The Road to Mapp v. Ohio and beyond: The Origins, Development and Future of the Exclusionary Rule in Search-and-Seizure Cases

1983 ◽  
Vol 83 (6) ◽  
pp. 1365 ◽  
Author(s):  
Potter Stewart
Keyword(s):  
Search And Seizure ◽  
Exclusionary Rule ◽  
The Road

The Societal Cost of the Exclusionary Rule: An Empirical Assessment

1983 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 585-609 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter F. Nardulli
Keyword(s):  
Plea Bargaining ◽  
Social Benefits ◽  
Search And Seizure ◽  
Criminal Courts ◽  
Exclusionary Rule ◽  
Societal Costs ◽  
Physical Evidence ◽  
Using Data ◽  
First Offenders ◽  
The Impact

A key criticism that has emerged in the debate over the search and seizure exclusionary rule is that it exacts heavy societal costs in the form of lost prosecutions and that such costs outweigh any demonstrated social benefits. This article examines the costs of three exclusionary rules using data collected for 7,500 cases in a nine-county study of criminal courts in three states. It emphasizes motions to suppress physical evidence but for comparative purposes also includes motions to suppress confessions and identifications. The results show that the various exclusionary rules exact only marginal social costs. Motions to suppress physical evidence are filed in fewer than 5% of the cases, largely drug and weapons cases, while serious motions to suppress identifications and confessions are filed in 2% and 4% of the cases. The success rate of motions to suppress is equally marginal. Successful motions to suppress physical evidence occur in only 0.69% of the cases, while successful motions to suppress identifications or confessions occur much less often. Moreover, not all who successfully suppressed evidence escaped conviction, especially when only an identification or a confession was suppressed. In all, only 46 cases—less than 0.6% of the cases studied—were lost because of the three exclusionary rules combined, most of them involving offenses that would have incurred less than six months’ imprisonment or first offenders. Finally, the impact of unsuccessful motions on subsequent plea bargaining was found to be marginal; only unsuccessful motions to exclude confessions resulted in any real sentencing concessions.

Mapp v. Ohio, the Exclusionary Rule, and Constitutional Judicial Review

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morgan Cloud
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
The United States ◽  
Search And Seizure ◽  
Exclusionary Rule ◽  
Federal Authority ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Selective Incorporation ◽  
Federal Constitutional ◽  
The Impact

Mapp v. Ohio is the US Supreme Court opinion that imposed the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule on the states. Mapp overruled earlier cases by holding that evidence obtained by unreasonable government searches and seizures was not admissible in state or local criminal prosecutions, just as it had long been inadmissible in federal cases. It is hard to overstate the impact of this decision, which changed the rules and procedures both for policing and for litigation in criminal cases throughout the United States. But Mapp’s significance extends beyond its specific holding. It adopted an interpretive method, often labeled “selective incorporation,” employed by the Supreme Court in subsequent decisions, that imposed specific provisions contained in the Bill of Rights, the first eight amendments to the Constitution upon the states. These decisions redefined federalism in the United States by establishing federal authority over government actions previously governed by state law. In the realm of search and seizure law, by requiring states to adhere to the Supreme Court’s search and seizure opinions, Mapp also generated potent political and legal opposition. In subsequent opinions the Supreme Court limited the exclusionary rule’s scope, diluting Mapp’s impact on police practices by reducing the situations in which federal constitutional rules required exclusion of evidence.

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