Lange v. Cal.

• Decision Date: 23 June 2021
• Docket Number: No. 20-18,20-18
• Citation: 210 L.Ed.2d 486,141 S.Ct. 2011
• Parties: Arthur Gregory LANGE, Petitioner v. CALIFORNIA
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

141 S.Ct. 2011

210 L.Ed.2d 486

Arthur Gregory LANGE, Petitioner

v.CALIFORNIA

No. 20-18

Supreme Court of the United States.

Argued February 24, 2021

Decided June 23, 2021

Jeffrey L. Fisher, Stanford, CA, for the petitioner.

Deputy Solicitor General Samuel T. Harbourt, San Francisco, CA, for the respondent supporting vacatur, by Amanda K. Rice, Detroit, MI, appointed by this Court as amicus curiae.

Erica L. Ross for the United States, as amicus curiae, by special leave of the Court, supporting affrmance.

Peter Goodman, Law Office of Peter Goodman, San Francisco, CA, Brian H. Fletcher, Counsel of Record, Jeffrey L. Fisher, Counsel of Record, Pamela S. Karlan, Stanford Law School, Supreme Court, Litigation Clinic, Stanford, CA, for the petitioner.

Xavier Becerra, Attorney General of California, Michael J. Mongan, Solicitor General, Lance E. Winters, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Jeffrey M. Laurence, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Samuel T. Harbourt, Counsel of Record, Helen H. Hong, Deputy Solicitors General, Donna M. Provenzano, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, Kimberly M. Castle, Associate Deputy Solicitor General, State of California Department of Justice, San Francisco, CA, for the respondent.

Justice KAGAN delivered the opinion of the Court.

The Fourth Amendment ordinarily requires that police officers get a warrant before entering a home without permission. But an officer may make a warrantless entry when "the exigencies of the situation" create a compelling law enforcement need. Kentucky v. King , 563 U.S. 452, 460, 131 S.Ct. 1849, 179 L.Ed.2d 865 (2011). The question presented here is whether the pursuit of a fleeing misdemeanor suspect always—or more legally put, categorically—qualifies as an exigent circumstance. We hold it does not. A great many misdemeanor pursuits involve exigencies allowing warrantless entry. But whether a given one does so turns on the particular facts of the case.

I

This case began when petitioner Arthur Lange drove past a California highway patrol officer in Sonoma. Lange, it is fair to say, was asking for attention: He was listening to loud music with his windows down and repeatedly honking his horn. The officer began to tail Lange, and soon afterward turned on his overhead lights to signal that Lange should pull over. By that time, though, Lange was only about a hundred feet (some four-seconds drive) from his home. Rather than stopping, Lange continued to his driveway and entered his attached garage. The officer followed Lange in and began questioning him. Observing signs of intoxication, the officer put Lange through field sobriety tests. Lange did not do well, and a later blood test showed that his blood-alcohol content was more than three times the legal limit.

The State charged Lange with the misdemeanor of driving under the influence of alcohol, plus a (lower-level) noise infraction. Lange moved to suppress all evidence obtained after the officer entered his garage, arguing that the warrantless entry had violated the Fourth Amendment. The State contested the motion. It contended that the officer had probable cause to arrest Lange for the misdemeanor of failing to comply with a police signal. See, e.g. , Cal. Veh. Code Ann. § 2800(a) (West 2015) (making it a misdemeanor to "willfully fail or refuse to comply with a lawful order, signal, or direction of a peace officer"). And it argued that the pursuit of a suspected misdemeanant always qualifies as an exigent circumstance authorizing a warrantless home entry. The Superior Court denied Lange's motion, and its appellate division affirmed.

The California Court of Appeal also affirmed, accepting the State's argument in full. 2019 WL 5654385, *1 (2019). In the court's view, Lange's "fail[ure] to immediately pull over" when the officer flashed his lights created probable cause to arrest him for a misdemeanor. Id. , at *7. And a misdemeanor suspect, the court stated, could "not defeat an arrest which has been set in motion in a public place" by "retreat[ing] into" a house or other "private place." See id ., at *6–*8 (internal quotation marks omitted). Rather, an "officer's ‘hot pursuit’ into the house to prevent the suspect from frustrating the arrest" is always permissible under the exigent-circumstances "exception to the warrant requirement." Id. , at *8 (some internal quotation marks omitted). That flat rule resolved the matter: "Because the officer was in hot pursuit" of a misdemeanor suspect, "the officer's warrantless entry into [the suspect's] driveway and garage [was] lawful."

Id. , at *9. The California Supreme Court denied review.

Courts are divided over whether the Fourth Amendment always permits an officer to enter a home without a warrant in pursuit of a fleeing misdemeanor suspect. Some courts have adopted such a categorical rule, while others have required a case-specific showing of exigency.¹ We granted certiorari, 592 U. S. ––––, 141 S.Ct. 617, 208 L.Ed.2d 227 (2020), to resolve the conflict. Because California abandoned its defense of the categorical rule applied below in its response to Lange's petition, we appointed Amanda Rice as amicus curiae to defend the Court of Appeal's judgment. She has ably discharged her responsibilities.

