Can you drink and drive in your house?
Police may enter Californians’ homes without warrants to arrest those suspected of driving under the influence, the California Supreme Court ruled Thursday in a case testing the scope of the Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.
The 6-1 decision follows similar rulings in about a dozen other states. A dissenting justice said the majority handed authorities a “free pass” to unlawfully enter private homes and arrest people without warrants.
I’m not sure the details of the case (yet) but it seems a bit troubling to me. Oh, that bastardized fourth amendment.
Update: missed this earlier due to ads:
The case concerned the 2003 Santa Barbara arrest of Daniel Thompson, whom a neighbor suspected was driving drunk and notified authorities. They found a parked car matching the description the neighbor provided and went to the front door of the adjoining residence during a summer evening.
The door was open and a woman said the car’s driver was asleep. Moments later, Thompson walked by the officers and they entered the house and arrested him. The neighbor confirmed it was the person she suspected of driving intoxicated and throwing an empty vodka bottle out the car door.
Thompson’s blood-alcohol level was 0.21, almost three times the legal limit for driving. He was convicted and handed a three-year suspended sentence. He appealed.
Yeah, that’s troubling.
June 2nd, 2006 at 11:57 am
That’s just nuts.
June 2nd, 2006 at 12:53 pm
I’d have to see more details, but I’m not sure this is as big a deal as it looks like on the surface. “Probable Cause” already exists.
Personally, I do think this is heavy-handed, but I’m not sure it’s an egregious constitutional foul.
June 2nd, 2006 at 1:07 pm
Yeah, I need more details. If they chased a drunk driver into his home, no problem.
June 2nd, 2006 at 1:54 pm
I think someone narc’ed on him.
June 2nd, 2006 at 1:57 pm
By next year in CA – if you are drunk in your house AND there are car keys in your house they you are busted because of the probable cause that at any second you might have just grabbed those keys and went for a drive!
June 2nd, 2006 at 7:55 pm
It has been about 100 years since I took Con Law and Criminal Procedure in law school, but I remember reading cases about the hot pursuit doctrine and how “hot” the pursuit had to be.
Interestingly, there was no pursuit here, just a neighbor who was probably justifiably angry that her neighbor was driving drunk.
I would be interested in knowing the law on this issue, because it doesn’t seem that a neighbor’s tip should constitute hot pursuit or abrogate the 4th Amendment.
Maybe a criminal defense lawyer can educate us on this.
The neighbor should have just kicked his ass. What’s he going to do – call the cops?
June 2nd, 2006 at 9:44 pm
Yeah, that’s bad.
Go to jail for a crime the cops don’t see, don’t have proof of, and had to invade the perps home for.
I hate drunk driving, but I didn’t see they had proof he was.
June 3rd, 2006 at 9:10 am
Hot pursuit is supposed to break off if sight of the pursued is lost.
I can only tell you that if that were done at my house, they would eventually get to try me on much more serious charges. However, it would have to be in front of new people.
June 3rd, 2006 at 12:09 pm
This is a fine example of a bad case making bad law. You’ve got a not-at-all-marginal DUI (at 0.21) and throwing vodka bottles. I think it’s a terrible result, but once in a while you get real jackholes who run their cases to Courts supreme, the courts don’t want to let the guy off, and we get this stuff.
See also, the jackhole who decided to fight his ticket in Montana, when the speed limit was “Reasonable and Prudent”, for the law being unconstitutionally vague. Sure, he was right, but it sure took the coolness of driving in Big Sky Country.
June 4th, 2006 at 3:27 pm
Where was his defense attorney? How many shots / drinks did he have after he got home? This is rediculous. If any of my officers had made this arrest on only the facts shown, they probably would have been back in training for remediation.
June 5th, 2006 at 2:11 pm
RTFA, people. Neighbor claims to have seen him driving around and throwing vodka bottles. The police find him at home and force thier way into the house at that point.
I have serious, serious doubts about this is if the only evidence that he was driving was the neighbor’s say so. I find it entirely plausable that a neighbor could get pissed off abouot him being drunk and loud and make this story up. After all, the police won’t arrest you for being drunk at loud at home, which is perfectly legal.