Ann., 1940, § 33:1-64; N.Y.Pen.Law § 1786,
N.Y.Code Crim.Proc. § 811; N.C.Gen.Stat., 1953, § 15-27 (applies to
"officers" only); N.D.Century Code Ann., 1960, § 12-17-08,
29-29-18; Okla.Stat., 1951, Tit. 21, § 585, Tit. 22, § 1239;
Ore.Rev.Stat. § 141.990; S.D.Code, 1939 (Supp. 1960), § 34.9904;
Utah Code Ann., 1953, 77-54-21. Criminal Liability of Magistrate Issuing Warrant Without
Supporting Affidavit. --N.C.Gen.Stat., 1953, § 15-27; Va.Code
Ann., 1960 Replacement Volume, § 19.1-89. Criminal Liability of Officer Willfully Exceeding Authority
of Search Warrant. --Fla.Stat.Ann., 1944, § 933.17; Iowa Code
Ann., 1950, § 751.39; Minn.Stat.Ann., 1947, § 613.54; Nev.Rev.Stat.
§ 199.450; N.Y.Pen.Law § 1847, N.Y.Code Crim.Proc. § 812;
N.D.Century Code Ann., 1960, § 12-17-07, 29-29-19; Okla.Stat.,
1951, Tit. 21, § 536, Tit. 22, § 1240; S.D.Code, 1939 (Supp. 1960),
§ 34.9905; Tenn.Code Ann., 1955, § 40-510; Utah Code Ann., 1953, §
77-54-22. Criminal Liability of Officer for Search with Invalid
Warrant or no Warrant. --Idaho Code Ann., 1948, § 18-703;
Minn.Stat.Ann., 1947, § 613.53, 621.17; Mo.Ann.Stat., 1953, §
558.190; Mont.Rev.Codes Ann., 1947, § 94-3506; N.J.Stat.Ann., 1940,
§ 33:1-65; N.Y.Pen.Law § 1846; N.D. Century Code Ann., 1960, §
12-17-06; Okla.Stat.Ann., 1958, Tit. 21, § 535; Utah Code Ann.,
1953, § 76-28-52; Va.Code Ann., 1960 Replacement Volume, § 19.1-88;
Wash.Rev.Code § 10.79.040, 10.79.045.

															[ Footnote 8 ] But compare Waley v. Johnston , 316 U. S. 101 , 104, and Chambers v. Florida , 309 U. S. 227 , 236, with Weeks v. United States , 232 U. S. 383 , and Wolf v. Colorado , 338 U. S. 25 .

															[ Footnote 9 ]

															As is always the case, however, state procedural requirements
governing assertion and pursuance of direct and collateral
constitutional challenges to criminal prosecutions must be
respected. We note, moreover, that the class of state convictions
possibly affected by this decision is of relatively narrow compass
when compared with Burns v. Ohio , 360 U. S. 252 , Griffin v. Illinois , 351 U. S. 12 , and Herman v. Claudy , 350 U. S. 116 . In those
cases, the same contention was urged and later proved unfounded. In
any case, further delay in reaching the present result could have
no effect other than to compound the difficulties.

															[ Footnote 10 ] See the remarks of Mr. Hoover, Director of the Federal
Bureau of Investigation, FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, September,
1952, pp. 1-2, quoted in Elkins v. United States , 364 U. S. 206 , 218-219,
note 8.

															[ Footnote 11 ] Cf. Marcus v. Search Warrant, post , p. 717.

															[ Footnote 1 ] 232 U.S.
383 , decided in 1914.

															[ Footnote 2 ] 338 U.S.
25 , 33.

															[ Footnote 3 ] Id. at 39-40.

															[ Footnote 4 ]

															The interrelationship between the Fourth and the Fifth
Amendments in this area does not, of course, justify a narrowing in
the interpretation of either of these Amendments with respect to
areas in which they operate separately. See Feldman v. United
States , 322 U.
S. 487 , 502-503 (dissenting opinion); Frank v.
Maryland , 359 U.
S. 360 , 374-384 (dissenting opinion).

															[ Footnote 5 ] 116 U.S.
616 .

															[ Footnote 6 ] Id. at 633.

															[ Footnote 7 ]

															338 U.S. at 47-48.

															[ Footnote 8 ]

															116 U.S. at 635. As the Court points out, Mr. Justice Bradley's
approach to interpretation of the Bill of Rights stemmed directly
from the spirit in which that great charter of liberty was offered
for adoption on the floor of the House of Representatives by its
framer, James Madison:

															"If they [the first ten Amendments] are incorporated into the
Constitution, independent tribunals of justice will consider
themselves in a peculiar manner the guardians of those rights; they
will be an impenetrable bulwark against every assumption of power
in the Legislative or Executive; they will be naturally led to
resist every encroachment upon rights expressly stipulated for in
the Constitution by the declaration of rights."

