The panicked call to the police came from William Trevor Case’s ex-girlfriend. He had a loaded handgun, she said, and had threatened to kill himself previously.
Mr. Case, an Army veteran, was well known to law enforcement officers who went to check on him at his home near Butte, Mont. Mr. Case had “tried this suicide by cop” stuff before, one of the officers said, using profanity, according to a body-cam recording from the fall of 2021.
The officers from the Anaconda-Deer Lodge County Police Department eventually entered Mr. Case’s home with their guns drawn, yelling to announce their presence. They did not have a warrant.
When Mr. Case suddenly emerged from a closet, his arm outstretched with what appeared to be a gun, an officer shot him in the abdomen. The veteran, who survived, was convicted of assaulting the officer.
He appealed that conviction, arguing that a gun and other evidence from his home should not have been presented at trial because the officers had entered Mr. Case’s home without a warrant.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday will consider Mr. Case’s appeal, weighing when the police can enter a home without a warrant based on reports that someone inside may need emergency help. The outcome has implications for police tactics and the expectation of privacy in one’s home. Mr. Case’s position has the backing of civil liberties groups. The Trump administration is supporting the state.
The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution prohibits unreasonable searches and provides protections for a person’s home by generally prohibiting law enforcement from entering without a warrant. The Supreme Court has carved out several exceptions, including for when police believe an occupant is seriously injured or facing an imminent threat of injury.
In the Montana case, the question facing the justices is what level of certainty police must have that an emergency is underway before entering a home without a warrant. Mr. Case’s lawyers say it should be a high bar of “probable cause” — a standard they say would provide “a level of certainty that avoids needless and dangerous confrontations, and enables police and emergency medical workers to provide aid when occupants urgently need it.”
Montana’s attorney general, Austin Knudsen, says a more flexible standard of “objectively reasonable belief” should apply, to ensure law enforcement can help citizens in an emergency. Otherwise, the state’s lawyers argued in a court filing, the police would be forced to “ignore calls for help and get blamed for deaths, or to do what they’ve always done but now face civil and criminal risks if courts find such entries to be impermissible.”
The officers who arrived at Mr. Case’s house just after 9 p.m. in September 2021 were familiar with his history of alcohol abuse and mental health issues.
The ex-girlfriend had told police that Mr. Case had a loaded gun and had threatened to harm police if she tried to send officers to his home. Before he hung up on her, the ex-girlfriend said she heard a pop and then silence. She believed Mr. Case had “pulled the trigger,” according to court filings.
The offices knocked on Mr. Case’s door, yelled and shined flashlights through the windows. They could see empty beer cans, an empty handgun holster and a notepad with handwriting, which the officers thought was a possible suicide note, court records show. After about 40 minutes, they entered through the unlocked front door.
As one of the officers inspected an upstairs bedroom, he saw a closet curtain open as Mr. Case lunged forward, his arm outstretched with “what appeared to be a black object.” The officer fired one shot, striking Mr. Case in the abdomen. A handgun was found in a laundry basket nearby.
Police used evidence from the confrontation to prosecute Mr. Case for assaulting a police officer. Before trial, the judge refused a request from Mr. Case to exclude evidence found in the home.
Mr. Case appealed, but the Montana Supreme Court sided 4 to 3 with the officers, saying that based on the facts, an experienced officer would “suspect that a citizen was in need of help.”
“While an individual is entitled to a right to privacy in their home, a warrantless entry is permissible if it is reasonable given the facts and circumstances,” the majority said.
The dissenting judges said that for a warrantless search to be reasonable, the higher bar of probable cause must apply. In this instance, they added, there was no probable cause to believe Mr. Case was in imminent danger or in need of immediate assistance that would have justified the warrantless entry into the home.
In filings to the Supreme Court, both sides have focused on a 2021 decision in which the justices distinguished between the heightened protections individuals are afforded in their homes, as opposed to motorists on public highways.
In a concurring opinion in that case, Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh said the court’s decision does not prevent police officers from taking reasonable steps to assist those who are inside a home and in need of aid.
The Trump administration, which will participate in the argument, urged the justices not to apply the higher standard to law enforcement, saying it would make it more difficult for police officers and emergency medical workers to save lives.
“The overwhelming majority of people who actually suffer life-threatening emergencies inside the home and need immediate public assistance would not desire such a standard,” lawyers for the administration told the justices. “This court should not adopt it.”
In support of Mr. Case, the libertarian Cato Institute took the opposite view. Allowing warrantless entries based on an officer’s reasonable suspicion would violate Fourth Amendment protections and “needlessly threaten the safety of citizens and law enforcement.”
Ann Marimow covers the Supreme Court for The Times from Washington.
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