WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday for a California motorist who was followed home by police and then arrested in his garage for drunk driving.
The driver challenged the arrest as an unconstitutional search of his home.
In a 9-0 decision, the court overturned a lower court ruling in favor of the police and said the 4th Amendment in most cases does not allow the police to enter a home unless it is an emergency or they have a warrant.
The case began in October 2016 when Arthur Lange, a retired real estate broker, was driving home in Sonoma County and listening to loud music. He drew the attention of a California Highway Patrol officer who began following him.
A few seconds before Lange turned into his driveway, the officer said he turned on the flashing lights of his patrol car. He followed the motorist into his garage and questioned him. The officer smelled alcohol on his breath and wrote Lange a ticket for driving under the influence and for the "infraction of operating a vehicle's sound system at excessive levels."
In response, Lange said the charges should be thrown out because the officer violated the 4th Amendment's ban on "unreasonable searches and seizures" when he entered his driveway and garage without a search warrant.
Usually police may not enter private property unless they have a warrant or are responding to an emergency, including a so-called hot pursuit of a fleeing felon. But Lange's offenses were misdemeanors.
Prosecutors argued that because Lange failed to stop when the police car flashed its lights, the officer was justified in pursuing him into his garage.
A Superior Court judge and a California appeals court agreed. "Because the officer was in hot pursuit of a suspect whom he had probable cause to arrest, the officer's warrantless entry into Lange's driveway and garage were lawful," the state court said.
But in her ruling, Justice Elena Kagan wrote, "The flight of a suspected misdemeanant does not always justify a warrantless entry into a home. An officer must consider all the circumstances in a pursuit case to determine whether there is a law enforcement emergency. On many occasions, the officer will have good reason to enter — to prevent imminent harms of violence, destruction of evidence, or escape from the home. But when the officer has time to get a warrant, he must do so — even though the misdemeanant fled."
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
