By a unanimous decision in the case of "Weeks v. United States", 232 U.S. 383 (1914), the Supreme Court adopted the "exclusionary rule". This rule declared that, in most circumstances, evidence obtained through an illegal search and seizure could not be used as admissible evidence in a criminal trial. (This decision adopted the rule only on the federal level. It was not until "Mapp v. Ohio", 367 U.S. 643 (1961), that the exclusionary rule was held to be binding on the states through the doctrine of selective incorporation.)