Supreme Court Weighs Allowing Police To Enter Homes Without A Warrant For ‘Caretaking’

From Forbes.com (Mar. 24):

The U.S. Supreme Court considered Wednesday whether it’s permissible under the Fourth Amendment for police officers to enter people’s homes without a warrant in limited circumstances under a “community caretaking” exception, which the Biden administration has backed but has provoked objections from civil rights groups.

The Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday in Caniglia v. Strom, which considered whether police acted lawfully by entering a man’s home and removing his firearms without a warrant after he had expressed thoughts of suicide and was taken to the hospital for a psychiatric evaluation.

The justification for doing so was a “community caretaking” exception allowing entry in cases where doing so benefits the public interest, which has traditionally applied to incidents regarding vehicles but not in homes, as was the case here.

Two lower courts sided with the police officers, whose attorneys argued to the Supreme Court, “The Fourth Amendment does not prohibit law enforcement officers from diffusing a volatile situation in a home to protect the residents or others.”

The Department of Justice filed an amicus brief in February saying it agreed the police officers should have been allowed to enter the home without a warrant in this case, and more broadly when their actions are “objectively grounded in a non-investigatory public interest, such as health or safety.” [read more]