In 1961 the U.S. Supreme Court issued a watershed decision
holding local police officers and prosecutors accountable under the
Fourth Amendment. Writing for the majority in Mapp v.
Ohio, Justice Tom Clark ruled that “the fruits of an
unconstitutional search” are inadmissible as evidence in both state
and federal court. Up until that point, the Supreme Court had only
voted to exclude illegally obtained evidence from federal
proceedings. Mapp was therefore a critical step in the
development of America’s modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence.
The plaintiff in the case was an Ohio woman named Dollree Mapp,
also known as Dolly. The police came to her residence after
allegedly receiving a tip about a bombing suspect. The officers
later claimed they had a warrant, but neither the police nor the
prosecution was ever able to produce any evidence that such a
warrant had ever existed. Nonetheless, the police muscled their way
inside Mapp’s home after she denied them entry and discovered some
purportedly obscene books and photographs. Mapp was then arrested,
tried, convicted, and imprisoned for possession of those obscene
materials. Her victory at the Supreme Court erased that conviction
and secured greater legal protections for all Americans in their
dealings with law enforcement.
As The New York Times is now reporting, Dollree Madison
died in late October. Here is a portion of the Times’
obituary for the late civil liberties pioneer:
On May 23, 1957, three police officers arrived at a house in
Cleveland and demanded to enter. They wanted to question a man
about a recent bombing and believed he was hiding inside. A woman
who lived there, Dollree Mapp, refused to admit them.
It was a small gesture of defiance that led to a landmark United
States Supreme Court ruling on the limits of police power….
Even though Ms. Mapp’s name is etched in legal history, she had
lived quietly in recent years, and besides a brief notice on a
funeral home website, it took more than a month for her death to be
reported. She was believed to be 90 or 91 when she died on Oct. 31,
in or near Conyers, Ga.
Colorful, sometimes brash, Ms. Mapp was married for a time to
Jimmy Bivins, a top-ranked fighter who died in 2012. She was later
engaged to Archie Moore, a light-heavyweight champion, whom she
sued in 1956 for $750,000, claiming he had assaulted her and had
backed out of their marriage plans. (He died in 1998.) The bombing
that officers were investigating in 1957 had been at the home of
Don King, who would go on to become a famous boxing promoter. Ms.
Mapp’s encounter with the police that day would not be her last
run-in with the law.
Mapp v. Ohio may not ring as familiar as other cases involving
civil rights and civil liberties, but it became a legal touchstone
that continues to shape cases and stir debate.
Read the rest
here.
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