The question of the 4th Amendment and warrantless searches and seizures in front of the Supreme Court

Fourth Amendment

Fourth Amendment Annotated

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

The Supreme Court has been protective of the 4th Amendment, but there are exceptions. The 4th Amendment requires probable cause as a requirement for warrantless searches as in “exigent circumstances’ or in “Community Caretaker” exceptions. Both of those exceptions are based on the balancing of an individuals rights vs those of others who might be in imminent danger.

Now the question in front of the Court to be decided in a short time is whether the exceptions apply to a misdemeanor in which there appears to be no imminent danger. SCOTUS blog reports:

The case in front of the court is whether Arthur Lange, a California man whom a California highway patrol officer followed to his home because he believed that Lange had violated state traffic laws by listening to loud music and honking his horn a few times. After Lange pulled into his garage, the officer – who had turned on his overhead lights but did not use his siren as Lange approached his house – entered the garage by putting his foot under the garage door to block it from closing. Lange was charged with driving under the influence as the officer claimed to have detected alcohol on Lange’s breath that reached the level of a DUI offense.

The bottom line of the question to be decided is whether warrantless searches are justifiable in the case of a misdemeanor if the circumstances call for the warrantless search. But who is to decide the reasonableness of the circumstances? The lower courts of California were divided on the reasoning, although Lange’s conviction was upheld.

Lange’s argument “officers investigating trivial offenses to invade the privacy of all occupants of a home even when no emergency prevents them from seeking a warrant,” violates the 4th Amendment. While the California courts are not broadly arguing that all misdemeanors justify the warrantless searches, the lower and appellate courts argue that the circumstances of Lange’s misdemeanor case serve as an exception to the general protections of the 4th Amendment of the Constitution.

2nd Amendment rights advocates believe that this case could open up warrantless searches for weapons based on nebulous arguments as weapons are defined by many as presenting a higher probability of imminent danger.

Never mind that Lange’s DUI stands, If SCOTUS allows broader interpretations of the exceptions, the Court will set a dangerous precedent for 2nd Amendment and 1st Amendment rights, Evan Gerstmann argues in Forbes:

Unlike the “exigent circumstances” and “emergency aid” exceptions, the community caretaking exception is not limited to circumstances where there is no time to apply for a warrant. And the question of what sort of caretaking falls under this exception is extremely vague. Will the police be able to use it to, for example, conduct warrantless searches of political protesters’ homes to make sure they aren’t planning on violent behavior at their next political rally? 

The latest filing in the case was on 5 February:

REPLY BRIEF FOR PETITIONER

Above all else, the Fourth Amendment protects the sanctity of the home. This Court, therefore, has never allowed officers to invade a home without a magistrate’s approval unless taking the time to seek a warrant would risk some concrete, immediate harm— for example, when people would be hurt, evidence would be lost, or a building would burn.

Charged with defending the judgment below, the Court-appointed Amicus asks this Court to go far beyond this framework: She advocates a new categorical rule that would permit officers to enter homes without warrants even when seeking judicial permission would cause nothing more than a brief delay in investigating a minor offense. The Solicitor General is unwilling to endorse that proposal (or Amicus’s conception of “hot pursuit” itself), but still advocates for a “presumption” that the police can enter a home without a warrant to pursue suspected misdemeanants. Br. 4-5.

Both positions founder. To begin, the Court’s terse, factbound opinion in United States v. Santana, 427 U.S. 38 (1976), cannot bear the weight Amicus places on it. Nor can Amicus’s reading of the case be squared with the Court’s overall exigent- circumstances jurisprudence. Furthermore, whatever inexactitude may have existed at common law concerning warrantless home invasions, the original understanding of the Fourth Amendment plainly excluded mere pursuit of a nonviolent misdemeanant from the limited circumstances where such invasions were authorized.

On the other side of the balance, sudden home invasions risk property damage, personal injury, and even death—not to mention unwanted exposure of the details of families’ private lives. Suspects do not “invite[]” these harms (Amicus Br. 18) simply by, say, pulling their cars into their garages. Nor does mere flight extinguish the rights of third parties—for instance, parents awakened when gun-wielding officers burst into their home chasing a teenager who committed a minor traffic offense. Cf. Mascorro v. Billings, 656 F.3d 1198, 1202-03 (10th Cir. 2011). The Court should reject the notion that the Fourth Amendment condones such tumult in service of minimal law-enforcement interests.

I. This Court’s precedents do not support a categorical misdemeanor-pursuit rule.

Lange’s attorneys conclude: In short, if this Court rejects the categorical rule applied below in favor of either the traditional case- specific standard or the Solicitor General’s rebuttable presumption, it should reverse and remand to allow the California courts to consider any remaining Fourth Amendment or remedial issues in the first instance.

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the court of appeal should be reversed.

THE BRIEF CAN BE FOUND HERE