Case v. Montana  The U.S. Supreme Court will soon have a chance to reverse the dangerous precedent set by the Montana Supreme Court in Case v. Montana, which held that officers may enter a home based on mere suspicion of an emergency – instead of the stricter probable cause standard. Unless this Montana decision is reversed, the “community caretaker” welfare-check doctrine will be revived, gutting the Fourth Amendment’s protection of the home from warrantless intrusion. The outcome of this case is far from certain, with U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer now urging the Supreme Court to sustain Montana’s lower standard. A Step Backward Here are the facts of this case: In 2021, Montana police responded after William Trevor Case’s ex-girlfriend reported suicidal threats and a “clicking” sound on their call. Officers forcibly entered Case’s home, discovered a firearm, and used that evidence to convict him of assaulting an officer. The Montana Supreme Court refused to recognize a Fourth Amendment violation that would have suppressed this evidence. The court explained that “requiring probable cause of a criminal violation would make no sense in the context of emergencies ‘wholly divorced from a criminal investigation.’” This reasoning is dangerous. It equates a home entry to a stop-or-frisk standard fit for automobile or street encounters. This ignores Supreme Court precedent, which has consistently held stricter protections for homes. The decision invites pretextual entries into homes under the guise of “help.” Worse, Montana revived the “community caretaker” justification. If upheld, this would undermine the Supreme Court’s holding in Caniglia v. Strom (2021), which rejects the idea that general “caretaking” justifies warrantless home entries. The Government’s Hollow Case The Solicitor General’s brief argues that the Fourth Amendment’s “reasonableness” standard, not probable cause, should govern such entries, because the Constitution confines probable cause to warrants. Under this circular reasoning, discarding probable cause is proof enough that a warrant isn’t needed. Yet the Fourth Amendment does not permit the probable cause standard to evaporate when someone invokes an “emergency.” To permit lower thresholds is to allow a backdoor into the home whenever officers claim they reasonably believe danger exists – a recipe for arbitrary and after-the-fact justification. The same logic threatens to bleed into digital surveillance contexts. PPSA has long warned that if the home, the most sacred zone of privacy, can be entered on less-than-probable-cause grounds, then electronic devices (which contain privacies at least as intimate as a home) will be vulnerable to similar intrusion. Sauer’s brief would turn the Fourth Amendment into a permission slip. The Court Should Hold Firm Given the Montana court’s flawed approach and the Solicitor General’s weak argument, the Supreme Court should reverse and remand with instructions to suppress the evidence. The privacy of the American home is too important to allow police to invade homes based on nothing but speculation. Comments are closed.
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