{"id":142,"date":"2016-10-23T16:50:20","date_gmt":"2016-10-23T20:50:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fys-rca-bowie\/?p=142"},"modified":"2016-10-23T16:50:20","modified_gmt":"2016-10-23T20:50:20","slug":"mapp-v-ohio-1961-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fys-rca-bowie\/2016\/10\/23\/mapp-v-ohio-1961-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Mapp v. Ohio (1961)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dollree Mapp was a resident of Cleveland, Ohio whom police officers believed was harboring a fugitive. In 1957, police officers approached Mapp\u2019s home in attempt to complete a search for the fugitive, but without a warrant the officers were denied entry by Mapp. Three hours, the officers forced into Mapp\u2019s home with a paper claimed to be a search warrant and completed the search. The police did not find any evidence of a fugitive, but they did find scandalous photos in Mapp\u2019s possession, which were illegal to posses in Ohio at the time. At trial the prosecution did not provide a valid warrant nor explanation for the lack of warrant, however, Mapp was found guilty and sent to prison. <\/span><\/p>\n

In a breakdown of 6 to 5, the Court reversed and remanded the state of Ohio\u2019s ruling on the case. In his opinion, Justice Clark described that the majority\u2019s main reason for reversing the ruling was because of the exclusion doctrine established with the <\/span>Weeks v. United States (1914)<\/span><\/em>\u00a0case which stated that evidence obtained unconstitutionally could not be used in the court of law. Being that the Ohio police found the scandalous photos through an unconstitutional search, Mapp could not be prosecuted for the charges. Contrary to the majority opinion, Justice Harlan wrote a dissenting opinion which used the ruling of the <\/span>Wolf v. Colorado <\/span><\/em>(<\/span>1949)\u00a0<\/span><\/i>case to argue that because the Constitution did not explicitly describe the exclusion doctrine as it pertains to the Fourth Amendment, the doctrine was not required to be used by the states.<\/span><\/p>\n

What I find interesting about this case is that it serves as yet another example of the constant struggle between federal and state power. The United States was founded by people who wanted to escape the oppressive rule of an ultimate ruler, while still understanding that a basic level of uniformity was required to form a cohesive country. Balancing the power between federal and state government was an inevitable and unavoidable situation formed by the creation of this country. The <\/span>Mapp v. Ohio<\/span><\/em>\u00a0(1961)\u00a0<\/span><\/i>case sheds light on the delicate balance of power because although the federal government, the U.S. Supreme Court in this case, ruled that the exclusion doctrine was essential in the <\/span>Weeks v. United States<\/span><\/em>\u00a0(1914)\u00a0<\/span><\/i>case, the states still had the freedom to decide whether or not to enforce the doctrine such as in the <\/span>Wolf v. Colorado<\/em>\u00a0(1949)\u00a0<\/span><\/i>case. \u00a0The <\/span>Mapp v. Ohio<\/span><\/em>\u00a0(1961)\u00a0<\/span><\/i>case may have begun as an ordinary Fourth Amendment case, however, the case became a symbol of the federal government\u2019s ability to serve as an ultimate power in specific aspects of government.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dollree Mapp was a resident of Cleveland, Ohio whom police officers believed was harboring a fugitive. In 1957, police officers approached Mapp\u2019s home in attempt to complete a search for the fugitive, but without a warrant the officers were denied entry by Mapp. Three hours, the officers forced into Mapp\u2019s …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3193,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60376],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mapp-v-ohio","column","twocol"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fys-rca-bowie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fys-rca-bowie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fys-rca-bowie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fys-rca-bowie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3193"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fys-rca-bowie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fys-rca-bowie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fys-rca-bowie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fys-rca-bowie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/fys-rca-bowie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}