Entering homes and private places

Desjardins reads an old saying to the class: a person's home is their castle. It goes back to an English case from 1604, and it still shapes the law in both the United States. 'Of all the places you will go as officers,' he says, 'the home is where the law gives people the most protection, and where your mistakes will be judged most harshly.' Homes hold the most private parts of people's lives, families and children live there, and an officer who enters uninvited is a stranger in the most personal space a person has. This lesson brings together the rules on entering homes and other private places: when officers may approach, knock, enter, look around, secure the premises and search.

The approach: knocking and the implied license

Officers, like anyone else, may walk up to a front door and knock. Officers, like any visitor, have an implied license to approach the front door, knock, wait briefly and leave if no one answers. In Florida v. Jardines (2013), the Supreme Court held that bringing a trained drug dog onto a front porch to sniff for drugs exceeded that license and was a search, because its purpose was to gather evidence, not to speak with the occupant. The curtilage, the area immediately around the home such as a porch, side yard or enclosed backyard, is treated as part of the home under Oliver v. United States (1984) and United States v. Dunn (1987), while open fields beyond it are not protected. In Kyllo v. United States (2001), the Court held that using a thermal imager to detect heat inside a home was a search requiring a warrant.

The practical rule is simple: officers may go where a visitor would go, for the reasons a visitor would go there. They may knock at the front door to ask questions. They may not wander around to the back, peer through windows from places visitors do not go, or use the visit as cover for gathering evidence. If no one answers, they leave. If someone answers, they may ask to speak with them, and the person may decline and close the door.

Entering: the four lawful routes

There are four ways into a home for police: a warrant, consent, exigent circumstances, and a few narrow statutory powers. An arrest warrant allows entry into the suspect's own home with reason to believe they are inside (Payton); a search warrant allows entry into the place it names (Steagald); consent from a person with actual or apparent authority allows entry within its scope; and exigent circumstances, including hot pursuit and emergency aid, allow entry without a warrant. Caniglia v. Strom (2021) made clear that there is no freestanding community caretaking exception for homes: officers who enter to check on someone must rely on emergency aid, which requires an objectively reasonable basis to believe someone inside needs immediate help.

Brigham City v. Stuart (2006) is the case officers will apply most often. Officers responding to a loud party at 3 a.m. saw through a window a fight in the kitchen in which a juvenile punched an adult, who spat blood into a sink. They entered without a warrant. The Supreme Court held unanimously that officers may enter a home without a warrant to render emergency assistance to an injured occupant or to protect an occupant from imminent injury, judged objectively, regardless of the officers' subjective motives.

Announcing before entry

The knock-and-announce rule requires officers to give notice of their identity and purpose and wait a reasonable time before forcing entry, unless they have reasonable suspicion that announcing would be dangerous, futile or would allow destruction of evidence (Richards v. Wisconsin). In United States v. Banks (2003), the Court held that waiting fifteen to twenty seconds before forcing entry to execute a drug warrant was reasonable, given the risk that drugs could be destroyed. Revised Code 2933.231 allows a judge to authorize no-knock entry in advance. Desjardins tells the class that the decision to enter without announcing is a high-risk decision that should be made by a supervisor with all available information, and recorded.

Inside: protective sweeps and safety searches

Once officers are lawfully inside a home to make an arrest, they may need to check for other people who could pose a danger. In Maryland v. Buie (1990), the Supreme Court allowed a protective sweep during an in-home arrest: officers may look in closets and spaces immediately adjoining the place of arrest from which an attack could be launched without any suspicion, and may sweep further only if they have reasonable suspicion that someone posing a danger is hiding there. A sweep is a cursory visual inspection of places a person could be, lasting no longer than needed to dispel the danger and complete the arrest. Evidence seen in plain view during a lawful sweep may be seized; evidence found by opening drawers or small containers where no person could hide may not.

