Court adds a little to police authority
on Nov 10, 2014 at 11:10 am
The Supreme Court appeared on Monday to have given police officers a bit more choice about how to approach a private house when they are investigating a possible crime, but it did not clarify how much more. The unsigned decision in Carroll v. Carman, reached without briefing and argument, is here.
In issuing new orders from its Friday Conference, the Justices did not grant review of any new cases.
The ruling in the Carroll case, without any recorded dissent, probably provides legal immunity for a Pennsylvania state trooper, who went to the back door of a home instead of the front door when checking out a tip about a man having stolen a gun and two loaded pistols. The outcome in favor of Officer Jeremy Carroll left it to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit to say definitely whether he is actually immune from a civil rights lawsuit filed by a couple in Dingman’s Ferry, in northeast Pennsylvania.
But, aside from saying that the law was not “clearly established” that Carroll had acted unconstitutionally, the new decision did not say what the law now is on approaching a home when both front and back doors appear to be usual points of entry to the dwelling. The Court referred to several lower court decisions that leave the choice to the officer, but it said explicitly that it did “not decide today whether those cases were correctly decided.” Because the answer remains open to debate, the Court said, it was overturning the Third Circuit’s ruling that Officer Carroll had violated the privacy rights of the home’s occupants.
The trooper’s lawyers from the state attorney general’s office had taken his case to the Supreme Court, asking the Justices to clarify whether the Fourth Amendment imposed a flat “front door” rule when an officer plans to knock at a door of a home to check out a tip. The lower courts are split on the issue, the petition said, so the Supreme Court should grant review and sort it out.
Rather than grant review, the Court summarily decided the case — not on the question of what the “knock and talk” police practice needs to be to satisfy the Fourth Amendment, but rather on whether there was a “front door” rule in place at the time of the Dingman’s Ferry incident, in July 2009. The Court concluded that there was no such established rule then, so it reversed the Third Circuit.
Officer Carroll, with another officer, had gone to the home of Andrew and Karen Carman because the police had been told that a man named Michael Zita, who allegedly had stolen a car and two loaded handguns, was at that home. The officers parked their car at the side of the house, and noticed that there was a back door, opening onto a rear porch. Officer Carroll would say later that he thought that “looked like a customary entryway,” so the two officers approached that door, causing Andrew Carman to emerge.
After a brief encounter that the police said was hostile, Karen Carman came out of the house, and she said that the suspect whom police were seeking was not there. With her permission, the two officers searched the house, but did not find the suspect. The troopers then left.
Later, the Carmans filed a civil rights lawsuit against Carroll, claiming a violation of their privacy by the approach to the back door, instead of the front door. The Third Circuit ruled in their favor, finding that the so-called “knock and talk” exception to the Fourth Amendment privacy guarantee “requires that police officers begin their encounter at the front door, where they have an implied invitation to go.”
That is the result the Supreme Court overturned Monday.
Last Friday, shortly after the Justices’ private Conference, the Court had granted review of two new cases on Friday, one on a key question about the legality of subsidies under the Affordable Care Act to enable individuals of moderate income to afford health insurance. (That grant is covered in detail in this post.)
The other case to be reviewed is Chen v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore. The case involves a New York man who has been trying since 2009 to sue city officials in Baltimore for tearing down a house he owned there, claiming that they razed the property to cover up the fact that they damaged it when they demolished an adjacent home. The case as it reached the Court involves only the question whether a federal judge has discretion to grant more time to an individual who has sued to formally send the legal papers in the lawsuit to those being sued. The lower courts are split on whether the time to serve process can be extended only for “good cause,” or at the discretion of the trial judge.
