Mapp v. Ohio

In Mapp v. Ohio 367 U.S. 643, 6 L. Ed. 2d 1081, 81 S. Ct. 1684 (1961), police, looking for a man suspected of a recent bombing in the Cleveland area, searched the home of Dollree Mapp and seized four books and a hand-drawn picture that the state described as obscene. The Court held that the search violated the Fourth Amendment and that the exclusionary rule prohibited introduction of the tainted evidence at Mapp's state trial. Justice Clark, joined by Chief Justice Warren and Justices Douglas and Brennan, made several references to the intersection between the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, but ultimately concluded that the Fourth Amendment alone justified exclusion. Specifically, the plurality employed language contending that: (1) the Constitution mandated exclusion; (2) the Constitution required exclusion to protect judicial and governmental integrity; (3) the Constitution compels exclusion as a remedy and deterrent. As to the first contention, Justice Clark wrote, "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." Id. at 657. As to the second contention, Justice Clark professed, nothing can destroy a government more quickly than its failure to observe its own laws, or worse, its disregard of the charter of its own existence. . . . Our decision, founded on reason and truth, gives to the individual no more than that which the Constitution guarantees him, to the police officer no less than that to which honest law enforcement is entitled, and, to the courts, that judicial integrity so necessary in the true administration of justice. Id. at 659-60.