Pollak, Vida & Barer

In Caniglia v. Strom, published May 17, 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed a decision from the First Circuit Court of Appeals affirming summary judgment to police officers.  During an argument with his wife, the plaintiff placed a handgun on the dining room table and asked his wife to shoot him.  The wife left the home and spent the night at a hotel.  The next morning, she was unable to reach her husband by phone.  She called the police for a welfare check.  The responding officers went with the wife to the house.  The plaintiff was on the porch.  The officers believed the plaintiff was a threat to himself or others.  They called an ambulance.  The plaintiff agreed to go to the hospital for evaluation after the officers allegedly promised not to confiscate his firearms.  After the ambulance took the plaintiff away, the officers entered the plaintiff's home and seized two handguns.  The plaintiff sued the officers, alleging the officers violated his Fourth Amendment rights.  The First Circuit concluded that the officers' entry fell within a "community caretaking" exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement.  It relied on the decision in Cady v. Dombrowski, 413 U.S. 433 (1973).

The Supreme Court unanimously reversed.  The Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable intrusions onto private property.  Permissible invasions of the home and curtilage include valid warrants, certain exigent circumstances (including the need to render emergency assistance to an injured occupant, or protect an occupant from imminent injury), and acts any private citizens might do (such as knocking on a front door).  The "community caretaking" rule as applied to homes goes beyond what the Supreme Court has recognized.  Cady involved a warrantless search of a firearm in an impounded vehicle, rather than a home.  It was not an open-ended license to perform warrantless searches anywhere.  Three justices wrote separate concurring opinions to emphasize that officers retain the ability to enter homes to take reasonable steps to assist those inside a home in need of aid.