Warren Court extends the exclusionary rule to all states, ruling 6-3 that evidence obtained through illegal searches cannot be used in any American criminal prosecution

The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on June 19, 1961, that the 4th Amendment's exclusionary rule — which barred use of illegally seized evidence in federal courts — applies equally to state courts through the 14th Amendment. Justice Tom Clark's majority opinion held that "the criminal goes free, if he must, but it is the law that sets him free." Justices Harlan, Frankfurter, and Whittaker dissented, arguing the Court had reached a constitutional question that the parties had not raised and that the exclusionary rule was not constitutionally required. The decision overruled Wolf v. Colorado (1949) and extended federal 4th Amendment protections to every criminal prosecution in the country.