The Mysterious Creation of Search and Seizure Exclusionary Rules Under State Constitutions: The Utah Example

The right to be secure from unreasonable searches and seizures is found not only in the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, but also in most state constitutions. Until quite recently, however, state courts only rarely considered the precise contours of these state guarantees and the remedies for their violation. Instead, federal issues generally dominated the search and seizure questions of state trials. In Mapp v. Ohio, the United States Supreme Court interpreted the Fourth Amendment as providing its own means of enforcement the exclusionary rule requiring the suppression of unlawfully obtained evidence.

The case law emanating from Mapp generally superseded any state law issues, particularly while the Warren Court was issuing expansive interpretations of federal constitutional rights. Indeed, after Mapp many states interpreted their state search and seizure guarantees as moving in "lockstep" with federal guarantees (that is, as extending no further than the Fourth Amendment, as interpreted by the United States Supreme Court).