Securing premises while a warrant is obtained

Sometimes officers have grounds for a search warrant but worry that evidence will be destroyed before they can get one. Can they secure the house while they wait? In Segura v. United States (1984), the Supreme Court held that the exclusionary rule did not require suppression of evidence found under a later warrant based on independent information, even though officers had entered and held the apartment for nineteen hours before the warrant issued; and in Illinois v. McArthur (2001), it upheld preventing a man from entering his home unaccompanied for two hours while officers obtained a warrant, because they had probable cause, reasonably feared destruction of evidence, and imposed a limited restriction. Securing the outside and controlling entry is far safer than entering. Detective Sergeant Ali's team kept two officers watching the Birch Lane garage from the street while he drafted his application, which Desjardins calls exactly the right approach.

# How long did securing a premises take while a warrant was obtained? (Port Ardent, one year)
holds = [  # (minutes from securing to warrant signed, entry made before warrant?)
    (95, False), (140, False), (70, False), (210, True), (55, False), (180, False),
    (120, False), (65, False), (300, True), (85, False), (150, False), (110, False),
]
times = sorted(m for m, _ in holds)
n = len(times)
median = (times[n // 2 - 1] + times[n // 2]) / 2 if n % 2 == 0 else times[n // 2]
inside = sum(1 for _, e in holds if e)
print("holds:", n, "median minutes:", median, "longest:", max(times))
print("entered before the warrant:", inside, "of", n)
print("held from outside only:", n - inside)

holds: 12 median minutes: 115.0 longest: 300
entered before the warrant: 2 of 12
held from outside only: 10

Across twelve holds in one year, the median time from securing the premises to a signed warrant was 115 minutes, and the longest was five hours. In ten of twelve cases, officers secured the place from outside, as policy requires. In two, officers went in before the warrant arrived, and both files were flagged for legal review. Desjardins tells the class that the median of under two hours is the strongest argument against entering: in most cases, the warrant arrives soon enough that holding the outside is enough.

Apartments, hotels and shared spaces

Tenants and guests in multi-unit buildings have Fourth Amendment protection in their own units, and hotel guests in their rooms during their stay under Stoner v. California (1964). Courts are divided on common hallways in apartment buildings, often finding that locked common areas carry more protection than open ones. Overnight guests have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their host's home under Minnesota v. Olson (1990), though people present briefly for a business transaction may not, under Minnesota v. Carter (1998). Businesses open to the public may be entered where the public is invited.

Garages, sheds and outbuildings fall somewhere in between. A garage attached to a house is part of the home. A detached garage or shed close to the house is usually within the curtilage and protected almost as strongly. A rented storage garage, like Brandt's on Birch Lane, is a private place the renter controls and in which they have a reasonable expectation of privacy, even though it is not a dwelling. An officer cannot open its door to look inside without a warrant, consent or exigent circumstances.

Residents who are vulnerable or unwell

Many calls to homes involve people who are unwell rather than dangerous: an older person who has not answered the phone for days, a person in a mental health crisis, a child left alone. These calls test the line between helping and intruding. Officers who receive a well-being check should start with the least intrusive steps: knock and call out, look through windows from places visitors normally go, call the person's phone, speak to neighbors and family, and check with the building manager. Often one of these steps resolves the call.

If those steps raise real concern that someone inside needs help, such as a person seen lying on the floor through a window, a strong smell of gas, or a family member describing a recent overdose, the emergency route described in this lesson may apply. If they do not, officers should record what they did, leave a card, and follow up, rather than force entry because it would be reassuring to look. Desjardins tells the class that the officers he most admires on well-being calls are the ones who know when to force a door and when to keep knocking, and who can explain both choices afterward.

Mental health calls deserve particular care. Revised Code 5122.10 allows officers to take a person for assessment in defined circumstances, but it does not by itself authorize entering a home to find them; officers need a warrant, consent or an emergency. Port Ardent's co-response team, which pairs an officer with a mental health nurse on weekday afternoons and evenings, has found that most of these calls can be resolved at the door with patience and a conversation.