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SCOTUS: Police will sometimes need warrants to pursue fleeing suspects into their homes

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WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Wednesday said that unless there is an emergency, police must evaluate on a case-by-case basis whether officers need a warrant before pursuing an individual suspected of committing a minor offense into his or her home.

Justice Elena Kagan wrote the opinion. The justices were unanimous in the result but differed on the reasoning.

“The flight of a suspected misdemeanant does not always justify a warrantless entry into a home. An officer must consider all the circumstances in a pursuit case to determine whether there is a law enforcement emergency,” Kagan wrote. “On many occasions, the officer will have good reason to enter — to prevent imminent harms of violence, destruction of evidence, or escape from the home. But when the officer has time to get a warrant, he must do so — even though the misdemeanant fled.”

A lower court decision had held that no warrant was ever required in such a circumstance.

Kagan added: “Because the California Court of Appeal applied the categorical rule we reject today, we vacate its judgment and remand the case for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.”

In general, law enforcement must obtain a warrant before entering a person’s home, although the court has held that under certain exigent circumstances a warrant is not required. If, for example, an officer is in “hot pursuit” of a driver or if emergency aid is needed, a warrant is not always necessary.

The case at hand explored whether a categorical exception to a warrant holds up if the officer thinks the individual he is following committed a less serious offense: a misdemeanor. It’s the first time the justices have looked at the scope of the “hot pursuit” doctrine when it comes to a minor violation.

In 2016, a highway patrolman saw a car playing loud music and honking its horn for no reason. The officer, Aaron Weikert, followed the car that was being driven by Arthur Lange, believing he may have committed a noise infraction. As he pulled into his driveway, Weikert activated his lights, but Lange did not stop, and instead pulled into his own garage and attempted to shut the door.

Weikert put his foot in front of the garage door sensor, forced the door to reopen and entered the garage, pursuing Lange for failing to stop when the police lights flashed. The officer questioned Lange about his actions, and seeing signs that Lange was intoxicated, ordered a sobriety test. Lange was later charged with driving while intoxicated and his lawyers moved to suppress the evidence against him.

In court, Lange’s lawyer, Jeffrey Fisher, told the justices that the lower court decision was wrong because “the governmental interest in investigating minor offenses is not always or even usually strong enough to support home entries unsanctioned by judicial officers.” He said that only “concrete” emergencies allow a warrantless entry. Otherwise, police have the option of knocking on the door.

In an unusual twist, California did not defend the lower court decision. Instead, California Deputy Solicitor General Sam Harbourt told the justices that a categorical rule requiring a warrant for misdemeanor offenses should not apply.

Supreme Court to take up right to carry gun for self-defense

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WASHINGTON (AP) – The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to hear an appeal to expand gun rights in the United States in a New York case over the right to carry a firearm in public for self-defense.

The case marks the court’s first foray into gun rights since Justice Amy Coney Barrett came on board in October, making a 6-3 conservative majority.

The justices said Monday they will review a lower-court ruling that upheld New York’s restrictive gun permit law. The court’s action follows mass shootings in recent weeks in Indiana, Georgia, Colorado and California.

The case probably will be argued in the fall.

The court had turned down review of the issue in June, before Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death.

New York is among eight states that limit who has the right to carry a weapon in public. The others are: California, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Rhode Island.

In the rest of the country, gun owners have little trouble legally carrying their weapons when they go out.

Paul Clement, representing challengers to New York’s permit law, said the court should use the case to settle the issue once and for all. “Thus, the nation is split, with the Second Amendment alive and well in the vast middle of the nation, and those same rights disregarded near the coasts,” Clement wrote on behalf of the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association and two New York residents.

Calling on the court to reject the appeal, the state said its law promotes public safety and crime reduction and neither bans people from carrying guns nor allows everyone to do so.

Federal courts have largely upheld the permit limits. Last month an 11-judge panel of the federal appeals court in San Francisco rejected a challenge to Hawaii’s permit regulations in an opinion written by a conservative judge, Jay Bybee.

“Our review of more than 700 years of English and American legal history reveals a strong theme: government has the power to regulate arms in the public square,” Bybee wrote in a 7-4 decision for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The issue of carrying a gun for self-defense has been seen for several years as the next major step for gun rights at the Supreme Court, following decisions in 2008 and 2010 that established a nationwide right to keep a gun at home for self-defense.

In June, Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, complained that rather than take on the constitutional issue, “the Court simply looks the other way.”

But Barrett has a more expansive view of gun rights than Ginsburg. She wrote a dissent in 2019, when she was a judge on the federal appeals court in Chicago, that argued that a conviction for a nonviolent felony – in this case, mail fraud – shouldn’t automatically disqualify someone from owning a gun.

She said that her colleagues in the majority were treating the Second Amendment as a “second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees.”