Dollree Mapp

Dollree Mapp (October 30, 1923 – October 31, 2014) was the appellant in the Supreme Court case Mapp v. Ohio. She argued that her right to privacy in her home, the Fourth Amendment, was violated by police officers who entered her house with what she thought to be a fake search warrant. Mapp also argued that the Exclusionary Rule was violated due to the collection of the evidence that was found after the police had entered her house without a convincing search warrant according to Mapp's experience. In the Supreme Court case, Mapp v. Ohio, the decision was made in favor of Mapp, in a 6–3 ruling. As a result of the ruling in Mapp v. Ohio, Mapp's conviction was voided. A few years after Mapp v. Ohio was ruled upon, Mapp was convicted again, but this time for the possession of narcotics. This case's overarching question was, "Were the confiscated materials protected from seizure by the Fourth Amendment?" This ruling was based on the protection from "an unreasonable search or seizure" stated in the Fourth Amendment. This realization of the Court is what allowed Mapp and her lawyer to make a "motion to suppress" the evidence. In other words, having the judge determine whether the evidence was gathered legally. In Mapp's case it was not, so the evidence was not included in the trial. However, the Court makes an effort to say that it is not the exclusionary rule which sets the appellant free, "it is the law that sets him free." In Mapp v. Ohio, when Mapp's conviction was overturned it was due to the fact that the law "gives to the individual no more than that which the Constitution guarantees him." However, Mapp "accused Bivins of beating her, and they were soon divorced." The case involved allegations of sexual abuse and made headlines around the country; as a result, Mapp was a local celebrity in the African-American community in Cleveland, and her doings were reported in the society and gossip columns of Cleveland's popular African-American newspaper, the Cleveland Call & Post. Mapp had been in New York since her marriage to Bivins, but decided to move back to Cleveland (at 30 years old) with her daughter after the break up with Moore. She stayed close to the boxing world, and that is how she came into contact with her neighbor Don King, whose home had allegedly been bombed by the man the police were searching for the night they came to Mapp's house. After Mapp's case was appealed by the Supreme Court, she moved to Queens where she was arrested for possession of heroin and stolen property. "Mapp worked on issues related to prisoners’ rights and sought to reduce long mandatory sentences for drug offenses," which she continued later in her life after she was released from prison in 1981" when New York Governor Hugh Carey commuted her sentence. She kept working for inmates through her employment at a non-profit, which gave aid to inmates and gave her a platform to speak about her court experience.