Source: http://www.joeldufresnecase.com/us-supreme-court-decisions/mapp-v-ohio
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 16:34:40+00:00

Document:
All evidence obtained by searches and seizures in violation of the Federal Constitution is inadmissible in a criminal trial in a state court. Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U. S. 25, overruled insofar as it holds to the contrary. Pp. 367 U. S. 643-660.
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.
"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."
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"
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.
does not forbid the admission of evidence obtained by an unreasonable search and seizure."
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]."
"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."
"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."
"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. 232 U. S. 391-392.
"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. 232 U. S. 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 p. 232 U. S. 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 338 U. S. 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, 251 U. S. 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 232 U. S. 392, and that such evidence "shall not be used at all."Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States, supra, at 251 U. S. 392.
"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."
"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."
. . . or 'who have been unlawfully held incommunicado without advice of friends or counsel.' . . ."
"[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. 318 U. S. 340-341.
"[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."
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.
"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."
"compelled to reach that conclusion because other remedies have completely failed to secure compliance with the constitutional provisions. . . ."
recognized by this Court since Wolf. See Irvine v. California, 347 U. S. 128, 347 U. S. 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, 362 U. S. 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, 339 U. S. 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.
"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."
"the underlying constitutional doctrine which Wolf established . . . that the Federal Constitution . . . prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures by state officers"
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.
"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 364 U. S. 217.
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, 168 U. S. 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, 322 U. S. 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, 342 U. S. 173 (1952).
state and federal courts." 364 U.S. at 364 U. S. 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.
"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, 357 U. S. 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).
"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."
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 364 U. S. 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.
"No person shall knowingly . . . have in his possession or under his control an obscene, lewd, or lascivious book [or] . . . picture. . . ."
"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."
See, however, National Safe Deposit Co. v. Stead, 232 U. S. 58 (1914), and Adams v. New York, 192 U. S. 585 (1904).
But compare Waley v. Johnston, 316 U. S. 101, 316 U. S. 104, and Chambers v. Florida, 309 U. S. 227, 309 U. S. 236, with Weeks v. United States, 232 U. S. 383, and Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U. S. 25.
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.
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, 364 U. S. 218-219, note 8.
Cf. Marcus v. Search Warrant, post, p. 367 U. S. 717.
"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 2/2]"
"For reasons stated in my dissenting opinion in Adamson v. California, 332 U. S. 46, 332 U. S. 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 2/3]"
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.
"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 2/6]"
"[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 2/8]"
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.
"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 2/10]"
Two years after Rochin, in Irvine v. California, [Footnote 2/15] 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 hocapproach 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 2/16] "
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 2/17] 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 Boyddoctrine 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 theBoyd doctrine as controlling in this state case, and to join the Court's judgment and opinion, which are in accordance with that constitutional doctrine.
232 U. S. 232 U.S. 383, decided in 1914.
338 U. S. 338 U.S. 25, 338 U. S. 33.
Id. at 338 U. S. 39-40.
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, 322 U. S. 502-503 (dissenting opinion);Frank v. Maryland, 359 U. S. 360, 359 U. S. 374-384 (dissenting opinion).
116 U. S. 116 U.S. 616.
Id. at 116 U. S. 633.
338 U.S. at 338 U. S. 47-48.
342 U. S. 342 U.S. 165.
Id. at 342 U. S. 173.
Id. at 342 U. S. 172.
For the concurring opinion of MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS see id. at 342 U. S. 177-179.
347 U. S. 347 U.S. 128.
Id. at 347 U. S. 138.
See also United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U. S. 56, 339 U. S. 66-68 (dissenting opinion).
forcefully, and seized documents that were later used to convict the occupant of a crime.
"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 3/1]"
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 3/2] 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 3/3] of four little pamphlets, a couple of photographs, and a little pencil doodle -- all of which are alleged to be pornographic.
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 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. 232 U. S. 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.
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 232 U. S. 393.
"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.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 338 U. S. 47.
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 3/4] The question was raised in the notice of appeal, the jurisdictional statement and in appellant's brief on the merits. [Footnote 3/5] 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, 365 U. S. 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, 364 U. S. 216.
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.
This "confidential source" told the police, in the same breath, that "there was a large amount of policy paraphernalia being hidden in the home."
"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.'"
"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."
"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."
"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 . . . ?"
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 4/1] 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 4/2] That was the principal issue which was decided by the Ohio Supreme Court, [Footnote 4/3] which was tendered by appellant's Jurisdictional Statement, [Footnote 4/4] and which was briefed [Footnote 4/5] and argued [Footnote 4/6] in this Court.
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.
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.
"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 thein 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.
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 4/9] 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.
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.
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 338 U. S. 39-40 (concurring opinion), I shall assume, for present purposes, that the Weeks rule "is of constitutional origin."
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 338 U. S. 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,"
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 338 U. S. 26), has long since been discredited, but the principle of privacy "which is at the core of the Fourth Amendment." (Id. at 338 U. S. 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.
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.
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.
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, andRios [Footnote 4/11] 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 inPeople 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.
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.
"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."
"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."
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.
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.
The material parts of that law are quoted in note 1 of the Court's opinion Ante, p. 643.
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.
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
See Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U.S. at 338 U. S. 39-40; Irvine v. California, 347 U. S. 128, 347 U. S. 133-134, and at 347 U. S. 138-139. In the latter case, decided in 1954, Mr. Justice Jackson, writing for the majority, said (at p. 347 U. S. 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.
Actually, only four members of the majority support this reasoning. See pp. 367 U. S. 685-686, infra.
Rea v. United States, 350 U. S. 214; Elkins v. United States, 364 U. S. 206; Rios v. United States, 364 U. S. 253.

References: v. 
 § 2905
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 § 2905
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 § 34
 § 2184
 v. 
 § 2905
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v.