Unwarranted

Summary

Criminal Podcast: "Unwarranted"

Release Date: April 17, 2026
Host: Phoebe Judge
Guest: Professor Carolyn Long
Main Theme: The story behind the landmark Supreme Court case Mapp v. Ohio, examining the personal experiences of Dollree Mapp, the social and racial dynamics of 1950s Cleveland, and how her case transformed the application of the Fourth Amendment across the U.S.

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Episode Overview

In "Unwarranted," Phoebe Judge and Professor Carolyn Long delve into the life of Dollree Mapp and the dramatic police search that culminated in the Supreme Court’s pivotal 1961 decision in Mapp v. Ohio. Through detailed storytelling and expert commentary, the episode explores the interplay of race, police power, criminal procedure, and individual rights, showing how a single act of police overreach led to a nationwide change in the handling of search and seizure evidence.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Don King, The Numbers Game, and Vice Squad Tactics

[01:46 - 03:44]

• Don King, at age 25, was infamous in Cleveland as the “Number Czar,” running illegal lottery games known as “the numbers.”
  • "At one point he was making $15,000 a day from his gambling operation." (Phoebe Judge, 02:38)
• The vice squad, mainly comprised of white officers, focused on targeting these operations in Black neighborhoods.
  • "They were very much targeted by law enforcement because of the assumption that it was connected to organized crime." (Carolyn Long, 02:50)
• An escalating cycle of raids, informants, and violence: Don King’s house is bombed and the police seek suspects.

Introduction to Dollree Mapp

[04:10 - 05:47]

• Dollree Mapp, a strong-willed Black woman, becomes a person of interest due to her associations and defiance.
  • "I had to leave him or kill him, and I wasn't ready to kill him." (Dollree Mapp, quoted by Carolyn Long, 05:21)
• In the community: Attractive, well-known, and unapologetically independent, but frequently harassed by police.

The 1957 Police Search on Dollree Mapp’s Home

[07:35 - 12:25]

• After a tip that a bombing suspect is hiding in her home, a group of Cleveland police—without a warrant—surround and forcibly enter her house.
• Standoff over the Search Warrant:
  • Mapp refuses to let them in without a warrant, as advised by her lawyer.
  • Police claim to have a warrant but refuse to show it. When they wave a piece of paper, Dollree grabs it and hides it in her dress.
    • "She grabbed it and then put it down the front of her dress...Carl Delau said, 'Well, I'm going after it.'" (Carolyn Long, 10:48)
• Police physically retrieve the “warrant” from her clothing and proceed with a full search, handcuffing her to an officer and barring her lawyer from access.
• The search uncovers not just the bombing suspect, Virgil Ogletree, but also slips related to the numbers game and several allegedly obscene books.

Legal Fallout and Trial

[15:36 - 20:15]

• Dollree is initially charged with gambling paraphernalia, but those charges are dismissed.
• A few days later, she is re-arrested for possession of obscene materials (books left by a former tenant), a felony under Ohio law at that time.
  • "The law was written in such a way that even if you did not know you had material that was potentially obscene...you were in violation." (Carolyn Long, 17:50)
• Neither Dollree nor her lawyers ever see the actual search warrant. Officers cannot produce it or recall its contents at trial.
• The jury convicts her within 20 minutes.
  • "She was facing a one to seven year sentence and she was devastated." (Carolyn Long, 20:15)

Appeal to the Supreme Court and Fourth Amendment Debate

[20:29 - 29:52]

• Mapp’s lawyers argue unlawful search and challenge Ohio’s obscenity law.
• Historical context: Protecting against unreasonable searches (Fourth Amendment), rooted in abuses by British customs officers and solidified in colonial resistance.
  • "The Fourth Amendment is sort of the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights that deals with criminal procedure." (Carolyn Long, 23:47)
• Supreme Court’s prior decision in Wolf v. Colorado (1949) recognized unreasonable state searches but did not apply the exclusionary rule (which prevents illegally obtained evidence from being used in court) to the states.
• At oral argument:
  • Notable Moment: Justice Frankfurter presses Map’s attorney, “Are you asking us to overrule the Wolf case in this court?” (Justice Felix Frankfurter, 29:27)
  • The ACLU intervenes, supporting Mapp’s challenge.

Supreme Court Decision and Its Ramifications

[33:07 - 36:34]

• On June 19, 1961, the Supreme Court rules in Mapp’s favor, applying the exclusionary rule to the states:
  • "The evidence that they seized was ill gotten because law enforcement had not had a warrant...she was free." (Carolyn Long, 33:07)
• This case inaugurates a ‘due process revolution,’ leading to the expansion of constitutional protections for accused persons (Miranda, Gideon, etc.).
  • "All of these decisions happened because Mapp v. Ohio paved the way.” (Carolyn Long, 34:35)
• Police, especially Sergeant Delau, react with outrage, seeing this as a blow to law enforcement power.
  • "He thought the decision would tie our hands in law enforcement." (Phoebe Judge, 35:19)
  • "The argument being...why would we free criminals because law enforcement made a minor mistake? Well, the reason, of course, is that they shouldn't be engaging in these types of searches in the first place." (Carolyn Long, 35:33)
• Over time, exceptions soften the absolute reach of the Fourth Amendment, creating modern debates about police powers.

The Later Life of Dollree Mapp

[37:23 - 39:04]

• Moves to New York, opens a furniture store, eventually convicted for heroin trafficking after a valid search.
• Serves nearly ten years, but remains active in legal advocacy, helping inmates with legal issues.
• On release, she remains private and modest, not seeking fame as a civil rights icon.
  • "She just sort of lived her own life." (Carolyn Long, 38:41)
• Dies in 2014 at age 91, remembered as fiercely independent by her family.

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• “I had to leave him or kill him, and I wasn't ready to kill him.” (Dollree Mapp, quoted by Carolyn Long, 05:21)
• “Carl Delau referred to her as his arch enemy...she was a young black woman who really pushed back and was oftentimes accusing them of targeting her and the people she knew because of their race." (Carolyn Long, 06:14)
• “She grabbed it and then put it down the front of her dress...Carl Delau said, 'Well, I'm going after it.'” (Carolyn Long, 10:48)
• “It was a great relief that I didn't have to flee, that I didn't have to lose my daughter.” (Dollree Mapp, recounted by Phoebe Judge, 33:24)
• “One of the guards said, 'Ms. Mapp, I'll never forget you.' And her response was, 'I've forgotten you already.'" (Carolyn Long, 38:14)
• “I think Aunt Dolly thought she was going to live forever.” (Mapp’s great niece, 39:04)

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Timestamps for Critical Segments

• Don King and Cleveland vice crime: 01:46 – 04:10
• Dollree Mapp's background and police harassment: 04:10 – 07:35
• Search warrant standoff and search: 07:35 – 12:25
• Discovery of books, arrest, and jail time: 15:36 – 18:16
• Trial and conviction: 18:16 – 20:15
• Legal appeals and Supreme Court background: 20:29 – 29:27
• Oral arguments before the Court: 29:27 – 29:52
• Supreme Court decision and its impact: 33:07 – 36:34
• Modern exceptions and Fourth Amendment scope: 36:34 – 37:23
• Dollree Mapp’s later life and legacy: 37:23 – 39:04

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Conclusion

"Unwarranted" highlights not only the personal bravery and hardship of Dollree Mapp, but also illustrates how a single citizen’s stand can reshape American law. The episode vividly details her navigation of racial bias, aggressive law enforcement, and an uncertain legal system—culminating in a historic affirmation of privacy rights through the exclusionary rule. Listeners come away with a deeply personal and contextual understanding of how Mapp v. Ohio continues to influence judicial thinking about police power and individual liberty.

Transcript

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[Phoebe Judge]

On the morning of May 20th in 1957, a man named Don King was alone at home. Don King wasn't famous yet as a boxing promoter, but in Cleveland he was known as the Number Czar.

[Carolyn Long]

Don King was about 25, so fairly young he was starting to also become very active in the boxing community.

[Phoebe Judge]

This is Professor Carolyn Long. When don King was 10, his father was killed in an accident at his job at a steel factory. Don King and his brother started running an illegal law lottery known as the Numbers. They would sell peanuts to the gambling houses in town. Each bag of nuts contained a square paper with lottery numbers on it. They would shout, get your hot roasted peanuts and your lucky number. By the time he was 25, he was well known for running illegal gambling in Cleveland. At one point he was making $15,000 a day from his gambling operation.

[Carolyn Long]

The people who were involved were primarily from the African American community and they were very much targeted by law enforcement because of the assumption that it was connected to organized crime, which is why the vice squad always went after them.

