Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643; 81 S. Ct. 1684; 6 L. Ed. 2d 1081 (1961)

Facts—Cleveland police officers requested admission to a home to seek a fugitive who was reportedly hiding there. They had also received information that a large amount of policy paraphernalia was hidden in the house. Without a warrant, the police forced their way into the house. They found obscene materials, which they used to convict Ms. Mapp in the state courts.

Question—Is evidence obtained in violation of the search and seizure provision of the Fourth Amendment admissible in a state court?

Decision—No.

Reasons—J. Clark (6–3). Precedents have held that the security of one’s privacy against arbitrary intrusion of the police is implicit in the concept of ordered liberty and is enforceable against the states through the due process clause. However, the Court has previously refused to exclude evidence thus secured from state courts as “an essential ingredient of the right.” Since the Fourth Amendment’s right of privacy has been declared enforceable against the states through the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, it is enforceable against them by the same sanction of exclusion as is used against the federal government. All evidence obtained by searches and seizures in violation of the Constitution is, by that same authority, inadmissible in a state court.

J. Black based a concurrence on combining the guarantees in the Fourth and Fifth Amendments as applied to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment.

J. Harlan argued in dissent that the Court was not exercising appropriate self-restraint and that early precedents were sounder.