L E G A L U P DAT E By: Melanie Reid LMU Duncan School of Law
THE BOTTOM LINE IN CANIGLIA V. STROM: GET CONSENT BEFORE ENTERING A HOME, DON’T RELY ON THE COMMUNITY CARETAKING EXCEPTION What is the role of a police officer? As Chief Justice Roberts notes in the Court’s recent opinion, Caniglia v. Strom, it is to prevent violence, restore order, and assist those seriously injured or threatened with such injury.1 But how do we define their role as it applies to the noncriminal “community caretaking” function? Can police enter the home of an elderly person who is not answering the phone, has not been seen for days, and may be seriously hurt or sick inside? Is there a broad “community caretaking” function that would justify such a search? Police have used such a justification to search and seize while responding to disabled vehicles or investigating car accidents.2 The source for this authority is found in Cady v. Dombrowski, in which Wisconsin police officers were called to the scene of an accident,3 where Dombrowski, a Chicago police officer, was drunk and drove his Ford Thunderbird into a guardrail and crashed into a bridge abutment.4 Being intoxicated and later comatose, Dombrowski was unable to make arrangements for the vehicle to be towed and stored, and therefore, police had the car towed to a garage.5 At the garage, police officers searched the vehicle for a service weapon because they believed Chicago police were required to carry a service revolvers at all times, and they wanted “to protect the public from the possibility that a revolver would fall into untrained or perhaps malicious hands.” 6 The Supreme Court found that this type of caretaking search of a vehicle was reasonable: “[t]hese officers in a rural area were simply reacting to the effect of an accident – one of the recurring practical situations that results from the operation of motor vehicles and with which local police officers must deal every day.”7 The Court concluded that the officers reasonably believed the car contained a gun, “was vulnerable to intrusion by vandals,” and therefore, they had the right to search without a warrant.8 Does this “caretaking” exception apply to searches of homes? The Court decided not to extend this broad caretaking function to the search conducted in Caniglia. Caniglia and his wife had a heated argument, and at one point, Caniglia retrieved a handgun from the bedroom, put it on the dining room table, and asked his wife to “shoot me now and get it over with.”9 His wife left their house, and when Caniglia did not answer her calls the following morning, she called the police and told them she feared he had committed suicide or had harmed himself.10 His wife and several police officers went to the house and found him on the back porch. While his wife waited in the car, the police spoke to Caniglia and thought he posed a risk to himself or others. Caniglia told them he pulled out the firearm the night before because he was tired of the arguments and couldn’t take it anymore.11 Caniglia agreed to go to the hospital for a psychiatric evaluation after officers promised not to confiscate his firearms.12 What happened next is critical to the case. In an ideal world (and one in which we would never have heard about this case), the police officer would have then spoken to Caniglia’s wife and asked her if she feared for her safety and if she had a safe with a combination or knew of a friend’s house where she could store the firearms. If she did not have a safe place to store the firearms and feared Caniglia might retrieve them and harm her or himself, police should have asked for her written and verbal consent to enter the home, retrieve the firearms, and store them until Caniglia received a clean bill of health. However, in this case, police September 2021
misinformed the wife about Caniglia’s wishes, and they entered the home and retrieved the two handguns (presumably without valid consent).13 The prosecution chose not to litigate the consent issue, but rather argued the decision to retrieve the firearms in the home fell within the “community caretaking exception” to the warrant requirement.14 Does the community caretaking doctrine justify searches or seizures from the home? Caniglia’s attorney argued that such an exception swallows the warrant requirement because “virtually any criminal situation can also be described in health or safety terms,”15 which would allow “[t]he police [to] always say they are acting to protect the safety of potential occupants in the home.”16 In a unanimous decision, Justice Thomas referred back to Cady and explained there is a distinction between vehicles and homes. The majority held that there is no freestanding community caretaking exception that would apply to searches and seizures in homes – “what is reasonable for vehicles is different from what is reasonable for homes.”17 Chief Justice Roberts wrote a short concurring opinion to clarify that nothing in this decision disturbs the exigent circumstances exception, which would allow officers to enter the home without a warrant if there is “an objectively reasonable basis for believing that medical assistance was needed, or persons were in danger.”18 And while Justice Alito agreed with the majority opinion, he also felt it necessary to point out that in a different scenario (i.e., where Caniglia had refused to go with the officers for a psychiatric evaluation), the community caretaking exception may have justified a search or seizure for the purpose of committing a suicide.19 The Court decided to narrowly tailor the decision in Caniglia based on the specific facts of the case. Whether the decision creates any Fourth Amendment issues as to “red flag laws” passed by state legislatures, which allow police to seize guns pursuant to a court order to prevent their use for suicide or the infliction of harm on innocent persons, is still unknown.20
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DICTA
Caniglia v. Strom, No. 20-157, Slip. Op. (May 17, 2021) (Roberts, C.J., concurring) (citing Brigham City v. Stuart, 547 U.S. 398, 406 (2006) and Michigan v. Fisher, 558 U.S. 45, 49 (2009) (per curiam)). Id. at 1 (majority opinion). 413 U.S. 433 (1973). Id. at 435-36. Id. at 436. Id. at 436, 443. Id. at 445. Id. at 448. Caniglia, Slip. Op. at 1. Id. Brief in Opposition to Petition for Writ of Certiorari at 4, Caniglia, 593 U.S. ___ (No. 20-157). Id. at 2. Id. Id. Oral Argument at 26:46, Caniglia, 593 U.S. ___ (No. 20-157), https://www.oyez.org/ cases/2020/20-157 (Counsel for Defense, Shay Dvoretzky). Id. at 26:55. Caniglia, Slip. Op. at 2. Id. (Robert, C.J., concurring) (citing to Fisher, 558 U.S. at 49). Id. (Alito, J., concurring). Id. (Alito, J., concurring).
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