By Lawrence Hurley
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to expand police powers, throwing out a lower court ruling that had allowed a California highway patrol officer to enter the home of a motorist suspected of a minor crime without a warrant.
The case involved a man who was followed by police after honking his horn while listening to music, and then was convicted of driving under the influence after an officer entered his garage without a warrant and performed a sobriety test.
The court, in a 9-0 decision authored by Justice Elena Kagan, sent the case back to the California Court of Appeals. The justices rejected the lower court’s finding that warrants are not required in any situation in which police are in pursuit, even if the suspected crime is minor.
“The flight of a suspected misdemeanant does not always justify a warrantless entry into a home,” Kagan wrote.
The Supreme Court’s decision was a victory for the driver, Arthur Lange, who was confronted inside his garage by officer Aaron Weikert in 2016. The ruling did not definitively resolve whether the sobriety test evidence can be used against Lange, who argued that it was obtained in violation of the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches and seizures.
(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham)