															I Annals of Congress 439 (1789).

															[ Footnote 9 ] 342 U.S.
165 .

															[ Footnote 10 ] Id. at 173.

															[ Footnote 11 ] Id. at 172.

															[ Footnote 12 ] Id. at 172, 173

															[ Footnote 13 ] Id. at 174-177

															[ Footnote 14 ]

															For the concurring opinion of MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS see
id. at 177-179.

															[ Footnote 15 ] 347 U.S.
128 .

															[ Footnote 16 ] Id. at 138.

															[ Footnote 17 ] See also United States v. Rabinowitz , 339 U. S. 56 , 66-68
(dissenting opinion).

															[ Footnote 1 ]

															This "confidential source" told the police, in the same breath,
that "there was a large amount of policy paraphernalia being hidden
in the home."

															[ Footnote 2 ]

															The purported warrant has disappeared from the case. The State
made no attempt to prove its existence, issuance or contents,
either at the trial or on the hearing of a preliminary motion to
suppress. The Supreme Court of Ohio said:

															"There is, in the record, considerable doubt as to whether there
ever was any warrant for the search of defendant's
home. . . . Admittedly . . . there was no
warrant authorizing a search . . . for any 'lewd, or
lascivious book . . . print, [or] picture.'"

															170 Ohio St. 427, 430, 166 N.E.2d 387, 389. (Emphasis
added.)

															[ Footnote 3 ]

															Ohio Rev.Code, § 2905.34:

															"No person shall knowingly . . . have in his
possession or under his control an obscene, lewd, or lascivious
book, magazine, pamphlet, paper, writing, advertisement, circular,
print, picture . . . or drawing . . . of an
indecent or immoral nature. . . . Whoever violates
this section shall be fined not less than two hundred nor more than
two thousand dollars or imprisoned not less than one nor more than
seven years, or both."

															[ Footnote 4 ]

															"The notice of appeal . . . shall set forth the
questions presented by the appeal. . . . Only the
questions set forth in the notice of appeal or fairly comprised
therein will be considered by the court."

															Rule 10(2)(c), Rules of the Supreme Court of the United
States.

															[ Footnote 5 ]

															"Did the conduct of the police in procuring the books, papers
and pictures placed in evidence by the Prosecution violate
Amendment IV, Amendment V, and Amendment XIV Section 1 of the
United States Constitution . . . ?"

															[ Footnote 1 ]

															The material parts of that law are quoted in note 1 of the Court's opinion Ante , p.
643.

															[ Footnote 2 ]

															In its note 3 ante ,
p. 646, the Court, it seems to me, has turned upside down the
relative importance of appellant's reliance on the various points
made by him on this appeal.

															[ Footnote 3 ] See 170 Ohio St. 427, 166 N.E.2d 387. Because of the
unusual provision of the Ohio Constitution requiring "the
concurrence of at least all but one of the judges" of the Ohio
Supreme Court before a state law is held unconstitutional (except
in the case of affirmance of a holding of unconstitutionality by
the Ohio Court of Appeals), Ohio Const., Art. IV, § 2, the State
Supreme Court was compelled to uphold the constitutionality of §
2905.34 despite the fact that four of its seven judges thought the
statute offensive to the Fourteenth Amendment.

															[ Footnote 4 ]

															Respecting the "substantiality" of the federal questions
tendered by this appeal, appellant's Jurisdictional Statement
contained the following:

															"The Federal questions raised by this appeal are substantial for
the following reasons: "

															"The Ohio Statute under which the defendant was convicted
violates one's sacred right to own and hold property, which has
been held inviolate by the Federal Constitution. The right of the
individual"

															"to read, to believe or disbelieve, and to think without
governmental supervision is one of our basic liberties, but to
dictate to the mature adult what books he may have in his own
private library seems to be a clear infringement of the
constitutional rights of the individual"

															"(Justice Herbert's dissenting Opinion, Appendix 'A'). Many
convictions have followed that of the defendant in the State Courts
of Ohio based upon this very same statute. Unless this Honorable
Court hears this matter and determines once and for all that the
Statute is unconstitutional as defendant contends, there will be
many such appeals. When Sections 2905.34, 2905.37 and 3767.01 of
the Ohio Revised Code [the latter two Sections providing exceptions
to the coverage of § 2905.34 and related provisions of Ohio's
obscenity statutes] are read together, . . . they
obviously contravene the Federal and State constitutional
provisions; by being convicted under the Statute involved herein,
and in the manner in which she was convicted, Defendant-Appellant
has been denied due process of law; a sentence of from one (1) to
seven (7) years in a penal institution for alleged violation of
this unconstitutional section of the Ohio Revised Code deprives the
defendant of her right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness,
contrary to the Federal and State constitutional provisions, for
circumstances which she herself did not put in motion, and is a
cruel and unusual punishment inflicted upon her contrary to the
State and Federal Constitutions."

