Mapp v. Ohio - Research Paper Example

In 1957, it was believed by the Cleveland Police Department that Dollree Mapp and her daughter were hiding a wanted suspected bombing fugitive at their home. Upon demanding entrance into her home, Mapp was advised by her attorney to deny them entrance as they did not possess the proper search papers. As time passed, more officers arrived at her home, still demanding entrance. Tired of being denied, they forced a door open and made their way into Mapp’s house. Immediately, Mapp required them to show proof that they had the authority to enter her house at all; in response, the officers procured a warrant, which turned out to be just a piece of paper completely unrelated to a search warrant.

Although Mapp was able to grab the “warrant”, it was pulled from her later, and when confronted in court, the police were unable to show proof that the document had been real. As the officers searched the house for the bombing suspect, they find a trunk in Mapp’s basement that contains a variety of “lewd and lascivious (Cohen, 2009)” books and photographs. Even though Mapp claimed that the trunk was being held for a friend, police still arrested her, as the possession of these materials were against Ohio law.

However, despite what police found, there was never any hint of a fugitive or any wanted person in the house. All the same, Mapp was convicted by the Court of Common Pleas based on the material that had been found in her home. When Mapp tried to appeal to the Ohio Court of Appeals, she was again to be found in the wrong. She took her case to the Supreme Court of Ohio, where her attorney fought that Mapp has no reason to have been brought to trial as the evidence in question was obtained as the result of an illegal search that had been accomplished without the use of a warrant.

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court of Ohio ruled against Mapp, claiming that the items from the trunk had been taken from an inanimate object and not a human being, allowing the