Wolf v.

Colorado

Basic Facts:
Petitioner: 
 Wolf
Respondent: 
 Colorado
Decided By: 
 Vinson Court (1946-1949)
Opinion: 
 338 U.S. 25 (1949)
Argued: 
 Tuesday, October 19, 1948
Decided:
 Monday, June 27, 1949

The plaintiff, Julius A. Wolf, was convicted in the District Court of the City and County of Denver
of conspiracy to perform criminal abortions. 
The essential question presented before the Court was whether states are required by the Fourth
Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution to exclude illegally seized
evidence from trial.
In its 6-to-3 decision, the Court affirmed the decision of the lower courts. It stated that although exclusion of
evidence is indeed an effective way of discouraging and preventing unreasonable searches, there exist other
methods that can achieve the same effect while complying with the minimal standards set by the Due Process
Clause. 
Mapp v Ohio
Simple Facts:
Decided By: 
 Warren Court (1958-1962)
Argued: 
 Wednesday, March 29, 1961
Decided: 
 Monday, June 19, 1961
Issues: 
 Criminal Procedure, Search and Seizure
When the Cleveland Police Department received a tip that Dollree Mapp and her daughter were harboring a
suspected bombing fugitive, they immediately went to her house and demanded entrance. After being denied
entrance and asked for a warrant, they called for backup and came in later, forcibly opening the door and
waving a piece of paper in Mapp’s face, claiming that it was a warrant. They cuffed her feet and searched
throughout the house. Mapp was convicted based on the evidence that was presented by the police.
Mapp's attorney questioned the police about the warrant but they could not show one

This case was a landmark case in criminal procedure, in which the Unites Supreme Court decided that evidence
retrieved in violation of the 14th Amendment may not be used in both federal and state courts.
Pertinently, the exclusionary rule was never broadly enforced at the state level until the decision in Mapp v.
Ohio. It placed the requirement of excluding illegally obtained evidence from court at all levels of the government. The
decision launched the Court on a troubled course of determining how and when to apply the exclusionary rule.
Terry v Ohio

On October 31, 1963, while on a downtown beat which he had been patrolling for many years,Cleveland Police
Department detective Martin McFadden, aged 62,[1] saw two men, John W. Terry and Richard Chilton, standing
on a street corner at 1276 Euclid Avenue and acting in a way the officer thought suspicious.
The three were taken to the police station. Terry and Chilton were subsequently charged with carrying
concealed weapons.
The United States Supreme Court held that the Fourth Amendment prohibition on unreasonable searches and
seizures is not violated when a police officer stops a suspect on the street and frisks him without probable
cause to arrest, if the police officer has a reasonable suspicion that the person has committed, is committing,
or is about to commit a crime and has a reasonable belief that the person "may be armed and presently
dangerous.
This court ruling expanded the right of police officers to search individuals, and at the same time, set limits for
the various condition in which the search could take place.