Supreme Court restricts police pursuit
It began in 2016 when an officer in Sonoma County heard a driver honking his horn loudly for no apparent reason, followed the man home and entered his garage. It ended Wednesday with a U.S. Supreme Court ruling limiting officers’ authority to enter fleeing suspects’ homes without a warrant.
Police in “hot pursuit” of someone suspected of a felony have long been allowed to enter the suspect’s home without a judicial warrant. But when the suspected offense is only a misdemeanor — a relatively minor crime punishable by a county jail sentence — a pursuit without a warrant may have to end at the suspect’s door, unless there is a true emergency, the court said.
“An officer must consider all the circumstances in a pursuit case to determine whether there is a law enforce
ment emergency,” Justice Elena Kagan said for a sevenmember majority.
Immediate entry will be justified, Kagan said, to prevent violence, destruction of evidence or escape from the home. “But when the officer has time to get a warrant, he must do so,” she said.
The constitutional interest at stake, Kagan said, is “the sanctity of a person’s living space.” She noted that while some misdemeanors in California can be violent, others include littering on a public beach and artificially coloring a live chicken or rabbit.
Chief Justice John Roberts, joined by Justice Samuel Alito, said the ruling set an “absurd and dangerous” standard, and contended police should be allowed to pursue any fleeing suspect into the suspect’s home without seeking judicial approval. But they were outvoted on a court whose conservative majority usually sides with police.
“Instead of giving police officers an automatic green light to enter homes when they suspect nothing more than a misdemeanor, they will have to pause and ask themselves whether this is truly an emergency,” said Jeffrey Fisher, a Stanford law professor who represented the driver, Arthur Lange, before the court.
Lange, a retired real estate agent, was driving home on state Highway 12 in an unincorporated area of eastern Sonoma County one evening in October 2016 when an officer heard him honking his horn loudly and decided to follow him. The officer did not turn on his light or siren, however, until Lange drove into a residential area, stopped in front of his home and pushed a button to open his garage door.
After Lange drove into his garage, the officer got out, put his foot under the door to keep it from closing and entered the garage, where he questioned Lange and smelled alcohol on his breath. Lange later pleaded no contest to misdemeanor drunken driving and was sentenced to 30 days in jail.
State courts upheld his conviction, but the Supreme Court returned the case to a Sonoma County judge to decide whether the officer had reason to enter without a warrant. More broadly, the ruling sets nationwide limits on police entries and searches.
The ruling was praised by state Attorney General Rob Bonta, whose predecessor, Xavier Becerra — now the U.S. secretary of Health and Human Services — filed arguments in support of Lange, leaving local prosecutors and a courtappointed attorney to defend the police entry.
“A person’s home is their castle,” Bonta said in a statement. “Our homes are protected against unreasonable searches and seizures. This is a safeguard that we must jealously defend.”