Supreme Court unanimously sides against Biden admin, further protects Fourth Amendment rights



The United States Supreme Court unanimously ruled Monday that a so-called exception to the Fourth Amendment called "community caretaking" does not permit police officers to enter and search your home without first obtaining a search warrant, even if doing so may be in the public's interest.

What is the background?

The Supreme Court heard the case — Caniglia v. Strom — upon appeal by Edward Caniglia, a Rhode Island man whose house was searched by warrantless police officers in 2015. During that search, police seized two firearms, which Caniglia recovered only after jumping through numerous bureaucratic hoops.

Caniglia later sued law enforcement, arguing their actions violated his Fourth Amendment right against a warrantless search and seizure.

However, police claimed they acted lawfully under the "community caretaking" exception, which originated from Cady v. Dombrowski, a 1973 Supreme Court case that said police officers can conduct certain "community caretaking functions" if done in a "reasonable" manner. In that case, police officers had seized a gun located in an impounded car without a warrant.

The ruling overturned rulings by the federal district court and First Circuit Court of Appeals.

What did the high court say?

In a 9-0 ruling, the Supreme Court ruled the "community caretaking" exception does not apply to private residences.

"What is reasonable for vehicles is different from what is reasonable for homes. Cady acknowledged as much, and this Court has repeatedly 'declined to expand the scope of ... exceptions to the warrant requirement to permit warrantless entry into the home,'" Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in the majority opinion.

In fact, Thomas specifically rebuked the First Circuit Court of Appeals for extending the exception.

The First Circuit's "community caretaking" rule, however, goes beyond anything this Court has recognized. Thedecision below assumed that respondents lacked a warrantor consent, and it expressly disclaimed the possibility thatthey were reacting to a crime. The court also declined toconsider whether any recognized exigent circumstanceswere present because respondents had forfeited the point.

Nor did it find that respondents' actions were akin to whata private citizen might have had authority to do if petitioner's wife had approached a neighbor for assistance instead of the police.Neither the holding nor logic of Cady justified that approach. True, Cady also involved a warrantless search fora firearm. But the location of that search was an impounded vehicle—not a home—"'a constitutional difference'" that the opinion repeatedly stressed. In fact, Cady expressly contrasted its treatment of a vehicle already under police control with a search of a car "parked adjacent to the dwelling place of the owner."

"But this recognition that police officers perform many civic tasks in modern society was just that—a recognition that these tasks exist, and not an open-ended license to perform them anywhere," Thomas added.

Anything else?

In rejecting the extension of the "community caretaking" exception to the Fourth Amendment, the Supreme Court rejected an argument from the Biden administration, which had urged the court to uphold as legal the violation of Caniglia's constitutional rights.

An amicus brief filed by Justice Department lawyers said:

The touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is reasonableness. For criminal investigations, this Court has generally incorporated the Warrant Clause into the Fourth Amendment's overarching reasonableness requirement, but it has not generally done so for searches or seizures objectively premised on justifications other than the investigation of wrongdoing. The ultimate question in this case is therefore not whether the respondent officers' actions fit within some narrow warrant exception, but instead whether those actions were reasonable. And under all of the circumstances here, they were.

The brief further argued that warrants should not be "presumptively required when a government official's action is objectively grounded in a non-investigatory public interest, such as health or safety."

The Justice Department, in fact, was so keen on the Supreme Court not ruling in Caniglia's favor that they urged the court to uphold the officers' actions "by concluding that the officers are entitled to qualified immunity" if they rejected the Fourth Amendment argument.

Biden admin lawyers urge Supreme Court to allow warrantless gun confiscation ahead of major case



President Joe Biden's administration is urging the Supreme Court to impose restrictions on the Fourth Amendment protections and permit what Forbes described as "warrantless gun confiscation."

The news comes at the same time the White House confirmed Biden will sign an executive order on gun control.

What is the background?

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Wednesday for a case — Caniglia v. Strom — that will ultimately determine whether the "community caretaking" exception to the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against warrantless searches and seizures extends to private residences.

The case stems from a 2015 incident in which police deceptively seized firearms from a Rhode Island couple — Kim and Edward Caniglia — who had engaged in a heated argument. Neither Kim nor Edward were ever accused of a crime, nor was either person ever deemed to be an imminent threat to themselves or others. Police argued they seized the firearms from the couple under the "community caretaking" exception to the Fourth Amendment.

The exception was established by the Supreme Court in a 1973 case. According to Forbes, the exception "was designed for cases involving impounded cars and highway safety, on the grounds that police are often called to car accidents to remove nuisances like inoperable vehicles on public roads." The court "went to special lengths to be clear that the community caretaking exception only extended to vehicles," according to Law.com, even stating there is a "constitutional difference" between homes and vehicles.

But in Caniglia's case, both a federal district court and the First Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the "community caretaking" exception was valid.

"We hold today — as a matter of first impression in this circuit — that this measure of protection extends to police officers performing community caretaking functions on private premises (including homes)," the appeals court ruled.

What did the Biden administration say?

Despite Caniglia's lawyers warning that extending the "community caretaking" exception would be an "anathema to the Fourth Amendment," attorneys with Biden's Justice Department filed an amicus brief — the first one of Biden's administration — asking the Supreme Court to uphold the appeals court's ruling.

They wrote:

The touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is reasonableness. For criminal investigations, this Court has generally incorporated the Warrant Clause into the Fourth Amendment's overarching reasonableness requirement, but it has not generally done so for searches or seizures objectively premised on justifications other than the investigation of wrongdoing. The ultimate question in this case is therefore not whether the respondent officers' actions fit within some narrow warrant exception, but instead whether those actions were reasonable. And under all of the circumstances here, they were.

The attorneys further argued that warrants should not be "presumptively required when a government official's action is objectively grounded in a non-investigatory public interest, such as health or safety."

If the Supreme Court rejects the lower court's ruling that the warrantless seizure was legal under the "community caretaking" exception, the Biden administration lawyers suggested the court uphold the ruling "by concluding that the officers are entitled to qualified immunity."

Anything else?

A joint amicus brief filed by the ACLU, Cato Institute, and American Conservative Union warned of the constitutional dangers that would follow if the Supreme Court extends the "community caretaking" exception.

"Extending the 'community caretaking' exception towarrantless searches of the home would allow policeofficers to bypass the Fourth Amendment's restrictions ina startling array of circumstances," the organizations warned.

"These are nottheoretical concerns. In both state and federal courts, everything from loud music to leaky pipes have been usedto justify warrantless invasion of the home. Allowing ill-defined notions of 'community caretaking' to override theFourth Amendment is unwise, unmanageable, andunnecessary, and it opens the door to abusive policeconduct, including against those who most need society'sprotections," they continued.

"[We] urge the Court to keep the 'communitycaretaking' exception confined to its historic, vehicle-related origins and reject a broader standard that wouldgive police free rein to enter the home without probablecause or a warrant, whenever they think it is 'reasonable' to do so," they said.