Case v. Montana
The Supreme Court granted certiorari in [Case v. Montana]1—a case that has reopened discussion on emergency exceptions to Fourth Amendment rights—on June 2, 2025. The Justices will decide “whether law enforcement may enter a home without a search warrant based on less than probable cause that an emergency is occurring, or whether the emergency-aid exception requires probable cause.”
This case originated in September 2021 when police officers entered William Trevor Case’s home pursuing a call from Case’s ex-girlfriend, J.H., who reported that Case sounded intoxicated, erratic, and threatened suicide. She called after hearing a sound resembling a gunshot, after which Case stopped responding on the line. Forty minutes after arriving at Case’s residence and failing to make contact, officers decided to enter through the unlocked front door, without a warrant, based on two accounts: firstly, visible “empty beer cans, an empty handgun holster, and a notepad they believed contained a suicide note” inside the house, and, secondly, knowledge of Case’s previous suicide threats and alcohol abuse. After the officers entered the home with weapons drawn, it was Sergeant Pasha who ultimately shot Case in the abdomen when he suddenly emerged from a closet with what Pasha thought, and was later confirmed to be, a gun at Case’s waist. Case was promptly arrested and charged with Assault on a Peace Officer.
After a failed attempt to suppress the evidence recovered by the police’s entry, Case was convicted by a jury in Montana state court. He petitioned the Montana Supreme Court, maintaining that the police violated his Fourth Amendment rights, which protect individuals against “unreasonable searches and seizures” within their residence, as the police lacked “probable cause of an emergency” that would have exempted them from needing a warrant to enter. Ultimately, the Montana Supreme Court rejected this argument in a 4-3 split, underlining that probable cause is unnecessary in instances where police are intervening as “community caretaker[s],” as opposed to conducting criminal investigations. That is, the police had entered Case’s home in this caretaking capacity, after having determined that there were “objectively reasonable grounds” for believing that there was an immediate need to protect individuals from “serious harm,” thereby acting in accordance with the Fourth Amendment search warrant exception. This community caretaker exception was first discussed in Cady v. Dombrowski (1973), a murder case in which the Supreme Court held that a police officer’s warrantless search of the impounded car that the respondent was arrested in did not violate the Fourth Amendment, because he was looking for a revolver that the respondent purportedly possessed. Presumably, the weapon could have led to further harm and, hence, removing it fulfilled a caretaking function, protecting others from potential harm. Police officers have since been characterized as community caretakers. The police similarly entered Case’s home with the intention of preventing him from harming himself; it also intuitively follows that the justification for having weapons drawn were self-protective, due to given information that suggested Case’s intention to cause harm.
In response to this argument, Case underlined the Supreme Court’s decision in Caniglia v. Strom (2021), another case involving suicide risk, which deemed the home a location where the “community caretaker” exception did not apply. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of Caniglia, the man who was determined by a police officer to be “imminently dangerous to himself and others” and who, after agreeing to receive a psychiatric evaluation, had two guns in his home seized. The Court ruled that the “seizure of the petitioner’s guns from his home violated his Fourth Amendment right against warrantless searches and seizures,” drawing a contrast between firearm seizure in Cady and remarking that the home offered a higher level of protection than impounded vehicles. The three dissenting opinions on the Montana Supreme Court broadly cited similar precedent.
However, it is noteworthy that Caniglia might not map as neatly onto Case, as the degree of compliance to direction was vastly different; Caniglia consented to going to the hospital while Case had purportedly threatened officers and behaved in a way that suggested that he was a threat to himself. Arguably, then, the officers had much more ground to believe that there was an immediate need to intervene in Case.
The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Case v. Montana on October 15, 2025, and the court’s reactions seemed underpinned by a concern with the application of “probable cause” in the non-criminal context. As Justice Kagan remarked, “the term ‘probable cause’ is not itself self-defining, and most of the way we know what probable cause is is because we have a body of case law that talks about it [...] in an investigatory criminal context,” suggesting that acting in accordance with the caretaker role warrants more flexibility in demonstrating probable cause. Justice Alito and Justice Jackson likewise voiced concerns of how emergency intervention would be more difficult if the standard for entering was more rigorous.
Despite broadly agreeing on the potential risks a heightened standard would impose in life-or-death situations, the Court has yet to conclude whether there can be a better test for applying the emergency-aid exception than the precedent of “objectively reasonable basis” for believing that the occupant of a home might be “seriously injured or threatened with such injury,” as set by Brigham City v. Stuart (2006). The objectively reasonable basis is admittedly flimsy, though, as it asks whether, hypothetically, a reasonable person would believe that there is some danger or threat that requires intervention. Further, as the Court noted, objectively reasonable basis and probable cause apply in slightly different contexts, wherein probable cause has generally been applied in the investigatory context and not in an emergency-aid context. It seems that the Court’s opinion will reject Case’s argument for a probable cause standard, instead opting to maintain the objectively reasonable basis test that is conducive to emergency intervention. Consequently, I imagine that the case will be decided in favor of Montana unanimously.