															[ Footnote 5 ]

															The appellant's brief did not urge the overruling of Wolf. Indeed, it did not even cite the case. The brief of
the appellee merely relied on Wolf in support of the
State's contention that appellant's conviction was not vitiated by
the admission in evidence of the fruits of the alleged unlawful
search and seizure by the police. The brief of the American and
Ohio Civil Liberties Unions, as amici , did, in one short
concluding paragraph of its argument, "request" the Court to
reexamine and overrule Wolf , but without argumentation. I
quote in full this part of their brief:

															"This case presents the issue of whether evidence obtained in an
illegal search and seizure can constitutionally be used in a State
criminal proceeding. We are aware of the view that this Court has
taken on this issue in Wolf v. Colorado , 338 U. S. 25 . It is our purpose by this
paragraph to respectfully request that this Court reexamine this
issue and conclude that the ordered liberty concept guaranteed to
persons by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment
necessarily requires that evidence illegally obtained in violation
thereof, not be admissible in state criminal proceedings."

															[ Footnote 6 ]

															Counsel for appellant on oral argument, as in his brief, did not
urge that Wolf be overruled. Indeed, when pressed by
questioning from the bench whether he was not, in fact, urging us
to overrule Wolf , counsel expressly disavowed any such
purpose.

															[ Footnote 7 ]

															"2905.37 LEGITIMATE PUBLICATIONS NOT OBSCENE."

															"Sections 2905.33 to 2905.36, inclusive, of the Revised Code do
not affect teaching in regularly chartered medical colleges, the
publication of standard medical books, or regular practitioners of
medicine or druggists in their legitimate business, nor do they
affect the publication and distribution of bona fide works of art.
No articles specified in sections 2905.33, 2905.34, and 2905.36 of
the Revised Code shall be considered a work of art unless such
article is made, published, and distributed by a bona fide
association of artists or an association for the advancement of art
whose demonstrated purpose does not contravene sections 2905.06 to
2905.44, inclusive, of the Revised Code, and which is not organized
for profit."

															" 3767.01(c)"

															"This section and sections 2905.34, . . . 2905.37
. . . of the Revised Code shall not affect
. . . any newspaper, magazine, or other publication
entered as second class matter by the post office department."

															[ Footnote 8 ]

															The Ohio Supreme Court, in its construction of § 2905.34,
controlling upon us here, refused to import into it any other
exceptions than those expressly provided by the statute. See note 7, supra. Instead, it held that "If
anyone looks at a book and finds it lewd, he is forthwith, under
this legislation, guilty. . . ."

															[ Footnote 9 ] See Wolf v. Colorado , 338 U.S. at 39-40; Irvine v.
California , 347
U. S. 128 , 133-134, and at 138-139. In the latter case, decided
in 1954, Mr. Justice Jackson, writing for the majority, said (At
pp. 134): "We think that the Wolf decision should not be
overruled, for the reasons so persuasively stated therein." Compare Schwartz v. Texas , 344 U. S. 199 , and Stefanelli v. Minard , 342 U. S. 117 , in which
the Wolf case was discussed and in no way disapproved. And see Pugach v. Dollinger , 365 U. S. 458 , which
relied on Schwartz. [ Footnote 10 ]

															Actually, only four members of the majority support this
reasoning. See pp. 685-686, infra. [ Footnote 11 ] Rea v. United States , 350 U. S. 214 ; Elkins
v. United States , 364 U. S. 206 ; Rios
v. United States , 364 U. S. 253 .

															[ Footnote 12 ]

															My Brother STEWART concurs in the Court's judgment on grounds
which have nothing to do with Wolf.

Summary:
In the case of Mapp v. Ohio, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that evidence obtained through an illegal search and seizure is inadmissible in state criminal proceedings, overruling a previous decision, Wolf v. Colorado. The Court found that the Fourth Amendment's exclusionary rule, which prohibits the use of illegally obtained evidence in federal criminal trials, applies to state courts as well through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

In this case, police officers conducted an unlawful search of Miss Mapp's home without a valid warrant and subjected her to an unreasonable seizure, violating her Fourth Amendment rights. The Court held that the evidence obtained during this illegal search could not be used against her in a state criminal trial, overturning her conviction for possessing lewd and lascivious materials.

This case established an important precedent, extending the exclusionary rule to state courts and providing greater protection for individuals' Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures.