• The Community Caretaking Doctrine and Residences

The “Community Caretaking Doctrine,” created to justify warrantless entries into impounded automobiles for a non-criminal investigative purpose, does not justify the warrantless entry into a residence or seizure of firearms therein.

Edward Caniglia—a resident of Rhode Island and petitioner in this civil suit—had an argument with his wife.  During the argument, petitioner retrieved a handgun from their bedroom, put it on the table between them, and asked his wife to “shoot (him) now and get it over with.”  Not finding this to be a reasonable solution to their argument, she simply left instead; spending the night in a hotel.  But when she couldn’t reach him by phone the next morning, she called the police and asked them to do a welfare check.  Respondents (Officer Robert F. Strom, et al) accompanied the wife back to the house and found petitioner alive and well, sitting on the porch.  When questioned, petitioner denied that he was suicidal, but agreed to submit to a psychiatric evaluation at a hospital.  However, he imposed one condition; i.e., that the officers promise him not to confiscate his firearms.  Despite their promise, once petitioner was taken away by ambulance and after allegedly misinforming the wife about his wishes, the officers had her show them where petitioner kept his firearms, and confiscated them (two pistols).  Released from the hospital and finding his guns gone, petitioner sued the officers in federal court, alleging that they violated his Fourth Amendment rights by entering his home without a warrant and seizing both him and his firearms.  The district court granted summary judgment to respondents, dismissing the lawsuit.  The First Circuit Court of Appeal affirmed, but solely on the ground that the decision to remove petitioner and his firearms from the premises was justified under the “community caretaking exception” to the search warrant requirement.  (See Caniglia v. Strom (1st Cir. 2020) 953 F.3rd 112.)  The United State Supreme Court granted certiorari.

The United States Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, reversed.  The sole issue in this appeal was the applicability of the so-called “Community Caretaking Doctrine” to residences.  First off, it was noted that the Fourth Amendment’s provisions protecting “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,” is most acute when discussing one’s right to privacy within his or her own home.  “The ‘very core’ of this guarantee is ‘the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion.’” (Florida v. Jardines (2013) 569 U. S. 1, 6.)  The Court recognized, however, that there are exceptions.  “(T)he Fourth Amendment does not prohibit all unwelcome intrusions ‘on private property,’ . . . only ‘unreasonable’ ones.”  The respondent officers here, and the First Circuit Court of Appeal, submitted that the so-called “community caretaking” theory constituted one of those exceptions.  The Supreme Court disagreed.  The Community caretaking theory was first recognized in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case decision of Cady v. Dombrowski (1973) 413 U.S. 433.  In Cady, however, the issue was the warrantless search of an impounded vehicle, done for the purpose of locating an unsecured firearm, and in a non-criminal investigative context.  A number of lower state and federal courts have since used the community caretaking theory to justify warrantless entries into private residences, as the First Circuit did in this case.  The Supreme Court, however, held that expanding community caretaking beyond the warrantless searches of vehicles to include the entry and searches of residences “goes beyond anything this Court has recognized,” and that “(n)either the holding nor logic of Cady justified (such an) approach”  In so ruling, the Court noted that there is a significant “constitutional difference” between vehicles—for which there is a lesser expectation of privacy—and residences.  Without further discussion, the Court concluded that “(w)hat is reasonable for vehicles is different from what is reasonable for homes,” and declined the respondents’ attempt to expand the community caretaking theory to justify warrantless governmental entries into private residences. 

Up until now, lower appellate court cases, both state and federal, have gone both ways on this issue.  Foreshadowing this case, the California Supreme Court has already ruled that in their opinion, community caretaking does not apply to residences. (See People v. Ovieda (2019) 7 Cal.5th 1034, 1044-1053: California Legal Update, Vol 24, #9, Aug. 30, 2019; a decision I admittedly disagreed with at the time.)  So it’s good to finally get some clear cut rule on this issue that is now to be applied nation-wide.  But this case does not alter any of the other recognized exceptions to the warrant requirement.  A plethora of case law has recognized that warrantless residential entries are often determined to be reasonable (and thus constitutional) where, for instance, the entry is necessary in order “to fight a fire and investigate its cause; to prevent the imminent destruction of evidence; to engage in hot pursuit of a fleeing felon or prevent a suspect’s escape; to address a threat to the safety of law enforcement officers or the general public; to render emergency assistance to an injured occupant; or to protect an occupant who is threatened with serious injury.”  (See Justice Kavanaugh’s concurring opinion, and the numerous cases he cites as authority for these various theories.)  Of particular importance—discussed by Justices Alito and Kavanaugh in their respective concurring opinions—is the issue of “welfare checks.”  The common situation involves a report to law enforcement to the effect that an elderly person has not been seen in some time and is not responding to phone calls or to knocking at his or her door.  Despite being argued by the petitioner in this case, during the oral arguments, that it might be a Fourth Amendment violation for officers to enter a residence to check on the welfare of its occupant in such a circumstance, Justices Alito and Kavanaugh disagree.  They both basically opine that despite the absence of a “community caretaking” theory justifying an entry, it would be reasonable for officers to enter the missing person’s residence anyway.  Per Justice Kavanaugh, this new “decision does not prevent police officers from taking reasonable steps to assist those who are inside a home and in need of aid.”  Perhaps best labeled as an “exigent circumstance” (given that we cannot use “community caretaking” anymore), a warrantless entry in such a circumstance is justified “because the officers have an ‘objectively reasonable basis’ for believing that an occupant is ‘seriously injured or threatened with such injury.’”  (Citing Brigham City v. Stuart (2006) 547 U. S. 398, at pp. 400 & 403.)  But back to the issue at hand: Without community caretaking to justify the entry into Caniglia’s home and the seizure of his firearms (without debating whether Caniglia’s wife’s consent was legally sufficient under these circumstances, but assuming that it probably was not), is there some other legal justification we might have used   In this case, the officers had reason to believe that the petitioner’s mental evaluation and hospital stay wouldn’t take long, and that he would be home soon, with access again to his firearms.  Assuming that would be a dangerous situation, they wanted the guns out of the house.  (Think of the repercussions had they left the guns there and petitioner came home and shot himself.)  The Ninth Circuit has found a similar situation to provide the necessary “exigent circumstance” to allow for the warrantless seizure of the pistols.  (See Rodriguez v. City of San Jose (9th Cir. 2019) 930 F.3rd 1123, 1136-1141, where the Court also found, as an alternative theory, community caretaking to apply, and then also limited its ruling to the circumstances of that case.)  More importantly, however, had this occurred in California, the Penal Code provides for a readily obtainable search warrant. (See P.C. § 1524(a)(10))  Given the ease by which such a search warrant could be obtained, telephonically, one might surmise that a court would require officers do so.  Given all the issues that obtaining a search warrant would eliminate, that would be my strong recommendation.