Linkletter v. Walker

In Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U. S. 643, 86 Ohio Law Abs. 513, 81 S. Ct. 1684, 6 L. Ed. 2d 1081 (1961), we held that the exclusion of evidence seized in violation of the search and seizure provisions of the Fourth Amendment was required of the States by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In so doing we overruled Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U. S. 25, 69 S. Ct. 1359, 93 L. Ed. 1782 (1949), to the extent that it failed to apply the exclusionary rule to the States.1 This case presents the question of whether this requirement operates re*50trospectively upon cases finally decided in the period…