determining that Fourth Amendment was applicable to states through the Fourteenth Amendment, but only to the extent of protecting against intrusions that “are implicit in the concept of ordered liberty”
How later courts described this case
- determining that Fourth Amendment was applicable to states through the Fourteenth Amendment, but only to the extent of protecting against intrusions that “are implicit in the concept of ordered liberty”
- holding that the Fourteenth Amendment protects against “police incursion into privacy”
- holding that the Fourth Amendment is incorporated by the Fourteenth Amendment, and therefore applies to both state and federal government actors
- holding that the Fourth Amendment is incorporated through the Fourteenth Amendment
Written by the judges who cited it.
Later courts went against this
Overruled on other grounds by Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 (1961)
Listed in the Constitution Annotated's table of Supreme Court decisions overruled by subsequent decision (entry 98, expressly overruled).
Supreme Court of the United StatesOct 9, 196177 citing opinionsother groundsofficial confidenceRead it
The opinion
Mr. Justice Black,
concurring.
In this case petitioner was convicted of a crime in a state court on evidence obtained by a search and seizure conducted in a manner that this Court has held “unreasonable” and therefore in violation of the Fourth Amendment. And under a rule of evidence adopted by this Court evidence so obtained by federal officers cannot be used against defendants in federal courts. For reasons stated in my dissenting opinion in Adamson v. California, 332 U. S. 46, 68 , I agree with the conclusion of the Court that the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of “unreasonable searches and seizures” is enforceable against the states. Consequently, I should be for reversal of this case if I thought the Fourth Amendment not only prohibited “unreasonable searches and seizures,” but also, of itself, barred the use of evidence so unlawfully obtained. But I agree with what appears to be a plain implication of the Court’s opinion that the federal exclusionary rule is *40 not a command of the Fourth Amendment but is a judicially created rule of evidence which Congress might negate. See McNabb v. United States, 318 U. S. 332 . This leads me to concur in the Court’s judgment of affirmance.
It is not amiss to repeat my belief that the Fourteenth Amendment was intended to make the Fourth Amendment in its entirety applicable to the states. The Fourth Amendment was designed to protect people against unrestrained searches and seizures by sheriffs, policemen and other law enforcement officers. Such protection is an essential in a free society. And I am unable to agree that the protection of people from over-zealous or ruthless state officers is any less essential in a country of “ordered liberty” than is the protection of people from over-zealous or ruthless federal officers. Certainly there are far more state than federal enforcement officers and their activities, up to now, have more frequently and closely touched the intimate daily lives of people than have the activities of federal officers. A state officer’s “knock at the door . . . as a prelude to a search, without authority of law,” may be, as our experience shows, just as ominous to “ordered liberty” as though the knock were made by a federal officer.