The irreconcilable balance: Warrantless police entry and the sanctity of the home

“ As the Court reiterated just a few years ago, the "physical entry of the home is the chief evil against which the wording of the Fourth Amendment is directed." United States v. United States District Court, 407 U.S. 297, 313. And we have long adhered to the view that the warrant procedure minimizes the danger of needless intrusions of that sort. [24]
It is a "basic principle of Fourth Amendment law" that searches and seizures inside a home without a warrant are presumptively unreasonable. ”

“ It is accepted, at least as a matter of principle, that a search or seizure carried out on a suspect's premises without a warrant is per se unreasonable, unless the police can show that it falls within one of a carefully defined set of exceptions based on the presence of 'exigent circumstances.' [30] As to other kinds of intrusions, however, there has been disagreement about the basic rules to be applied, as our cases concerning automobile searches, electronic surveillance, street searches and administrative searches make clear. ”

“ It is clear, then, that the notion that the warrantless entry of a man's house in order to arrest him on probable cause is per se legitimate is in fundamental conflict with the basic principle of Fourth Amendment law that searches and seizures inside a man's house without warrant are per se unreasonable in the absence of some one of a number of well defined 'exigent circumstances.' This conflict came to the fore in Chimel v. California, supra. ”

“ It is true that an arrest warrant requirement may afford less protection than a search warrant requirement, but it will suffice to interpose the magistrate's determination of probable cause between the zealous officer and the citizen. If there is sufficient evidence of a citizen's participation in a felony to persuade a judicial officer that his arrest is justified, it is constitutionally reasonable to require him to open his doors to the officers of the law. ”

“ Huff turning and running into the house after refusing to answer a question about guns, petitioners' belief that entry was necessary to avoid injury to themselves or others was eminently reasonable.
In sum, reasonable police officers in petitioners' position could have come to the conclusion that the Fourth Amendment permitted them to enter the Huff residence if
page 9, slip opinion there was an objectively reasonable basis for fearing that violence was imminent. And a reasonable officer could have come to such a conclusion based on the facts as found by the District Court. ”

“ With the benefit of hindsight and calm deliberation, the panel majority concluded that it was unreasonable for petitioners to fear that violence was imminent. But we have instructed that reasonableness "must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight" and that " [t] he calculus of reasonableness must embody allowance for the fact that police officers are often forced to make split-second judgments—in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving." ”

“ However, we are called on to determine not the equities of plaintiff's claims or of the police officers' defenses, but whether those claims or defenses are cognizable as a matter of law.
We find that false arrest/false imprisonment claims against public entities and employees must nevertheless meet the verbal threshold of the Tort Claims Act. On the flip side, we are also mindful of the extreme circumstances under which law enforcement personnel must operate and we are loathe to gauge their behavior solely under the unforgiving glare of perfect hindsight. ”

“ Further, police officers will often face the difficult task of deciding whether the circumstances are sufficiently exigent to justify their entry to arrest without a warrant. This is a decision that must be made quickly in the most trying of circumstances. If the officers mistakenly decide that the circumstances are exigent, the arrest will be invalid and any evidence seized incident to the arrest or in plain view will be excluded at trial. ”

“ In the absence of an exigency, then, warrantless home searches and seizures are unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment. The weighty constitutional interest in preventing unauthorized intrusions into the home overrides any law enforcement interest in relying on the reasonable but potentially mistaken belief that a third party has authority to consent to such a search or seizure. Indeed, as the present case illustrates, only the minimal interest in avoiding the inconvenience of obtaining a warrant weighs in on the law enforcement side. ”

“ It is apparent that in order to satisfy the "reasonableness" requirement of the Fourth Amendment, what is generally demanded of the many factual determinations that must regularly be made by agents of the government-whether the magistrate issuing a warrant, the police officer executing a warrant, or the police officer conducting a search or seizure under one of the exceptions to the warrant requirement-is not that they always be correct, but that they always be reasonable. ”

“ As with other factual determinations bearing upon search and seizure, determination of consent to enter must "be judged against an objective standard: would the facts available to the officer at the moment . . . 'warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief' " that the consenting party had authority over the premises? Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 21-22, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1880, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968) . If not, thenwar rantless entry without further inquiry is unlawful unless authority actually exists. ”

“ Our duty then is only to decide whether the officers' testimony-that in their general experience narcotics suspects destroy evidence when forewarned of the officers' presence-satisfies the constitutional test for application of the exception. Manifestly we should hold that such testimony does not satisfy the constitutional test. The subjective judgment of the police officers cannot constitutionally be a substitute for what has always been considered a necessarily objective inquiry, [16] namely, whether circumstances exist in the particular case which allow an unannounced police entry. ”

