Weeks v. United States
Weeks v. United States is a landmark Supreme Court case that addressed the legality of evidence obtained without a warrant. The case arose when federal and state officers conducted a warrantless arrest and search of the defendant, Weeks, leading to his conviction for mailing lottery tickets. Weeks challenged the validity of the evidence used against him, arguing it was illegally obtained, which ultimately prompted the Supreme Court to consider the implications for Fourth Amendment rights. In a unanimous decision, the Court ruled that the use of unlawfully seized evidence in a federal court was unconstitutional, thereby establishing the federal exclusionary rule. This ruling emphasized the importance of individual rights over the pursuit of justice that relies on illegally obtained evidence. The significance of Weeks v. United States laid the groundwork for future cases, including Mapp v. Ohio, which extended the exclusionary rule to state courts. This case is pivotal in understanding the balance between law enforcement practices and the protection of constitutional rights in the American legal system.
Weeks v. United States
Date: February 24, 1914
Citation: 232 U.S. 383
Issue: Exclusionary rule
Significance: The Supreme Court created the federal exclusionary rule in criminal cases.
State officers and a federal marshal conducted a warrantless arrest and search that led to Weeks’s conviction on a charge of using the mail to transport lottery tickets. He challenged the use of the seized materials in court, saying they had been illegally taken. In ruling for Weeks and voiding his conviction, the Supreme Court unanimously ended the long-standing practice of the federal courts accepting illegally gathered evidence in court on the theory that so-called justice was more important than any individual’s right. In the opinion for the Court, Justice William R. Day ruled that the wrongly seized evidence and its introduction at trial violated the defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights. The exclusion of the tickets voided the conviction, and the Court in effect created the federal exclusionary rule, the significance of which grew in later years. The Court's later ruling on Mapp v. Ohio (1961) made the exclusionary rule applicable at the state level as well.
Bibliography
Maclin, Tracey. The Supreme Court and the Fourth Amendment's Exclusionary Rule. New York: Oxford UP, 2012. Print.
Martinez, J. Michael. "Weeks v. United States (1914) and the Origins of the Exclusionary Rule." The Greatest Criminal Cases: Changing the Course of American Law. Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2014. 13–24. Print.
Vile, John R., and David L. Hudson, Jr. Encyclopedia of the Fourth Amendment. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2013. Print.