In Caniglia v. Strom, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether the community-caretaking exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement extends to the home. The general rule under the Fourth Amendment is that before police perform a search or seizure they must obtain a warrant. The community-caretaking exception, by contrast, allows police to search and seize without a warrant when engaged in community-caretaking activities that are entirely unrelated to the enforcement of criminal statutes.
The Supreme Court first created the community-caretaking exception in a case called Cady v. Dombrowski, which involved a crashed car that police towed to a private garage and then searched without first obtaining a warrant. The Court’s decision upholding the officers’ actions noted the differences between homes and vehicles, including that car accidents on public thoroughfares are a “nuisance” requiring officers’ immediate attention.
The First Circuit in Caniglia extended the community-caretaking exception to the home. Edward and Kim Caniglia, a married couple, had a disagreement one night in their Rhode Island abode. After Mr. Caniglia retrieved his unloaded handgun and asked “why don’t you just shoot me and get me out of my misery?” Mrs. Caniglia left and spent the night in a motel.
The next morning, Mrs. Caniglia had the police escort her home. The police believed Mr. Caniglia could be a threat to himself, so they wanted to take him to a hospital for a psychiatric evaluation. Mr. Caniglia agreed to go based on the officers’ promise that they would not take his handguns while he was gone. But once Mr. Caniglia was admitted to the hospital, the officers entered the home without a warrant and seized his guns, claiming the community-caretaking exception justified their actions. And the First Circuit agreed.
Now, the Supreme Court is poised to address, for the first time, whether this community-caretaking exception to the warrant requirement can be applied to searches and seizures within the home. The Supreme Court accepted the case on November 20, 2020 and will hear oral arguments on March 24, 2021.Featuring:
Robert Frommer, Senior Attorney, Institute for Justice
Matt Cavedon, Assistant Public Defender, Northeastern Judicial Circuit
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