Category: Search and Seizure

Here is a bit deeper dive on Case v. Montana, the U.S. Supreme Court emergency entry case that I noted briefly this morning. Although the high court affirmed the judgment of the Montana Supreme Court, it did so with a more limiting standard than the state court used. Three standards have been used by various courts, and the U.S. Supreme Court chose the middle one. The standard is unique to emergency cases, rejecting both looser and more restrictive standards derived from criminal investigation cases.

The emergency in this case was created when Case’s former girlfriend reported that Case had said during a phone call that he intended to kill himself. This was followed by a click that may have been a gun being cocked, a pop that may have been a discharge, and then dead air. This information, combined with Case’s history, make it hard to see how the state could have lost this case under any standard. The strong possibility that he had already shot himself but might be still alive and in need of emergency aid to save his life seems compelling.

The Montana Supreme Court thought that the “community caretaking” function of the police permits entry of a home in emergency situations “when ‘objective, specific and articulable facts’ would lead an ‘experienced officer [to] suspect’ that a person inside ‘is in need of help or is in peril.’ ” That is the minimal standard needed for the police to briefly detain someone on the street, known as a “Terry stop” for the 1968 case of Terry v. Ohio. The defendant wanted the much more restrictive standard needed for search warrants: probable cause. He cited cases from the D.C., Second, and Eleventh Circuits supporting that view.

In the 2006 case of Brigham City v. Stuart, the Supreme Court set out a rule for entry to a home in an emergency: “Police may enter a home without a warrant when they have an objectively reasonable basis for believing that an occupant is seriously injured or imminently threatened with such injury.” Is the Brigham City standard equivalent to either the Terry standard or the probable cause standard? Continue reading . . .

The U.S. Supreme Court today reinstated a retaliatory arrest case, Gonzales v. Trevino, No. 22-1025. The Court held that where the plaintiff concedes there was probable cause for an arrest but claims others are not arrested for the same conduct, the Fifth Circuit applied an excessively severe requirement on what the plaintiff must show. Continue reading . . .

As noted in Wednesday’s summary post, the U.S. Supreme Court held that day that the fact that a police officer is in “hot pursuit” of a person believed to have committed a misdemeanor (as opposed to a felony) is not by itself sufficient justification to enter a home with neither consent nor a warrant. The case is Lange v. California, No. 20-18. Continue reading . . .

Kent did a short introduction of today’s Fourth Amendment case, Lange v. California, and I await his more detailed analysis.  In the meantime, I was discussing the case with a defense lawyer friend of mine, a very smart guy and a bit of a cynic.  One of his pals said that the CNN summary of the case went, “The U.S. Supreme court ruled Wednesday that police cannot enter a home without a warrant when pursuing someone for a minor crime.”  My buddy had a different view:  “That’s a dead wrong description of an opinion that effectively says the police can do this [a warrantless entry in hot pursuit] 99% of the time and claim good faith the other 1%.”

For most practical purposes in future litigation, that strikes me as pretty much dead on.