Caniglia- A Win For the Fourth Amendment

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Over the past couple of years, it seems as if the Fourth Amendment has been under attack. The headlines featuring stories of no-knock raids and other invasive search tactics used by the police. Despite the specter of an expansive police state looming above his, there is a silver lining. There have been some minor victories. One shining example was the Supreme Court ruling inCarpenter V. United States. In which, the high court ruled that conducting warrantless seizures of phone records to be unconstitutional. Another recent example of the court ruling in favor of the Fourth was Caniglia V. Strom.

In Caniglia, the court rejects the First Circuit’s expansive interpretation of the Community Care Taking Doctrine.  Caniglia had been quarreling with his wife pulled out a pistol and asked her to put him “out of his misery”. Mrs. Caniglia decided to spend the night in a hotel to allow her husband to calm down. After not hearing from Edward, she called Cranston police to conduct a welfare check on him. Responding officers reported that Mr. Caniglia seems to be stable. He consented to be evaluated at a psychiatric hospital providing police did not confiscate his firearms. Police later came by the home to remove the guns. Officers informed Mrs. Caniglia that Edward had consented to his firearms being seized. After several failed attempts to recover his guns, Caniglia sued under Section 1983. The First Circuit ruled that the actions of the officers were permissible under the Community Care Taking Doctrine. This decision would subsequently be overruled by the Supreme Court.

Community Care Taking Doctrine

Before reviewing the SCOTUS decision there is still one question that remains. What is the Community Care Taking Doctrine? It is the legal doctrine that enables warrantless searches and entry for noncriminal policing functions. Actions that promote the general interest of the community. This legal construct was devised in the early 1970s because of the Cady V. Dombrowski decision. The petitioner, a Chicago police officer, had been involved in a drunk driving accident. His service revolver had been left in the vehicle. The court viewed this action on the part of the local police department to be legitimate. Recovering the weapon would protect the public from it “… falling into the wrong hands”. Epitomizing the logic of the doctrine in one single case.

SCOTUS Decision

Justice Thomas in his written opinion sums up the major flaws of extending the Community Care Taking exception to Caniglia. A case that has the rare distinction of being a unanimous court decision.  In a nutshell, his concerns included the lack of justification in previous case law and the constitutional distinction between the home and vehicles. Making the claims that the police acted within the scope of the doctrine questionable.

Lack of Legal Justification

Justice Thomas direct states in his opinion that the First Circuit’s interpretation “… goes beyond anything this Court has recognized.”. The presumption being that generally, home searches require a warrant. By Thomas’s assessment, the lower court applied this doctrine merely because the nature of the search was noncriminal. The conditions of a search being permissible under the doctrine must be for purposes outside of a criminal investigation. The logic in Cady was specific to impounded vehicles already in police custody. It is reasonable to permit officers to assist motorists in trouble on the roadways. However, this privilege allotted to facilitate officers in completing their civic duties should not be viewed as an “… open-ended license..”.

Thomas holding the Care Taking Function to the parameters of Cady establishes effective limits on the doctrine. Favoring the First Circuit’s decision would only further erode the Fourth Amendment. Why?  Since our legal system is influenced by English Common Law, past case precedence directs future court decisions. If there was a case history justifying an expansive interpretation of the doctrine, the logic would have to be continued in subsequent cases. Only further eroding our Constitutionally held right to privacy and baseless searches.

The Constitutional Difference between the Cars and Homes

From the perspective of the Fourth Amendment, there is a difference between the right of privacy in the home and one’s vehicle. This was a point held by Justice Thomas. He expresses in his opinion that the core of the Fourth Amendment was that a person could retreat to their home free of any undue inference from the government; Citing Florida v. Jardine. A major caveat being the instance of exigent circumstances.  A point of argument the First Circuit failed to establish, considering if Mr. Caniglia was a threat himself, action would be necessary immediately. Not hours after the fact. Leading Justice Thomas to state  “…First Circuit… goes beyond anything this Court has recognized..”. Because the officers lack both a warrant and consent of the owner and effectively violated the sanctity of his home.

The Community Care Taking Doctrine has traditionally been applied to vehicles. In the corpus of case law, there has always been a different expectation of privacy in the home. Carroll V. United States, one of the first SCOTUS cases to address automobile searches found that the mobile nature of cars made warrantless searches crucial. However, a house is a stationary private property. Outside of the scope of extenuating circumstances or a warrant in hand, police entering the home is a civil rights violation. The officers who seized Mr. Caniglia’s guns were out-of-line.

