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Why nanny statists hate the Fourth Amendment
Why nanny statists hate the Fourth Amendment.

By: Chynoweth

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Why nanny statists hate the Fourth Amendment - Video

Dollree Mapp, who challenged a police search of her home, leading to a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1961 that extended the exclusionary rule protecting citizens from illegal searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendment, died Oct. 31 in Conyers, Ga. She was 91.

Her death, which was confirmed to news outlets by her family, was not widely reported until this week. The cause was not disclosed, but she had dementia for many years.

Tough and street savvy, Ms. Mapp spent much of her life on the margins of society and had trouble with the law on several occasions.

On May 23, 1957, plainclothes police officers who were looking for a suspect in a bombing knocked on her door in Cleveland. The explosion a few days earlier had been at the home of a Cleveland gambling figure, Don King, who later went to prison for manslaughter and still later became a well-known boxing promoter.

Ms. Mapp refused to let the officers enter her house without a search warrant.

They returned three hours later. She demanded to see the warrant and then grabbed the paper from an officers hand and stuffed it inside her dress.

In the ensuing struggle, an officer retrieved the paper while Ms. Mapp shouted, Take your hand out of my dress!

The police searched and ransacked Ms. Mapps house, finding what they believed to be gambling paraphernalia and pornography. Ms. Mapp insisted that drawings of nude women and books with such titles as Memoirs of a Hotel Man and Affairs of a Troubadour belonged to a previous tenant. Nonetheless, she was arrested and taken away in handcuffs.

She was acquitted of the gambling charges but, after only 20 minutes of deliberation, a jury found her guilty of possession of lewd and obscene materials. She was sentenced to one to seven years in prison. A man suspected in the bombing case was set free.

Ms. Mapp lost several appeals before her case, Mapp v. Ohio, was argued before the Supreme Court in March 1961. Much of the legal debate was over whether Ohios obscenity law violated the First Amendment.

Originally posted here:
Dollree Mapp, figure in landmark Supreme Court decision in 1961, dies at 91

The Fourth Amendment Of The Constitution Is Under Attack

By: Yawauniah Jerusalem

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The Fourth Amendment Of The Constitution Is Under Attack - Video

The Fourth Amendment ( goverment class Project)
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By: Duy Phan

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The Fourth Amendment ( goverment class Project) - Video

Dollree Mapp, the appellant in a groundbreaking case, Mapp v. Ohio, which fundamentally strengthened our Fourth Amendment rights, has passed away.

Despite being in a landmark Supreme Court case, it took about a month after Mapp's death for the media to take notice. The New York Times reports that Mapp was believed to be 90 or 91 when she died October 31 in or near Conyers, Georgia.

In remembrance, let's review the Mapp case and all it has done for civil rights.

Mapp Defied Police Wanting to Search her Home

More than 57 years ago, police officers showed up at Dollree Mapp's home in Cleveland, Ohio, demanding that they be let inside. Authorities believed that there was a bomber hiding inside the home, and they requested that Mapp let them in. She refused, asking for a search warrant which police never really produced. The whole incident ended with police forcing their way into Mapp's home, searching her and her daughter's room, and eventually arresting Mapp based on some sexually explicit materials they found.

Four years later, Mapp had appealed her obscenity conviction all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, perhaps hoping to get it thrown out on the basis of a First Amendment free speech argument. But lo and behold, the Supreme Court took a significant look at the police searches in Mapp's case and determined that they violated her Fourth Amendment rights.

And even more importantly, they determined that the exclusionary rule applied, throwing out the evidence gained from the illegal search of Mapp's house.

Warrantless Search Evidence Excluded in All Courts

Prior to Mapp, the exclusionary rule had only been successfully used to exclude evidence that was the fruit of an illegal search or seizure in federal court. The rule came out of a 1914 case, Weeks v. United States, which, prior to Mapp, did not apply to state police or state courts.

With state police and prosecutors now threatened with the thought of losing their cases as the result of Fourth Amendment violations, more care would be taken to safeguard suspects' rights -- at least hypothetically. Future courts would carve out exceptions to the exclusionary rule that were seen as eroding Mapp (inevitable discovery, good faith on a defective warrant, etc.)

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Mapp v. Ohio: Plaintiff in Landmark Civil Rights Case Dies