The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution and Mapp V. Ohio
The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution is one of the leading points of American law that provides citizens of this country with the right of being in complete secure in their persons, property and papers. In this essay I am going to express an importance of an Amendment, mentioned above, as it is an essential element of an independent American society. To make it clearer I want to illustrate The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution using the case of Ms. Dolree Mapp, that happened in 1961. The Fourth Amendment appears to be a fundamental framework forming a basis of defendant justification in this case. That is why I would like to stress on the Mapp case as it is the most convenient one, reflecting the point of the Fourth Amendment.
The thing of the Mapp case is that this woman was convicted of possession of obscene materials, which were detected by the illegal evidences. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed that illegally obtained evidence could not be used to prove the defendant offense according to the provisions of the Exclusionary rule. Right this argument was the one that Mapp set forth as far as she was not shown any search warrant.
Since that time the Exclusionary rule has been obligatory in all states, providing this remedial measure to every suspect whose case involved evidence, obtained in an illegal search and seizure at the same time. Thus, it assure the abidance of the Fourth Amendment by police. It means that not having search warrant with a probable course mentioned the policeman does not have any right to search a suspect.
The judgment of the Supreme Court was a positive one for the accused person. The punishment was denied for the lack of the reasonable evidence needed to convict her, as far as the one, found by the policemen appeared to be unavailable to use. When Ms. Mapp came to the door, she was made see the search warrant, and one of the officers waved a piece of paper in front of her, which she snatched in the belief that it was a search warrant, but it was not.
The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution existence makes me sure that the way the U.S. Supreme Court ruled about the Mapp case met all requirements stated in American Constitution. I mean that the accused woman was legally justified.
I am definitely sure that every person must be provided with right of being saved from the illegal search and seizure by police. More over this right must be put above all legislations including even duties of the citizen. In other words, government should care about people’s safety and provide them with abidance of all rights concerning security in their persons before sentencing any judgment. The Fourth Amendment has an intend to prevent the government from intimidating citizens who might oppose government policies. Thus, in order to have the right to search and seizure, police must obtain a warrant particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to seized from a judge.
I am convinced that the Mapp case can serve as a great example for the similar situations.
America in the 1950's | Article Review: Innovative enterprises |
- Article Review: Innovative enterprises
- HBO the Execution of Wanda Jean
- America in the 1950's
- Intermediate Periods of Egypt