338 U.S. 25 (1949)
Wolf v. Colorado arose from two separate criminal prosecutions in Colorado state courts.1 In each case state prosecutors introduced at trial items of evidence that had been obtained by police through searches later characterized as unreasonable under federal standards.2 The Colorado trial courts admitted the evidence under existing state rules of admissibility.3
After guilty verdicts the defendants appealed to the Colorado Supreme Court.4 They argued that the federal exclusionary rule first announced in Weeks v. United States should be made applicable to the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.5 The Colorado Supreme Court rejected the argument in both cases and affirmed the convictions.6
The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari to decide the constitutional question presented by the admission of the evidence.7 The cases were consolidated for argument and decision.8
Whether a conviction by a State court for a State offense denies the due process of law required by the Fourteenth Amendment solely because evidence admitted at the trial was obtained under circumstances that would have rendered it inadmissible in a federal prosecution under the Fourth Amendment as applied in Weeks v. United States?9
The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects only those rights implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.10 It does not incorporate the Fourth Amendment's exclusionary rule announced in Weeks v. United States.11 States may therefore admit evidence obtained by unreasonable searches if alternative remedies exist to deter police misconduct.12
No. The security of privacy against arbitrary police intrusion lies at the core of the Fourth Amendment and qualifies as basic to a free society.13 It satisfies the Palko standard of ordered liberty and binds the states through the Fourteenth Amendment.14 Yet the exclusionary remedy itself is not essential to that core right.15 Most states, both before and after Weeks, have rejected the federal rule.16 They rely instead on civil trespass actions, internal police discipline, and public opinion to check misconduct.17 The individuals' convictions rested on evidence that Colorado courts lawfully admitted under these established state practices.18
Because the Due Process Clause tolerates reasonable variation in enforcement mechanisms and does not demand the specific federal remedy, admission of the evidence did not deny due process.19
The Fourteenth Amendment does not forbid the admission of evidence obtained by an unreasonable search and seizure in a state court prosecution for a state crime; the judgments of the Supreme Court of Colorado are affirmed.20
Related opinions on this issue
Justice Black concurred in the judgment of affirmance.21 He agreed that the Fourth Amendment's prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures applies to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment and is essential to ordered liberty.22 However, he viewed the federal exclusionary rule as a judicially created evidentiary doctrine rather than a constitutional command of the Fourth Amendment itself.23
Because Congress could alter that rule, states are likewise free to admit the evidence.24 Black therefore joined the affirmance even while maintaining his broader incorporation position from Adamson v. California.25
Justice Douglas dissented.26 He believed for the reasons stated by Mr. Justice Black in his dissent in Adamson v. California that the Fourth Amendment is applicable to the States.27 He agreed with Mr. Justice Murphy that the evidence obtained in violation of it must be excluded in state prosecutions as well as in federal prosecutions, since in absence of that rule of evidence the Amendment would have no effective sanction.28
He also agreed that under that test this evidence was improperly admitted and that the judgments of conviction must be reversed.29
Joined by Justice Rutledge
Justice Murphy, joined by Justice Rutledge, dissented at length.30 He argued that the majority's recognition of the Fourth Amendment right against the states was hollow without the exclusionary rule.31 Civil damages actions, criminal prosecutions of officers, and internal discipline are all illusory deterrents.32
Murphy demonstrated through police training materials that only the threat of exclusion produces meaningful compliance with search-and-seizure standards.33 He concluded that admitting the illegally seized evidence violated due process and required reversal.34
Justice Rutledge dissented separately.35 While welcoming the Court's holding that the substance of the Fourth Amendment binds the states, he rejected the simultaneous conclusion that the exclusionary sanction could be severed from that right.36 Without exclusion, he wrote, the Amendment becomes a dead letter, reducing its protection to a mere form of words.37
Rutledge also rejected any suggestion that Congress or state legislatures could authorize admission of illegally seized evidence.38 He concluded that the convictions should be reversed.39