Opinion

Wolf v. Colorado

  • 338 U.S. 25
  • 69 S. Ct. 1359
  • 93 L. Ed. 2d 1782
  • 93 L. Ed. 1782
  • 1949 U.S. LEXIS 2079
Court
Supreme Court of the United States
Filed
Jun 27, 1949
Status
Published
Author
Douglas
On the bench
Frankfurter, Black, Douglas, Rutledge, Murphy
Cited by
1,202 cases
Authority
More cited than 24.0%

Overruled on other grounds by Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 (1961)

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 Douglas,

dissenting.

I believe for the reasons stated by Mr. Justice Black in his dissent in Adamson v. California, 332 U. S. 46, 68 , that the Fourth Amendment is applicable to the States. I agree with Mr. Justice Murphy that the evidence obtained in violation of it must be excluded in state prosecutions as well as in federal prosecutions, since in absence of that rule of evidence the Amendment would have no effective sanction. I also agree with him that under that *41 test this evidence was improperly admitted and that the judgments of conviction must be reversed.

This is a copy of a public record, reproduced as it was published. It is not legal advice, and it may not be the version a court would rely on. Check the official source before you cite it.

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