“ The Constitution is no more violated when officers enter without a warrant because they reasonably (though erroneously) believe that the person who has consented to their entry is a resident of the premises, than it is violated when they enter without a warrant because they reasonably (though erroneously) believe they are in pursuit of a violent felon who is about to escape. ”

“ Certainly it would be unreasonable to require that police officers take unnecessary risks in the performance of their duties. American criminals have a long tradition of armed violence, and every year in this country many law enforcement officers are killed in the line of duty, and thousands more are wounded. ”

“ When an officer undertakes to act § his own magistrate, he ought to be in a position to justify it by pointing to some real immediate and serious consequences if he postponed action to get a warrant.
I am the less reluctant to reach this conclusion because the method of enforcing the law exemplified by this search is one which not only violates legal rights of defendant but is certain to involve the police in grave troubles if continued. That it did not do so on this occasion was due to luck more than to foresight. Many home-owners in this crime-beset city doubtless are armed. ”

“ A "protective sweep" is a quick and limited search of premises, incident to an arrest and conducted to protect the safety of police officers or others. It is narrowly confined to a cursory visual inspection of those places in which a person might be hiding. In this case we must decide what level of justification is required by the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments before police officers, while effecting the arrest of a suspect in his home pursuant to an arrest warrant, may conduct a warrantless protective sweep of all or part of the premises. ”

“ No judicial opinion can comprehend the protean variety of the street encounter, and we can only judge the facts of the case before us. Nothing we say today is to be taken as indicating approval of police conduct outside the legitimate investigative sphere. Under our decision, courts still retain their traditional responsibility to guard against police conduct which is over-bearing or harassing, or which trenches upon personal security without the objective evidentiary justification which the Constitution requires. ”

“ The rule that 'searches conducted outside the judicial process, without prior approval by judge or magistrate, are per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions,' [37] is not so frail that its continuing vitality depends on the fate of a supposed doctrine of warrantless arrest. The warrant requirement has been a valued part of our constitutional law for decades, and it has determined the result in scores and scores of cases in courts all over this country. ”

“ A lawless search cannot give rise to a lawful seizure, even of contraband goods. And 'good faith' on the part of the arresting officers cannot justify a lawless search, nor support a lawless seizure. In forbidding unreasonable searches and seizures, the Constitution made certain procedural requirements indispensable for lawful searches and seizures. It did not mean, however, to substitute the good intentions of the police for judicial authorization except in narrowly confined situations. ”

“ Since the petitioner's federal constitutional protection from unreasonable searches and seizures by police officers is here to be determined by whether the search was incident to a lawful arrest, we are warranted in examining that arrest to determine whether, notwithstanding its legality under state law, the method of entering the home may offend federal constitutional standards of reasonableness and therefore vitiate the legality of an accompanying search. We find no such offensiveness on the facts here. ”

“ The court held that Stanton's warrantless entry into Sims' yard was unconstitutional because Sims was entitled to the same expectation of privacy in her curtilage as in her home itself, because there was no immediate danger, and because Patrick had committed only the minor offense of disobeying a police officer. Id., at 959–963. The court also found the law to be clearly established that Stanton's pursuit of Patrick did not justify his warrantless entry, given that Patrick was suspected of only a misdemeanor. ”

“ If it becomes evident that nothing can be found without a meticulous uprooting of a man's home, it is time for the law enforcement officers to secure a warrant. And if such a search has any reasonableness at all, it is a reasonableness that must be determined through the informed and deliberate judgment of a magistrate. 'Security against unlawful searches is more likely to be attained by resort to search warrants than by reliance upon the caution and sagacity of petty officers while acting under the excitement that attends the capture of persons accused of crime.' United States v. ”

“ Where such circumstances as an escape and hot pursuit by the arresting officer leave no doubt that the fleeing felon is aware of the officer's presence and purpose, pausing at the threshold to make the ordinarily requisite announcement and demand would be a superfluous act which the law does not require. [9] But no exceptions have heretofore permitted unannounced entries in the absence of such awareness on the part of the occupants-unless possibly where the officers are justified in the belief that someone within is in immediate danger of bodily harm. ”

“ Thus, despite our emphasis in Welsh on the fact that the crime at issue was minor—indeed, a mere nonjailable civil offense—nothing in the opinion establishes that the seriousness of the crime is equally important in cases of hot pursuit. Third, even in the portion of Welsh cited by the Ninth Circuit below, our opinion is equivocal: We held not that warrantless entry to arrest a misdemeanant is never justified, but only that such entry should be rare. ”

“ If mere police experience that some offenders have attempted to destroy contraband justifies unannounced entry in any case, and cures the total absence of evidence not only of awareness of the officers' presence but even of such an attempt in the particular case, I perceive no logical basis for distinguishing unannounced police entries into homes to make arrests for any crime involving evidence of a kind which police experience indicates might be quickly destroyed or jettisoned. ”