Teleforum

In Caniglia v. Strom, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether the community-caretaking exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement extends to the home. The general rule under the Fourth Amendment is that before police perform a search or seizure they must obtain a warrant. The community-caretaking exception, by contrast, allows police to search and seize without a warrant when engaged in community-caretaking activities that are entirely unrelated to the enforcement of criminal statutes.The Supreme Court first created the community-caretaking exception in a case called Cady v. Dombrowski, which involved a crashed car that police towed to a private garage and then searched without first obtaining a warrant. The Court’s decision upholding the officers’ actions noted the differences between homes and vehicles, including that car accidents on public thoroughfares are a “nuisance” requiring officers’ immediate attention.The First Circuit in Caniglia extended the c