An interesting SCOTUS decision

[Hawkmoon]

The Supreme Court has just ruled in a potentially significant 4th Amendment case that also peripherally involved firearms. The case originated in Rhode Island; the name of the case is Caniglia v. Strom, et al.

The back story is that a man had an argument with his wife. She left the house and spent the night elsewhere, and in the morning she called the cops and asked for a welfare check because she was concerned that her husband might be suicidal. When the cops got there the guy did not appear to be suicidal but they persuaded him to go to a mental health clinic to be checked out.

While he was doing that, the cops lied to the wife and told her that her husband had given his permission for them to take his firearms. On the basis of that lie, the wife allowed them to enter the house and take two handguns. The guy was cleared by the mental health clinic, but the police refused to return his guns, so he sued. Two lower courts ruled against him, and it eventually made it to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled -- by a 9-0 vote -- that the police did NOT have a right to enter the home or to seize the man's property.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinion...0-157_8mjp.pdf

[Doran]

Might affect a lot of past confiscation cases.

[MuyModesto]

The key to this 9-0 decision might be the false statement to the wife that her husband had granted them permission to enter. That's probably why the decision was 9-0.

[Mark75H]

9-0 is usually a message to lower courts that they messed up

[Hawkmoon]

Decent follow-up article in Forbes:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicksib...h=fa9161e2829f

[Mark75H]

Some details: IOWA, LOUISIANA, MINNESOTA, MONTANA, OKLAHOMA, SOUTH CAROLINA, SOUTH DAKOTA, TEXAS, AND UTAH along with the feds filed briefs in favor of Rhode Island's side

the community caretaking exception was designed for cases involving impounded cars and highway safety, on the grounds that police are often called to car accidents to remove nuisances like inoperable vehicles on public roads.

Holding: Neither the holding nor logic of Cady v. Dombrowski [the case that started the "community caretaking exception"] justifies the removal of Edward Caniglia’s firearms from his home by police officers under a “community caretaking exception” to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement.

[Hawkmoon]

It is disappointing that most of the states that supported the Rhode Island position are what we generally think of as conservative states. That said, most states' attorneys general tend to be supportive of their state police, so I suppose it should not be a surprise that they filed briefs supporting the police. Perhaps more surprising is that none of the northeatern states surrounding Rhode Island filed to support their position.