9-0, SCOTUS Agrees Police Cannot Search Home Without Warrant

Posted on 05/18/2021

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The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled on May 17, 2021 that an exception to the Fourth Amendment for “community caretaking” does not allow police to enter and search a home without a warrant. The “community caretaking” exception originated from a 1973 case, Cady v. Dombrowski. The case involved an officer who took a gun out of a car that was impounded without a warrant. At that time, the Supreme Court ruled at the time that police can conduct such warrantless searches if they are performing “community caretaking functions” in a “reasonable” manner. The Supreme Court has never extended the community caretaking exception beyond the motor vehicle context.

In the case, Caniglia v. Strom, the matter was seeing if there is an exception that also justifies warrantless searches of homes. In a rare 9-0 ruling, the Supreme Court decided that it does not.

While Cady recognized that police perform “many civil tasks” in modern society, the “recognition that these tasks exist” is not “an open-ended license to perform them anywhere,” Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in the majority opinion. “The Fourth Amendment protects ‘[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,’” he continued.