[Phoebe Judge]

In Cleveland, vice crimes were handled by a unit called the Special Bureau of Investigation. One officer There was Sergeant Carl DeLau. He'd arrested Don King for illegal gambling in 1954. But afterwards, Don King and Carl Delau became friendly. And sometimes Don King told Carl about rival gambling operations and that he had to pay money to local gangsters for protection. And then on the morning of May 20, 1957, Carl. A bomb exploded under Don King's front porch.

[Carolyn Long]

It was not a big bomb, but it was enough to scare someone. So it destroyed part of King's porch. It was obviously intentionally set. And he believed that people who were involved in gambling had set the bomb as a warning to him. And he immediately called Carl Delau and this Bureau of Special Investigations because he was concerned about his own safety.

[Phoebe Judge]

A few days later, Carl Delau got an anonymous tip about the bomb. The tip said that a man named Virgil Ogletree, another numbers game operator, knew something about it and that he was hiding at a house nearby. It belonged to someone Don King knew, a woman named Dolri Mapp. Dolri Mapp was born on October 30, 1923. She grew up in a small town in Mississippi. Carolyn says that Dolfrey told her that she was strong willed. As a child. She told her parents that, quote, she wanted to live her life her own way. When she was 10, they let her move in with her aunt in Cleveland. When she was 15, she got pregnant and had a daughter. She stayed in Cleveland and later dropped out of school. When Dolree was 21, she got engaged to a boxer named Jimmy Bivens. Dolree said it was an abusive relationship. She told Carolyn, I had to leave him or kill him, and I wasn't ready to kill him. But she didn't want to say much else.

[Carolyn Long]

She said, you know, I'm not going to talk about that. I don't need to talk about that. He's a nonentity. He's irrelevant to my life.

[Phoebe Judge]

Dawy later dated another boxer, Archie Moore. They got engaged when she was 31, but broke up about a year later.

[Carolyn Long]

So she was really well known in the community because not only of these relationships, but because of who she was. She was socializing with people, and her name was well known in the area.

[Phoebe Judge]

What did she look like?

[Carolyn Long]

Well, at the time, she was strikingly attractive. She was in her early 30s. She was very slender, high cheekbones and an Incredible, fierce that just captured you. You could tell how confident she was as a young woman and also how defiant she was.

[Phoebe Judge]

Dollree Mapp was stopped often by the police on suspicion of being involved in illegal gambling.

[Carolyn Long]

She had not been arrested at this point, but she certainly had been detained and questioned and in her mind, harassed by law enforcement. They seemed to look for ways to. To confront her. Carl Delau referred to her as his arch enemy. And I think that was less because she was some prominent criminal and more that she was a young black woman who really pushed back and was oftentimes accusing them of targeting her and the people she knew because of their race, and that it was unnecessary and that it was really brutal to her and to her friends to be under this constant scrutiny by police. And, you know, Carl Delau, he was unapologetic about his job. He had been tasked to look into illegal gambling. I remember speaking to him, and he said, you know, we were well trained. You know, we were aggressive, but we were doing what the community wanted. We had a lot of wins. Meaning there were a number of arrests that they were able to make to show their progress in cracking down on this behavior. The dynamic between an all white police force sort of going after people in these communities who were predominantly black was not really of concern to them because they were so certain that what they were doing was right.

[Phoebe Judge]

On May 23, 1957, three days after the bomb went off under Don King's porch, Carl Delau and two other officers went to Dalree Mapp's house.

[Carolyn Long]

It was early afternoon, and Dawe heard her door knock. And she looked out her second story window and saw three officers sort of pounding on the door. And she yelled out the window, you know, what are you doing here? And they said, you know, we just want to talk to you, Dolly. And she said, well, what do you want to talk to me about? And they refused to tell her. And she said, well, I'm not going to let you in in my home.

[Phoebe Judge]

Dollree Mapp called her lawyer's office, and they told her she didn't have to let the police come in and that

[Carolyn Long]

if they wanted to speak to her about anything, they would have to produce a warrant which granted them access. And so after speaking to her attorney, she yelled out the window a second time that she wasn't going to speak to them until they had a warrant. And then she closed the window and hoped that they would leave.