Your Car is Not Your Castle- Part I

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The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution is central to our modern conception of property rights. Outside of contract law, few areas other than our right to privacy substantially address such civil libertarian concerns. The Fourth Amendment like so many other Constitution “rights” are not absolute and are subject to various exceptions and stipulations. Much how our right to free speech has limitations, the same can be said about our right to privacy. Even instances of warrantless searches of property and persons. Conceptually a warrantless search and seizure of property are condoned under a specific legal context. Effectively divorcing case law from the normative justifications for the drafting of the Fourth Amendment. The basis for the Fourth Amendment has its origins in the philosophical precepts of English Common Law. Immortalized in the words of the English jurist Sir Edward Coke “…That the house of everyone is to him as his Castle and Fortress..” implying that the home is a man’s ultimate refuge from public life. It is where he stores his personal effects and experiences the most intimate moments of his life. Arguably making securing one’s home the focal point of the property rights protected under the Fourth Amendment.

The Fourth Amendment concisely details the intended scope of security bestowed to American citizens under its protections.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. (Amendment IV, U.S. Constitution).

In a literal reading of the amendment, it is quite evident that its scope was enough for covering the property rights of citizens of the 18^th century. With the advent of new technology, this list of protected areas of the property is wholly incomplete. Since the era of the founding, the various types of property ownership have greatly expanded to include automobiles, various forms of modern intellectual property rights, and even digitally stored information. This is likely why some jurists advocate for the prospect of a “..living Constitution..” that possesses the pliability to adapt to modern times. Despite the potential danger of illiberal innovations that may be utilized to invalidate crucial Constitutional rights. E.g.) An amendment that repeals the Second Amendment due to an increase in gun violence. Due to the stringent requirements to ratify such Amendments, the 4^th Amendment has evolved primarily from case law. Primarily the rulings in Supreme Court cases, setting the tone for the modern interpretation of our right to privacy.

In certain contexts, our expectation of privacy varies. For instance, we do not have the same expectation of privacy walking down the street as we do in our bedroom. The verbatim text of the Fourth Amendment does explicitly guard Americans against warrantless searches of their home and person but leaves us in a murky situation when it comes to modern forms of ownership. Never mind cloud computing and other variants of modern data storage, but even automobiles are left out of the equation. This concern becomes particularly significant in the event of a traffic stop. However, factors relating to probable cause and the plain view doctrine need to be considered in justifying a warrantless search of a vehicle, there is another variable at play. Simply, we do not have the same expectation of privacy in our car that we do in our home. To many people, this may sound somewhat absurd and normatively there are some grounds for arguing against this point. However, from the stance of positive law, these assumptions hold.

The origin of the modern limits of the Fourth Amendment regarding vehicle searches dates back to Carroll V. United States (1925). In September 1921, Carroll met with an undercover agent to sell illegal whiskey. After Carroll left the location to obtain the whiskey his “potential” client had left. Then in early October Carroll’s vehicle was involved in a chase with a patrolling police car. Carroll was able to escape arrest. Then on December 15^th of the same year, Carroll was pursued and stopped by police. During the traffic stop, the officers discovered 68 bottles of illicit whiskey tucked behind the upholstery of the car. The court held that the agents that apprehended Carroll had justifiable probable cause to search his vehicle. Since previous encounters with the suspect indicated a high likelihood that he owned alcoholic beverages.

It is easy to find such conclusions troubling. After all, we do own our cars. Shouldn’t searches of automobiles require a warrant barring exigent circumstances or the consent of the owner? Carroll happened to be the defining case that did indeed confirm that a man’s car is not his castle! It is easy to assume that the same rights that apply to a home could easily be extrapolated to a vehicle. Much like a home, a car can act as a vessel for holding personal effects. In some cases, for individuals that are homeless, a car is their house. Carroll singlehandedly defines the criteria under which an automobile differs from a stationary house regarding the expectation of privacy. The court ruled that the authorities having the suspicion that a car contains contraband is in itself justifiable for a warrantless search. Why? Since cars are mobile, they can easily leave the jurisdiction well before a warrant can be issued. This decision on the part of the court may seem overarching, however, it was not without limits. The court ruled that warrantless searches of parked automobiles would be considered unreasonable. That the search must be “…contemporaneous with the stop…” making it improper to move the vehicle offsite to search at the police officer’s “convenience ”. Subsequent cases even decades after the Carroll decision would further erode the notion that there is an expectation of privacy in one’s car. Noting that the very nature of a car being a conveyance strips away much of privacy privileged to our homes. Later cases even detailing that “…It travels public thoroughfares where both its occupants and its contents are in plain view…”.