Issue:
Is evidence obtained in violation of the search and seizure provisions of
the Fourth Amendment admissible in a state court?
Decision: No. (vote 6-3)
Opinion
by Mr. Justice Clark (for a brief biography click
here)
Reason:
Previous
decisions have held that the security of one's privacy against arbitrary
intrusion of the police is implicit in the concept of ordered liberty and as
such 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. The Court thus overruled Wolf v.
Colorado, 338 U.S. 25, 1949.
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... Ohio's Revised Code. 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...."
I
Seventy-five years ago, in
Boyd v. United States..., considering the Fourth and Fifth Amendments as running
"almost into each other" 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 employees of the sanctity of a man's home and the
privacies of life....
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."...
Less than 30 years after Boyd,
this Court, in Weeks v. United States,... 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."...
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. 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... 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....
II
In 1949, 35 years after Weeks
was announced, this Court, in Wolf v.
Colorado....
again for the first time, discussed the effect of the Fourth Amendment upon the
States through the operation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment. It said: "We 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 p. 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,"... 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."... The Court's
reasons for not considering essential to the 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....
... While in 1949, prior to the
Wolf case, almost two-thirds of the States were opposed to 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.... 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.... "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 right to privacy."... 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 recognized by this Court since Wolf. See Irvine v. California....
Likewise, time has set its
face against what Wolf called the "weighty testimony" of People v.
Defore.... 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."... 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 Stales, 364
U.S. 206, 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
(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)....
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.
III
...And only last Term, after
again carefully re-examining the Wolf doctrine in Elkins
v. United States... the Court pointed out that "the controlling
principles'' as to search and seizure and the problem of admissibility
"seemed clear" 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 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.... "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 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....
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 state and federal courts."... 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 ambivlent approach....
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."... In some cases this will undoubtedly be the result. But, as
was said in Elkins, "there is another consideration--the imperative of
judicial integrity."... 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....
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.
Mr. Justice
Black, concurring.
... 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
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....
Mr. Justice Douglas,
concurring....
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 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 re-examining 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 pivotal issue brought to the Court by this
appeal is whether Section 2905.34 of the Ohio Revised Code making criminal the
mere knowing possession or control of obscene material, 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. That was
the principal issue which was decided by the Ohio Supreme Court, which was
tendered by appellant's Jurisdictional Statement, and which was briefed and
argued in this Court. 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 different weight in Constitutional adjudication than it does in
nonconstitutional decision, I can perceive no justification for regarding this
case as an appropriate occasion for re-examining Wolf....
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.... 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....
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 widely from State to State.... 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....
Corollary cases
Weeks v. United States (1914)
McNabb v. United
States (1943)
Wolf v.
Colorado (1949)
United States v. Rabinowitz (1950)
Rochin v.
California (1952)
Rea v. United States (1956)
Benanti v. United States (1957)
Breithaupt v.
Abram (1957)
Elkins v. United States (1960)
this case--Mapp v. Ohio (1961)
Ker v.
California (1963)
Notes:
"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 lime 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 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." [367 U.S. 655-56]
"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.
| 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." [367. U.S. 657] |
"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] 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." [367 U.S. 660] see Ker
v. California
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