[Phoebe Judge]

The police officers went back to their car and drove a block away, where Sergeant Dalao called his boss and his

[Carolyn Long]

Supervisor said, you know, go back and talk to her. And Delau said that they needed to get a warrant. The supervisor said, you know, we'll look into it.

[Phoebe Judge]

Their lieutenant called Doll Rem. She also told him she wouldn't let the officers in without a warrant. When she hung up, she saw Carl Delau and the other officers outside again. She called her lawyer's office again and asked if someone could come to her house. A lawyer named Walter Green drove over. When he got there, it was around 4:30. He saw several police cars and about 15 police officers. Police all outside Dolre Mapp's house. People next door were coming outside to see what was going on. Walter Green later said it looked like something out of the movies.

[Carolyn Long]

Her attorney, he noticed that three of the officers were trying to pry open her door with some sort of a tool, an instrument like a crowbar.

[Phoebe Judge]

Walter Green asked if they had gotten a search warrant. He said if they showed it to Dahlri Mapp, she would let them in. They wouldn't need to force their way in. Another officer arrived at the house, and Carl Delau told Dalry's lawyer that now they had a warrant. Walter Green says he wasn't allowed to see it. One of the officers got the screen door open and broke a glass pane in the door to open it.

[Carolyn Long]

And so right when they've broken into the house, broken the pane of glass, she starts to walk down her staircase to confront the officers, and she asks for a warrant. She said, where's your warrant? And one of the officers sort of waved a piece of paper.

[Phoebe Judge]

Dollree Mapp asked to see the search warrant. An officer named Lieutenant White showed her a piece of paper that he said was the warrant. When she asked to read it, he refused.

[Carolyn Long]

And so she grabbed it and then put it down the front of her dress. The officer who had the alleged warrant said, well, what are we going to do now? And Carl Delau said, well, I'm going after it. And then he reached, you know, into the dress by her bosom and then retrieved the piece of paper. And at no point during this short interaction did they show the piece of paper to Mapp. They just insisted that they had, you know, a search warrant.

[Phoebe Judge]

Police handcuffed Dolri Mapp to an officer while about a dozen other officers continued to search her home.

[Carolyn Long]

She was calling out to her lawyer. Her lawyer had been denied access to see her or even speak to her.

[Phoebe Judge]

Police went to the apartment in the basement that Dalry Mapp rented out to another woman. Inside, they found Virgil Ogletree, the man who the anonymous tip said was connected to the bombing at Don King's house.

[Carolyn Long]

And they found him and they arrested him because, of course, he had been named as a potential suspect in the bombing. And for all intents and purposes, the search should have ended there. But they were already in the house. They had an enormous police presence in the area. So they looked at everything. They looked in her basement, they looked in her kitchen drawers, her drawers, of her bedroom dresser, the closet. She said, I had some diet pills and they were looking in the package of my diet pills. So it was a very intensive search. And at that point, I would suggest, as would Mapp, they were looking for anything that might implicate her in some sort of criminal activity.

[Phoebe Judge]

But why, if they had found the man they were there for?

[Carolyn Long]

This Bureau of Special Investigations was explicitly formed by law enforcement to go after vice crimes. And so I think that they used this as an opportunity to find whatever we can to pin on her. They also had done searches like this with other people, meaning that they had searched other homes without police warrants, they had detained other people without, you know, just cause. So for them, it was just another day. But for Mapp, of course, it was just a tremendous intrusion into her personal life.

[Phoebe Judge]

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[Carolyn Long]

They did find evidence of the numbers game. So there are slips of paper. It was in a trunk in the basement. And then when they searched her bedroom they said they had found other material and they came to her with a paper bag and it had four books that they believed were obscene.

[Phoebe Judge]

The books were titled London Stage affairs, the affairs of a Troubadour and Memories of a Hotel man and Little Darlings. They also found a new drawing. Doll Remap said that the officers quote, seemed to enjoy them immensely. Police took Doll Remap to the station. Carl Delau questioned Dolri about the bomb at Don King's house. Dolri Mapp said that she knew Don King, they were acquaintances, but she didn't know anything about the bombing. Sergeant DeLau said Dawe was very evasive in her answers and that she was not making an effort to help the police. Police asked her about the four books they'd found at her home. Dahlrie said they belonged to a former tenant who had moved out over a month earlier. Officers questioned Virgil Ogletree, who told them he had arrived at Dalry Mapp's house just before the police. He said he had once been involved with a gambling operation but wasn't currently. He said he'd been at home when the bomb went off at Don King's house and didn't know anything about it. Virgil Ogletree was eventually released with no charges. Dolrey Mapp was charged with possession of gambling paraphernalia. She spent the night in jail, but the next morning a judge dismissed the charges and Dolrey Mapp went home. A local newspaper ran a story on the front page about her arrest. Police told the reporter that Ms. Mapp was stubborn about letting them inside. And then a few days later, police filed new charges for possession of obscene materials.