II

The Fourth Amendment provides that "[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated." As that text makes clear, "the ultimate touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is ‘reasonableness.’ " Brigham City v. Stuart , 547 U.S. 398, 403, 126 S.Ct. 1943, 164 L.Ed.2d 650 (2006). That standard "generally requires the obtaining of a judicial warrant" before a law enforcement officer can enter a home without permission. Riley v. California , 573 U.S. 373, 382, 134 S.Ct. 2473, 189 L.Ed.2d 430 (2014) (internal quotation marks omitted). But not always: The "warrant requirement is subject to certain exceptions." Brigham City , 547 U.S., at 403, 126 S.Ct. 1943.

One important exception is for exigent circumstances. It applies when "the exigencies of the situation make the needs of law enforcement so compelling that [a] warrantless search is objectively reasonable." King , 563 U.S., at 460, 131 S.Ct. 1849 (internal quotation marks omitted). The exception enables law enforcement officers to handle "emergenc[ies]"—situations presenting a "compelling need for official action and no time to secure a warrant." Riley , 573 U.S., at 402, 134 S.Ct. 2473 ; Missouri v. McNeely , 569 U.S. 141, 149, 133 S.Ct. 1552, 185 L.Ed.2d 696 (2013). Over the years, this Court has identified several such exigencies. An officer, for example, may "enter a home without a warrant to render emergency assistance to an injured occupant[,] to protect an occupant from imminent injury," or to ensure his own safety. Brigham City , 547 U.S., at 403, 126 S.Ct. 1943 ; Riley , 573 U.S., at 388, 134 S.Ct. 2473. So too, the police may make a warrantless entry to "prevent the imminent destruction of evidence" or to "prevent a suspect's escape." Brigham City , 547 U.S., at 403, 126 S.Ct. 1943 ; Minnesota v. Olson , 495 U.S. 91, 100, 110 S.Ct. 1684, 109 L.Ed.2d 85 (1990) (internal quotation marks omitted). In those circumstances, the delay required to obtain a warrant would bring about "some real immediate and serious consequences"—and so the absence of a warrant is excused.

Welsh v. Wisconsin , 466 U.S. 740, 751, 104 S.Ct. 2091, 80 L.Ed.2d 732 (1984) (quoting McDonald v. United States , 335 U.S. 451, 460, 69 S.Ct. 191, 93 L.Ed. 153 (1948) (Jackson, J., concurring)).

Our cases have generally applied the exigent-circumstances exception on a "case-by-case basis." Birchfield v. North Dakota , 579 U. S. 438, ––––, 136 S.Ct. 2160, 2174, 195 L.Ed.2d 560 (2016). The exception "requires a court to examine whether an emergency justified a warrantless search in each particular case." Riley , 573 U.S., at 402, 134 S.Ct. 2473. Or put more curtly, the exception is "case-specific." Id. , at 388, 134 S.Ct. 2473. That approach reflects the nature of emergencies. Whether a "now or never situation" actually exists—whether an officer has "no time to secure a warrant"—depends upon facts on the ground. Id. , at 391, 134 S.Ct. 2473 (internal quotation marks omitted); McNeely , 569 U.S., at 149, 133 S.Ct. 1552 (internal quotation marks omitted). So the issue, we have thought, is most naturally considered by "look[ing] to the totality of circumstances" confronting the officer as he decides to make a warrantless entry. Id. , at 149, 133 S.Ct. 1552.

The question here is whether to use that approach, or instead apply a categorical warrant exception, when a suspected misdemeanant flees from police into his home. Under the usual case-specific view, an officer can follow the misdemeanant when, but only when, an exigency—for example, the need to prevent destruction of evidence—allows insufficient time to get a warrant. The appointed amicus asks us to replace that case-by-case assessment with a flat (and sweeping) rule finding exigency in every case of misdemeanor pursuit. In her view, those "entries are categorically reasonable, regardless of whether" any risk of harm (like, again, destruction of evidence) "materializes in a particular case." Brief for Court-Appointed Amicus Curiae 31. The fact of flight from the officer, she says, is itself enough to justify a warrantless entry. (The principal concurrence agrees.) To assess that position, we look (as we often do in Fourth Amendment cases) both to this Court's precedents and to the common-law practices familiar to the Framers.

A

The place to start is with our often-stated view of the constitutional interest at stake: the sanctity of a person's living space. "[W]hen it comes to the Fourth Amendment, the home is first among equals." Florida v. Jardines , 569 U.S. 1, 6, 133 S.Ct. 1409, 185 L.Ed.2d 495 (2013). At the Amendment's "very core," we have said, "stands the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free...