Supreme Court Mulls Whether Police Can Enter Home Without Warrant To Save A Life : NPR - 0 views
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Just what sort of emergency allows police to enter your home without a warrant? That was the question before the U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday.
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Later that day, doctors concluded he was not a threat to himself or others and released him. In the meantime, police had confiscated his guns and ammunition. So he sued, alleging an illegal seizure and search of his home.
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she isn't answering her phone, and her back door is open, so the neighbors call the police. "Would that be enough" for the police to enter the house without a warrant to check up on the missing neighbor?"No" answered Dvoretzky, "I think that alone would not be enough."
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The lower courts ruled that police could enter the home and under the so-called the community care-taking exception to the Constitution's warrant requirement.
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"No," replied lawyer Dvoretzky. Police can only enter if there were a genuine emergency going on at that very moment.
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Dvoretzky contended that a warrantless entry could only occur in a true emergency, but his definition was so narrow it didn't seem to satisfy many of the justices.
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"Every single day, on average, there are 65 suicides by gunshot in the United States," he said, noting that "police officers are critical...as in this instance" to suicide prevention.
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The Supreme Court has never explicitly recognized that police may enter the home without a warrant as part of their "community care-taking" duties.
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There are some long-standing exceptions to the warrant requirement in "exigent circumstances, " such as hot pursuit of a suspect.
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Can the police enter their locked fence around the yard to get the the cat down. "Is that community care-taking?" Roberts asked.Yes, replied DeSisto. "To me, climbing a tree and getting a cat doesn't interfere with the privacy rights."
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"the key principle is if someone is at risk of serious harm and it's reasonable for officials to intervene now, that is enough. The officials don't need to show that the harm is mere moments away."