[Carolyn Long]

The law was written in such a way that even if you did not know you had material that was potentially obscene if it was in your possession, as in in your house, Law enforcement was able to make the argument that she had it in her possession and was therefore in violation of Ohio law. So they rearrested her on violations of the obscenity statute, which actually was a felony in the state of Ohio. You can get up to seven years of prison.

[Phoebe Judge]

The trial was scheduled for the next year on September 3, 1958.

[Carolyn Long]

You know, her interaction with law enforcement was tense. She had some real concern about whether or not she would get treated fairly in the justice system.

[Phoebe Judge]

As Dahlri Mapp's lawyers were preparing for the trial, they requested to see the warrant police had brought to Dahlree's house multiple times. The prosecution never sent a copy. Dolree Mapp's lawyers filed a motion to suppress the books found at Dolri Mapp's house. They didn't think the search was legal. They believed that there was no warrant. But a judge dismissed the motion. On the first day of the trial, an officer named Michael Haney testified that he was there when Carl Delau found the book in Dolri's bedroom. And then Dolri Mapp's lawyers asked him where the search warrant was. Now Haney said, I don't know. Dalry's lawyer asked if he could remember what the Warren said. Michael Haney said he could not. He said that Dalry had voluntarily welcomed the police inside. Carl Delau testified next. He said that the police did break into the house. He also said that another officer brought him the warrant. Right before that, Dahlre Mapp told the jury that she had grabbed the piece of paper that the police had said was a warrant, but she had not been able to see or read it. The prosecutor questioned her about the books and if they were really hers. Dawy said again, they didn't belong to her. At the end of the trial, the jury deliberated for 20 minutes. They found Doll remapp guilty of possession of, quote, certain lewd and lascivious books.

[Carolyn Long]

She was facing a one to seven year sentence and she was devastated. She was living with her young teenage daughter and she was terrified that she'd been so easily convicted.

[Phoebe Judge]

Dahlrie Mapp and her lawyers decided to try and appeal her conviction. Her lawyers wrote in their appeal that they believed that the obscenity law in Ohio violated Dawree's constitutional rights. The Supreme Court had just ruled the year before, in 1957 on how to define obscene material. Before that, the standard had been to define something as obscene if even a part of it was considered lewd. Now the court said that to be obscene, the material taken as a whole had to appeal to prurient interest. Later that year, in the summer of 1957, two men were put on trial in San Francisco for obscenity. They ran a bookstore and had been charged for selling Allen Ginsberg's book Howl. A judge found them not guilty. He wrote that he found the book had some, quote, redeeming social importance. Dolri Mapp's lawyers also wrote to the Ohio Court of Appeals that she was never allowed to see the police's search warrant and that it was also never shown to her lawyers or shown in court. Dawree was allowed to be at home while the court was considering her appeal. It went on for months and eventually went to the Ohio State Supreme Court.

[Carolyn Long]

She just felt like the Damocles sword was over her head, that there was going to come a point when she was going to have to serve a sentence. And so she told me, you know, she had two plans. And one of the plans was to flee. She didn't want it to have to come to that. But she also, you know, refused to be imprisoned for something that she did not do.

[Phoebe Judge]

On March 23, 1960, the state Supreme Court handed down their decision on Dahlrie Mapp's case. Four of the seven justices said that Ohio's obscenity law was unconstitutional and that Dahlry's conviction should be reversed. But Ohio's constitution required a supermajority. Six of the seven judges had to agree to declare a law unconstitutional. But all the justices had agreed that the search had been done without a warrant. One wrote that after looking at the evidence and trial testimony that, quote, no warrant was offered in evidence. There is no testimony as to who issued any warrant or as to what any warrant contained. And the absence from evidence of any such warrant is not explained or otherwise accounted for in the record. Her lawyers filed a petition to the U.S. supreme Court. A friend loaned her $8,000 to pay for the legal fees. They believed that focusing their arguments on the illegal search could help Dalree's case. In October of 1960, the Supreme Court agreed to hear her case. And then the American Civil Liberties Union contacted Dalree's lawyers. They asked to file an amicus brief or friend of the court brief. They said that they thought the police search had violated her Fourth Amendment rights.

