Meese’s Challenges of Supreme Court Rulings
Meese is at it again, now publicly criticizing Mapp vs. Ohio and Miranda, the landmark criminal law decisions of the Warren Court.
Unfortunately, The Times seems to have fallen under Meese’s spell, for you incorrectly state that the 1961 Mapp case “promulgated” the exclusionary rule in Fourth Amendment search and seizure cases. The exclusionary rule was promulgated in the federal court system 47 years earlier in the Supreme Court decision of Weeks vs. United States. In Mapp, the Supreme Court extended the exclusionary rule to state court criminal prosecutions.
This is not a trifling distinction; when Mapp was decided, the federal courts already had long experience with the use of the exclusionary rule in search and seizure cases.
Don’t let Meese trip you up again.
MARK PALLEY
Los Angeles
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