Research Paper on "Abbington School District v. Schempp"

Research Paper 15 pages (4686 words) Sources: 6

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Exclusionary Rule has become a well-established part of modern criminal law, so much so that many people fail to understand the relatively recent origin of the law and how it has been expanded beyond its initial parameters. The Exclusionary Rule is "the rule that evidence secured by illegal means and in bad faith cannot be introduced in a criminal trial" (Hill and Hill). This exclusion is not automatic but is done upon the request of a defense attorney. The Exclusionary Rule extends to evidence covered as an indirect result of illegal actions, as well as evidence discovered as a direct result of illegal acts. However, because it is a rule meant to deter illegal behavior by law enforcement, the Exclusionary Rule only applies in circumstances where law enforcement knew or should have known that their actions were illegal.

It is important to understand that certain behaviors have always been prohibited under the Constitution. Illegal searches and seizures by the police certainly fell under this category. The problem was that such illegal behavior did not give rise to a remedy for the victim of that illegal behavior. Instead, the behavior was prohibited but a criminal suspect had no personal protection. That rendered the exclusionary rule essentially meaningless. Federal courts embraced the Exclusionary Rule before the federal courts were willing to extend those protections to state courts. The Exclusionary Rule only became applicable in all scenarios when the Supreme Court decided Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 (1961).

Background

It is important to understand that in federal proceedings, the Exclusionary Rule had been the rule throughout much of U.S. history. The text of 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, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized" (U.S. Const. amend. IV). Therefore, the Fourth Amendment directly prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. However, it fails to specify how those rights are to be enforced. This ambiguity left the Supreme Court with the task of determining the appropriate means of enforcement.

By the turn of the century, the Supreme Court was already willing to provide remedies to people who had suffered Fourth Amendment violations. In Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616 (1886), the Court was called upon to determine whether an illegal search and seizure violated the Fourth Amendment. It determined that that search was illegal. Moreover, referencing an English case that was the inspiration for the Fourth Amendment the Court held that:

The principles laid down in this opinion affect the very essence of constitutional liberty and security. They reach farther than the concrete form of the case then before the court, with its adventitious circumstances; they 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. It is not the breaking of his doors and the rummaging of his drawers that constitutes the essence of the offense; but it is the invasion of his indefeasible right of personal security, personal liberty, and private property, where that right has never been forfeited by his conviction of some public offense, it is the invasion of this sacred right which underlies and constitutes the essence of Lord Camden's judgment (16 U.S. 616, 634 -- 35).

However, while Boyd made it clear that such searches or seizures were Fourth Amendment violations, it did not go so far as to establish the remedy for those violations.

In Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383 (1914), the Court expanded upon the Boyd decision. Boyd had simply made the commentary that such behavior was illegal, but it did not offer any guidance as to how governments were to deal with those circumstances. In Weeks, the Court made it clear that the federal government could not use illegally gathered evidence. Weeks did not create the Exclusionary Rule, but cited the Exclusionary Rule. However, the Court was careful to limit the impact of Weeks to federal prosecutions, an unusual decision given that the Fourteenth Amendment theoretically would have expanded any protections in the Bill of Rights to the states, at that point, anyway.

In Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U.S. 25 (1949), the Supreme Court was again asked to consider the appropriate remedy for a Fourth Amendment violation. Once again, the Court seemed willing to recognize that there needed to be a remedy for such violations, but was still unwilling to force such a solution upon the states. The defendant was convicted of conspiracy to perform criminal abortions. The Court was asked to consider whether states were required by the Fourth Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment to exclude illegally seized evidence from trial. The Court determined that, even though the Exclusionary Rule was a good way to discourage Fourth Amendment violations, because other methods existed to ensure compliance with the Fourth Amendment, the Exclusionary Rule was not necessary. In fact, the Court outright rejected the idea that the Fourteenth Amendment imposed the same limitations on the states as the first eight amendments of the Constitution did on the Federal government.

That is not to say that the Exclusionary Rule never applied to state proceedings prior to Mapp v. Ohio. While the Supreme Court decisions prior to Mapp did not require states to implement the Exclusionary Rule, they also did not prohibit states from enacting their own versions of that rule, and many states did so. However, that may have been even more troubling than some states choosing to enact the rule and others refusing to enact the rule, since it guaranteed that the amount of a process an American citizen would receive would be linked to the state of residency, which was something that the Fourteenth Amendment tried to prohibit, the unequal legal treatment of U.S. citizens.

Mapp v. Ohio

It was not until Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 (1961) that the Exclusionary Rule became required in state criminal court proceedings. In order to understand how Mapp impacted the utilization of the Exclusionary Rule in state courts, it is critical to develop a thorough understanding of Mapp.

Facts

The facts of the Mapp case are relatively simple. The police got a tip that Mapp and her daughter were harboring a fugitive. They went to the defendant's residence and demanded entrance to her home. The defendant called her attorney, and, on his advice, refused entry because they did not have a warrant. Later that same day, the police returned to her house and demanded entry, when Mapp continued to refuse to allow them in the home; they forced their way into the home. She confronted them and demanded to see a copy of the search warrant. The police officers waved a piece of paper in the air, claiming it was the warrant. Mapp grabbed the paper from the police and put it down her shirt; the police retrieved it from her. The officers then cuffed her and searched her house for the fugitive. During their search, the police were unable to find the sought-after fugitive or even any evidence that the fugitive had ever been in the house. In the basement, they opened a trunk and found some pornographic material, which was prohibited by law. Mapp was arrested for breaking that law, and convicted of that offense. During her trial, Mapp's attorney asked about the warrant, but the police were unable to produce the warrant or explain its absence. Mapp's conviction was upheld by the Ohio Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of Ohio. Mapp then took her appeal to the U.S.

Issues

There were multiple issues before the Court. The first issue was whether the evidence against Mapp was seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The second issue was whether evidence that was seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment was admissible in state court proceedings. The third issue was whether Ohio's anti-obscenity law violated the First Amendment.

Reasoning

The Court looked at the connection between the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment became a critical component of the Court's decision. The Due Process Clause provides that:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws" (U.S. Const. amend. XIV).

In other words, the Due Process Clause extends the protections guaranteed in the Bill of Rights to the states.

Prior decisions had determined that the first eight amendments in the Bill… READ MORE

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