[Carolyn Long]

So the Fourth Amendment is sort of the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights that deals with criminal procedure. And the Fourth Amendment does two things. It has a clause that protects individuals from unreasonable searches and seizures. And then there's another clause, clause which requires that if police are going to engage in a search, that they have to get a warrant based upon probable cause that is presented before a neutral magistrate. The Fourth Amendment primarily applies to people, their homes and their effects or their papers. And it is an amendment that the framers felt very strongly needed to be in the Constitution because some of the abuses that happened during colonial times.

[Phoebe Judge]

In the 1700s, British officers would frequently search people's homes looking for smuggled goods. They would say that they had the right to enter because of a document called a writ of assistance.

[Carolyn Long]

And a writ of assistance is nothing like a warrant. It's actually far more alarming. A writ of assistance is essentially a general writ that allows custom officers unlimited power to search people, their homes and their effects. And it would stay in place, meaning that writ was active until the sovereign who had issued the writ had died. And there was a lot of pushback because of the nature of these searches. And there's a moment when an attorney in Boston, James Otis, he was giving these fiery speeches about how they were really intruding upon, you know, our rights to be free from the government, you know, engaging in these general pervasive searches. It sort of stirred the people in the audience. And one member in the audience was John Adams.

[Phoebe Judge]

John Adams was a young lawyer at the time. He later wrote that James Otis was a flame of fire and that his speech was when American independence was then and there born. Many years later, when John Adams was vice president, he would sign off on the Bill of Rights. It included several amendments about your rights if you're arrested. Over the past 140 years, the Supreme Court ruled on many cases about the Fourth Amendment, like if evidence collected on wiretaps needed a warrant or not, and whether copies made of illegally obtained evidence could be used in court. Carolyn says the Fourth Amendment is sometimes known as one of the most litigated provisions of the Bill of Rights. By 1914, the Supreme Court had ruled that the federal government could not use evidence seized without a valid warrant. But it wasn't until almost 1950 that the Supreme Court ruled on whether that should apply to state governments and police.

[Carolyn Long]

It really came to the attention of the public in a case in 1949 called Wolf v. Colorado.

[Phoebe Judge]

Julius Wolf was a doctor who'd been arrested for performing abortions. At the time, it was illegal in Colorado. Police charged him based on Patient records they found in his office. But they had taken the papers without a warrant. The case went to the Supreme Court, and the justices all agreed that the search had been illegal. Justice Felix Frankfurter wrote that the security of one's privacy against arbitrary intrusion by the police is basic to a free society.

[Carolyn Long]

It was a tremendously important decision because he as well as many, knew of the abuses of power, law enforcement. And so the declaration that it was now applied to state and local officials was a really big deal.

[Phoebe Judge]

But Carolyn says that Justice Frankfurter left open the question of what to do with evidence if it was found in an illegal search.

[Carolyn Long]

What happens when law enforcement engages in an unreasonable or an illegal search? On that question, Frankfurter sort of very much refused to say that the exclusion of that illegally seized evidence should be discarded.

[Phoebe Judge]

He said that the states would have to decide on their own if they wanted to throw out evidence obtained in an illegal search known as the exclusionary rule. Dolri Mapp's case was in the news a lot. The newspapers were mostly interested because of Ohio's obscenity law.

[Carolyn Long]

It got a lot of attention. Mapp ended up having a level of notoriety because people were watching this case. Issues of obscenity were on people's minds. Nobody thought that it would involve the exclusionary rule.

[Phoebe Judge]

Dolrey Mapp drove to Washington for the first day of oral arguments at the Supreme Court on March 29, 1961. She arrived today early and visited the Supreme Court building. She met a bailiff there who answered her questions about how the Supreme Court worked and later how she could find out when a decision had been made on her case. Dalry Mapp's lawyer, Alexander Kearns, argued the case along with a lawyer from the aclu. Alexander Kearns began his oral arguments by going step by step over when police broke into Dolry's home. He went on for more than 16 minutes before Justice Frankfurter interrupted him.

