Warrants?! Ha, Ha, Ha! We Don't Need No Stinkin' Warrants! (A Little Antsy, Part I)
The Supreme Court agreed on Friday to try to define, more precisely than in the past, the emergencies that can justify a warrantless police entry into a private home.
The case is an appeal filed by the State of Utah from a Utah Supreme Court decision early last year that four Brigham City police officers violated the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable search and seizure by entering a home to break up a fight.
The police, who went to the home in response to a neighbor's complaint about a loud party, did not have a warrant and did not announce their presence before walking through an open back door....
Supreme Court precedents have established numerous exceptions to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement. Two are at issue in this case, Brigham City v. Stuart, No. 05-502. One is an exception for 'exigent circumstances,' in which split-second judgments must be made by the police to prevent, for example, the destruction of evidence. The other is an "emergency aid" exception, in which the police are permitted to act immediately to prevent injury or to assist an injured person.
The Utah courts held that the circumstances of this case did not justify invoking either of the exceptions....
In the state's appeal, Utah's attorney general, Mark L. Shurtleff, is arguing that the "subjective motivations of police officers" are irrelevant as long as the entry was "objectively reasonable."
For those of you who don't speak Violatian, I'll translate: "Your Honors, the state of Utah is not going to insult the collective intelligence of the Court by saying the officers entered the house legally, because, clearly, they didn't. No, what the state of Utah is going to insult is the Court's collective body of Fourth Amendment case law, arguing, instead, that there is a third exemption to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement, one that says the police can enter any private domicile without a warrant as long as they can create a reasonable and Constitutionally valid justification for doing so after the fact.
The key to winning this type of argument is saying it all with a straight face.
posted by Biff Loman at 5:25 PM
4 Comments:
Beware the ellipsis...
Actually, the cops saw through a window several adults restraining a youth - pushing him roughly up against a refrigerator - and the youth, breaking free, punching one of the adults in the nose. The police rushed into the house to intervene. These facts might or might not constitute exigent circumstances excusing a warrantless entry, but they do make it reasonable to argue as much with a straight face.
I'll disagree with you there. For the sake of space, I put the ellipsis in place of this: "The garden-variety altercation, visible to the police through a window, did not amount to an 'exigent circumstance,' the Utah Supreme Court said. It also said the police could not claim the 'emergency aid' exception because they did not enter the home for the purpose of providing medical assistance." I don't think the ellipsis distorts or misleads the statement I included: "The Utah courts held that the circumstances of this case did not justify invoking either of the exceptions."
According to the article, Mark Shurtleff didn't argue before the Court that the altercation you described should meet the the exigent circumstances except to a warrantless search. He argued something different, that the police can enter a home and create a reason afterwards based on evidence or circumstances they find upon entry.
That amounts to a willing wink and nudge to the thwarting of the Fourth Amendment restrictions placed on the State. And asking the Court to knowing accept that requires a straight face.
The state argued both exigent circumstances and emergency aid doctrine. Exigent circumstances are in part "those 'that would cause a reasonable person to believe that immediate entry . . . was necessary to prevent physical harm to the officers or other persons..." There's nothing in the decision indicating that the AG made any argument about subjective motivations and I have no idea where the Times gets that unless from a reply brief to respondent's oppostition to cert. filed with the Supreme Court and not yet available online.
I'll trust that Linda Greenhouse has access the rest of us don't on this one, since the Court has posted anything officially. And trust her recounting of what was argued, as without some new argument like the one cited, it seems unlikely the Court would want to hear this case. Without some evidence that the lower courts are having problems applying present doctrine, they would have no reason to accept this one.
The state of Utah seems to have developed state guidelines based on the emergency aid exception, which the appelate courts reviewed and upheld. Barring something in the Court briefs that makes the emergent care exception cloudy, this case doesn't appear to be worthy of the Court's attention.
We'll see.
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