A conflict at home creates conflict over the Fourth Amendment in the U.S. Supreme Court

The ancient adage says that “a man’s house is his castle.” The Supreme Court would add, “with exceptions.” Next week, the justices will face a classic constitutional conundrum for the first time: whether a particular exception should apply to the home in a non-criminal situation involving police, guns and an emotional argument between a husband and wife.

The Fourth Amendment states: “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 warrant requirement is our ultimate protection from unreasonable searches and seizures by police and other law enforcement officers. But over the years, the Supreme Court has carved out of that requirement a number of exceptions. For example, police can seize evidence in “plain view.” They can act without a warrant when there are exigent circumstances, such as imminent destruction of evidence; when they are in “hot pursuit” of a suspect, and when the search is incident to a lawful arrest. There are other situations as well.

In 1973, the Supreme Court upheld the warrantless search of a Chicago police officer’s rental car after he crashed the car into a bridge in Wisconsin. The officer was charged with driving under the influence and his car was towed to a service station. Knowing that the driver was a police officer and that officers often carried their service guns with them, the local police searched the disabled car and discovered evidence in the trunk that led to the officer’s conviction for murder.

In upholding the search, the justices announced the community caretaking exception.

“Local police officers,” the Supreme Court said, “unlike federal officers, frequently investigate vehicle accidents in which there is no claim of criminal liability and engage in what, for want of a better term, may be described as community caretaking functions, totally divorced from the detection, investigation or acquisition of evidence relating to the violation of a criminal statute.”

The court found that the exception could be applied to non-investigative intrusions to protect the car owner’s property and to protect the general public from dangerous weapons that could be stolen from an automobile.

The justices relied on the community caretaking exception in only two subsequent cases, the last one in 1987. All three cases involved searches of automobiles.

But the justices next week will hear arguments on whether community care exception can be used to excuse warrantless searches of the home, which is at the core of the Fourth Amendment’s privacy protection.

The case before the justices—Caniglia v. Strom—stems from a 2015 argument between Edward Caniglia and his wife of 27 years, Kim, inside their home. The argument escalated to a point that Edward went to their bedroom, retrieved an unloaded handgun and returned to the dining room. He placed the gun on the table and said: “Why don’t you just shoot me and get me out of my misery?”

When Kim said she was going to call the police, Edward left for a drive. She did not call the police. He returned and the argument resumed. This time, Kim decided to leave and spend the night in a motel. The next morning, she called her husband. When he did not answer the call (he was in the bathroom), she became worried and called the police department. She asked the officers to make a “well call” to check on her husband and to escort her home. She said she was concerned about Edward’s safety, including that he might be suicidal.

The police met with Edward on his home’s back deck where, they reported, he “was calm for the most part” and “said he would never commit suicide.” He told them he had said “just shoot me” because he was exasperated and sick of arguing.

However, the police thought he posed a threat to himself and told Edward that he was going to the hospital for a psychiatric evaluation. Edward refused and went only after the police falsely said they would not confiscate his two handguns if he went. Edward was evaluated and discharged the same day.

In the meantime, the police told Kim that Edward had consented to them seizing the guns which they did.

The issue before the Supreme Court is Edward’s claim that the officers’ entry into his home and the seizure of his guns violated his Fourth Amendment rights. The lower courts sided with the police and the city who were defendants in Edward’s lawsuit.  They ruled that the community caretaking exception excused the warrantless entry and seizure even though the Supreme Court had never applied that exception in a case involving the home.

The community caretaking exception is designed to give police “elbow room” to protect the public, said the lower appellate court.

“Faced with the unenviable choice between sending [Petitioner] to the hospital and leaving him (agitated, ostensibly suicidal, and with two handguns at his fingertips),” the court noted, “the officers reasonably chose to be proactive and to take preventive action.”

In the Supreme Court, Edward’s lawyer argues that extending the community caretaking exception beyond the narrow exception for searches of vehicles in police custody, “would grant police a blank check to intrude upon the home in the name of boundless ‘community caretaking’ functions.”

The Supreme Court, he adds, emphasized in its first decision in 1973 the “constitutional difference” between automobiles, which have long had less Fourth Amendment protection, and homes, which are at the pinnacle of privacy interests protected by the amendment.

And besides, law enforcement officers already have tools to help people in need without extending the exception. There is the emergency aid doctrine that allows police to enter a home to protect occupants from imminent injury. If there is no true emergency, they can obtain a warrant. States also have processes for family members and professionals to intervene in mental health crises.

The officers and the city counter that in a situation where there is no criminal investigation or charges, the Constitution demands “only objective reasonableness.” The search and seizure in the Caniglia case were supported by objective facts, they contend.

“The objective considerations supporting the search in this case included the transient nature of the hazard requiring immediate attention, that the police had solid, non-investigatory reasons for entry, and that the search was narrowly circumscribed in both scope and duration,” they argue. And they counter the warning by Edward’s lawyer with one of their own:

“Adopting a ban on home entry as urged by Petitioner would cause an upheaval in federal and state courts, as well as with police and other first responders, and leave members of the community who need help largely to their own devices.”

The federal appellate courts and even state courts have divided on whether the community caretaking exception can justify a warrantless entry into a home.  South Dakota and Wisconsin apply the exception to the home, but Arizona, California, New Jersey and North Dakota do not.

That type of divide is a prime reason for the Supreme Court to have granted review to the Caniglia case. How the justices resolve this divide will be important not just for police who need clear guidelines on when they can act lawfully, but to our own expectations of privacy in our homes.

Marcia Coyle is a regular contributor to Constitution Daily and the Chief Washington Correspondent for The National Law Journal, covering the Supreme Court for more than 20 years.