[Justice Felix Frankfurter]

Mr. Kern? Yes, your honor. May I trouble you to tell us what you deem to be the questions that are open before this court? So far as I read the syllabi, I can tell that any of these questions about search and seizure. Unlawful search and seizure, yes. Are you asking us to overrule the Wolf case in this court?

[Phoebe Judge]

The lawyer from the ACLU said yes. They wanted the court to reconsider Wolfie, Colorado, the case about the doctor whose papers had been taken without a warrant. They thought that the evidence in Dahlry's case, the four books, should have been thrown out because the search was illegal. After the end of oral arguments, Dahlri Mapp went home. She asked the bailiff who she'd spoken to earlier if he would call her to let her know if a decision had come down yet. So he did. He called her every week for months. We'll be right back. Support for Criminal Comes from Shopify if you want to start your own business, you're probably asking yourself questions that start with what if? But no business owner ever figured it all out at once. And those questions are an important step towards launching your business. Shopify can help get you there. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world. They're behind everything from household names to brands. Just getting started. You can make a beautiful online store by choosing from Shopify's hundreds of ready to use templates. They can help you write product descriptions, page headlines and improve your product photography. You can connect with customers through an easy to run marketing campaign built through Shopify. And if you just need some advice, they offer award winning 24. 7 customer support. It's time to turn those what ifs into a thriving business with Shopify today. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com criminal go to shopify.com criminal that's shopify.com criminal. Support for Criminal comes from Groons. In early spring, many of us start thinking about ways to feel lighter and more energized. If you're looking for a snack that supports energy and digestion, you might consider trying Groons. Groons say they support whole body health with one snack pack of gummies a day. They say they're not a multivitamin supplement or a prebiotic. They're all of those things, but at a fraction of the price. Their products are vegan, nut free, gluten free, dairy free and have no artificial colors or flavors. And they say it tastes great. Grunes say their ingredients are backed by over 35,000 research publications and their gummies come in a pack because you can't fit the amount of nutrients into one single gummy like 6 grams of prebiotic fiber. That's like eating 2 cups of broccoli. But with Groons you get them in one easy snack pack. You can save up to 52% off with code Criminal at Groons. Code. That's Code Criminal at Gruns Co. On June 19, 1961, Dolre Mapp got a phone call from the bailiff at the Supreme Court. He said you don't have to go to jail. It's all over. The Supreme Court had ruled that the Police search on Dolri Mapp's home had been illegal under the Fourth Amendment.

[Carolyn Long]

The evidence that they seized was ill gotten because law enforcement had not had a warrant. It meant that the arrest was invalid and any of the evidence, these dirty books would be excluded from trial. So it meant that she was free.

[Phoebe Judge]

Dawy told Carolyn, it was a great relief that I didn't have to flee, that I didn't have to lose my daughter. At the time, about half the states in the country allowed for illegally seized evidence in state trials. The Supreme Court's decision made it so that every state in the country had to exclude illegally obtained evidence.

[Carolyn Long]

So it was a very big deal. Judicial scholars call it as sort of the first shot across the bow in the inquiry of criminal procedure protections, because what we saw happening was the court starting to pay attention to criminal procedure rights. It subsequently led to decisions like Miranda versus Arizona, which are protection against the right to self incrimination, exclusionary rules extended there. And so you had this cascading effect where the court starts to see that some of these other constitutional protections are also fundamental.

[Phoebe Judge]

Over the next decade, the court began ruling on several cases on the rights of criminal defendants. Some legal scholars have called it the due process revolution.

[Carolyn Long]

You get decisions like the fifth Amendment right to be protected against self incrimination, that if you are interrogated and you give a confession that's been coerced, that that would be excluded from trial later. You know, the constitutional right to confront your witnesses, constitutional protections against double jeopard. There's just a whole slew of cases that came after Mapp, which just extended these protections. The Sixth Amendment right to counsel in Gideon vs. Wainwright. All of these decisions happened because Mapp v. Ohio paved the way by showing the court that these protections need to be extended to protect against state and local law enforcement practices.

[Phoebe Judge]

Carl Delau, one of the officers who had arrested Dalry Mapp in Cleveland, said the decision was devastating. He told Carolyn that he thought the decision would tie our hands in law enforcement.

