FOURTH AMENDMENT CASES Thi

U.S. SUPREME COURT AND THE FOURTH AMENDMENT

This research paper summarizes and describes the effect on law enforcement of four cases decided by the United States Supreme Court concerning the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 (1961), Terry v. Ohio,

392 U.S. 1 (1961), United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897 (1984), and Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27 (2001).

The Fourth Amendment provides that "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated . . ."

Important precedents. In Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383 (1914), the Supreme Court held for the first time that evidence secured during illegal (unconstitutional) searches or seizures could not be introduced into evidence in federal criminal prosecutions; however, as late as 1949 the Court held in Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U.S. 25 (1949) that this exclusionary rule did not bar the use of such evidence in state courts in state criminal cases.

Facts. In Mapp, police officers in Cleveland, Ohio knocked on Miss Mapp's door and demanded that she admit them on the grounds that they had reason to believe that a crime was being or had been committed inside her house. She refused to them entry unless they could produce a valid search warrant. Waving a piece of paper which they claimed (falsely as it turned out) was a warrant to search her home, the police forced their way inside her

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clusionary rule, because the search and seizure involved was a reasonable one. The Court rejected the argument that the search was incident to a lawful arrest because at the time the police stopped and frisked Terry they had insufficient evidence to make an arrest. It did, however, reach the conclusion that a search and a seizure were involved. It found at p. 15 that particular circumstances existed which authorized the police in this case "to approach a person for purposes of investigating possible criminal behavior even though there is no probable cause to make an arrest." The search for a weapon, the 'frisk,' was justified because the officer had reasonable grounds for suspecting that Terry was armed. It concluded at p. 27 that "there must be a narrowly drawn authority to permit a reasonable search for weapons for protection of the police officer [or others], where he has reason to believe that he is dealing with an armed and dangerous individual, . . ." Justice Black concurred but denied that Katz was involved --i.e. he apparently believed that an armed man walking along a public street had no legitimate expectation of privacy. In his concurring opinion Justice Harlan emphasized at p. 32 that the officer had "observed circum

Category: Government - F