The U.S. Supreme Court has paved the way for police to enter homes without a warrant under the pretext of emergency aid.

In a blow to longstanding Fourth Amendment protections inside the home, the Court ruled in Case v. Montana that police need only an “objectively reasonable basis” for believing an occupant is seriously injured or imminently threatened with injury in order to enter a home without a warrant.

Attorneys for The Rutherford Institute warned the Court in an amicus brief that an expansive emergency-aid exception could be easily manipulated to allow unchecked government intrusion into the home. Although the Court declined to require the higher standard of probable cause—insisting that probable cause is “peculiarly related to criminal investigations”—it agreed with the Institute in rejecting the Montana Supreme Court’s broader “community caretaker” justification that would have allowed warrantless entry based merely on reasonable........

© Eurasia Review