[Carolyn Long]

Part of their reaction was shock because they did not think they were doing anything wrong because they had repeatedly engaged in these types of searches without a warrant. And there was quite an uproar of how it would coddle criminals, allow criminals to go free. There's a quote about is the criminal to go free because the constables blundered. The argument being, you know, why would we free criminals? Because law enforcement made a minor mistake. Well, the reason, of course, is that they shouldn't be engaging these types of searches in the first place.

[Phoebe Judge]

Decades after searching Dalry Mapp's home, Carl Dalao admitted to a law professor that he had not had a warrant when he entered. Since the Supreme Court ruled on Dolrey Mapp's case, they've also decided on cases that would allow for police to do searches without warrants in certain circumstances.

[Carolyn Long]

If somebody consents to a search, they don't need to get a warrant. If there are exigent circumstances, meaning police don't have time to get a warrant because maybe they're on a foot race chasing somebody, they don't need a warrant that if you have a lower expectation of privacy, for instance, in your car or where you're at, you don't need a warrant. So what happened subsequent to map, as some people have said, is if the Fourth Amendment looked like Swiss cheese. And so that's sort of where we are at now, where warrants are required in certain circumstances, as long as it doesn't fall into these exceptions. And then in many other circumstances, law enforcement just has to behave reasonably, which of course is a fairly subjective standard.

[Phoebe Judge]

Dollree Mapp eventually moved from Ohio to New York City. She lived in Queens and ran a used furniture store in Harlem. She hired a man to manage it for her. Police soon learned that they were selling drugs together. They were eventually arrested for possession of heroin.

[Carolyn Long]

It was a legitimate arrest. It was a legitimate search. She was ultimately convicted. And it's important to note that at this time, New York was taking a very firm stance against drugs, especially if you're trafficking drugs. And she was given a 20 year sentence in prison.

[Phoebe Judge]

She spent a lot of time in the prison's law library. She helped other people get their visitation rights. Dolree served almost 10 years before her sentence was commuted in 1980.

[Carolyn Long]

As she's leaving, you know, she's been released. One of the guards said, you know, Ms. Mapp, I'll never forget you. And her response was, I've forgotten you already.

[Phoebe Judge]

When she got out, she worked for a nonprofit that gave legal assistance to people in prison. Carolyn Long wrote a book about MAP v. Ohio. When she interviewed Dalry Map for it, Dawyer was in her 80s.

[Carolyn Long]

She lived by herself in her home in Queens, sort of a modest house. She took care of herself. She ate a vegetarian diet. You know, she was walking around the neighborhood often, but she didn't sort of put herself out there, as, you know, the champion of the Fourth Amendment. She just sort of lived her own life.

[Phoebe Judge]

Dalree Mapp died in in 2014 on Halloween, just after her 91st birthday. Her great niece said my great aunt was very, very, very strong willed. She didn't prepare for death. I think Aunt Dolly thought she was going to live forever. Criminal is created by Lauren Spore and me. Nadia Wilson is our senior producer. Katie Bishop is our supervising producer. Our producers are Susanna Roberson, Jackie Zagiko, Lily Clark and Lena Sillison. This episode was fact checked by Katie Cederborg. Our show is mixed and engineered by Veronica Simonetti. Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see [e-mail] and you can sign up for our newsletter at thisiscriminal.com Newsletter Carolyn Long's book is Map v. Guarding Against Unreasonable Searches and Seizures. We hope you'll consider supporting our work by joining our membership program Criminal. Plus you can listen to Criminal this is Love and Phoebe reads a mystery without any ads. Plus you'll get bonus episodes. These are special episodes with me and Criminal co creator Lauren Spore talking about everything from how we make our episodes to the crime stories that caught our attention that week to things we've been enjoying lately. To learn more, go to patreon.com criminal we're on Facebook at thisiscriminal and Instagram and TikTok Criminal Underscore Podcast. We're also on [e-mail] criminalpodcast criminal is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Discover more great [e-mail] I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.

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[Phoebe Judge]

Support for the show comes from Warner Brothers Discovery Advertising. You've probably seen the headlines and yeah, there's a lot happening at WBD right now, but here's the thing. Change is happening everywhere. Media planning has never been this complicated. More platforms, more data, more pressure to drive results. That's what WBD delivers. The world's most iconic stories, the audiences who love them, and the intelligence to turn that attention into action so your brand shows up in the right place at the right time with real impact. Visit adsales.wbd.com to learn more.