Knowing how to legally search a person, place or thing and properly seize evidence are conditions to the investigative process. Officers also must have a clear understanding of when a search and/or arrest warrant is required and when it is not. The Fourth Amendment protects citizens from unreasonable government searches and seizures of their persons, houses, and effects. It states no warrants shall be issued unless there is probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and specifically describes the place to be searched and the person or things to be seized. However, both the U.S. Supreme Court and federal courts have specified limited exceptions to the Fourth Amendment search warrant requirement.
The seven exceptions to the Fourth Amendment …show more content…
If, upon review, a court finds that an unreasonable search occurred, any evidence seized as a result of it cannot be used as direct evidence against the defendant in a criminal prosecution. This principle, established by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1961, has come to be known as the exclusionary rule. There are three court cases that are connected to the Exclusionary Rule: Mapp v. Ohio, 1961, Weeks v. U.S., 1914, and Wolf v. Colorado, 1949 (Four Famous Cases, 2011).
In Mapp v. Ohio, 1961, the case was argued in March 29, 1961 and a decision was reached in June 19, 1961. Dollree Mapp was convicted of owning offensive materials after an admittedly illegal police search of her home for a fugitive. She appealed her conviction on the basis of freedom of expression. However, were the confiscated materials protected by the First Amendment? The Court brushed aside the First Amendment issue and declared that "all evidence obtained by searches and seizures in violation of the Constitution is, by the Fourth Amendment, inadmissible in a state court" (Mapp v. Ohio). Mapp had been convicted on the basis of illegally obtained evidence. This was an historic and controversial decision. It placed the requirement of excluding illegally obtained evidence from court at all levels of the government. The decision launched the court on a troubled course of determining how and when to apply the exclusionary rule (Your 4th Amendment …show more content…
U.S., 1914, argued December 1-2, 1913 and decided February 24, 1914, police entered the home of Fremont Weeks and seized papers which were used to convict him of transporting lottery tickets through the mail. This was done without a search warrant. Weeks took action against the police and petitioned for the return of his private possessions. In a unanimous decision, the Court held that the seizure of items from Weeks' residence directly violated his constitutional rights (Weeks v. United States). The Court also held that the government's refusal to return Weeks' possessions violated the Fourth Amendment. To allow private documents to be seized and then held as evidence against citizens would have meant that the protection of the Fourth Amendment declaring the right to be secure against such searches and seizures would be of no value. This was the first application of the exclusionary rule and the ruling of this case led to the Weeks Doctrine (Four Famous Cases,