Police Can’t Enter a Home & Seize Firearms Without a Warrant Under “Community Caretaking Exception”

Neither the holding nor logic of Cady justifies such warrantless searches and seizures in the home. Cady held that a warrantless search of an impounded vehicle for an unsecured firearm did not violate the Fourth Amendment. In reaching this conclusion, the Court noted that the officers who patrol the “public highways” are often called to discharge noncriminal “community caretaking functions,” such as responding to disabled vehicles or investigating accidents. 413 U. S., at 441. But searches of vehicles and homes are constitutionally different, as the Cady opinion repeatedly stressed. Id., at 439, 440– 442. The very core of the Fourth Amendment’s guarantee is the right of a person to retreat into his or her home and “there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion.” Florida v. Jardines, 569 U. S. 1, 6. A recognition of the existence of “community caretaking” tasks, like rendering aid to motorists in disabled vehicles, is not an open-ended license to perform them anywhere.

Full Opinion here: CANIGLIA v. STROM, 593 US ___ (2021) https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/20-157_8mjp.pdf