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It’s summertime, which means the Supreme Court is issuing opinions! Many of the cases involve Criminal Law. We’ll highlight a couple here:
Torres v. Madrid (2021): In an important opinion, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kavanaugh joined the liberals in holding that police can unconstitutionally seize a person even if the person subsequently flees. While attempting to execute an arrest warrant for another person, officers approached Roxanne Torres in her parked car. When confronted, Torres began to drive away and, officers, fearing for their safety, fired their guns into the car. Torres was shot twice in the back, but able to drive away.
The court ruled that the officers seized Torres when they fired into her car. Specifically, Chief Justice Roberts cited California v. Hodari D., reiterating “[t]he word ‘seizure’ readily bears the meaning of a laying on of hands or application of physical force to restrain movement, even when it is ultimately unsuccessful.” However, the court expands prior precedent by holding that “the application of physical force to the body of a person with intent to restrain is a seizure even if the person does not submit and is not subdued.” In other words, the court allows that any touching can result in a seizure if “the objective intent to restrain.”
Caniglia v. Strom (2021): SCOTUS unanimously ruled that a warrantless taking of firearms justified by the police “community caretaking function” violated the Fourth Amendment. A unanimous opinion by Justice Thomas reaffirmed that “searches of vehicles and homes are constitutionally different” and that a “recognition of the existence of ‘community caretaking tasks?’… is not an open-ended license to perform them anywhere.”
However, more interesting is Justice Kavanaugh’s concurring opinion which argues to expand the exigency exception to allow warrantless entries into homes where “police officers have an objectively reasonable basis to believe that there is a current, ongoing crisis for which it is reasonable to act now.” Given the Court’s current make up, it’s not hard to imagine Justice Kavanaugh’s position becoming precedent sooner than later.•
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