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| PAYTON V. NEW YORK, 445 U. S. 573 (1980) |
| Appellants Theodore Payton, Obie Riddick Appellee State of New York Appellants' Claim: That a New York statute authorizing police to enter a home without a warrant to make an arrest violates the Fourth Amendment. Chief Lawyer for Appellants William E. Hellerstein Chief Lawyer for Appellee Peter L. Zimroth Justices for the Court Harry A. Blackmun, William J. Brennan, Jr., Thurgood Marshall, Lewis F. Powell, Jr., John Paul Stevens (writing for the Court), Potter Stewart Justices Dissenting Warren E. Burger, William H. Rehnquist, Byron R. White Place Washington, D.C. Date of Decision 15 April 1980 Decision That the Fourth Amendment prohibits police from making a warrantless entry into a person's home in order to make a routine arrest, and thus New York's statute was unconstitutional. Significance The Court's ruling reiterated the strong privacy protection people enjoy in their homes, and reaffirmed that the police may not enter a person's home without consent except where they obtain a warrant, or in other very narrow circumstances. The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution provides that the "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause . . . " The Fourth Amendment is based, in large part, on English common law. Thus, as early as 1886, in the case of Boyd v. United States, the Supreme Court noted that the Fourth Amendment protects people against "all invasions on the part of the government and its employees of the sanctity of a man's home and the privacies of life." In Payton, the strengths and limits of this theory were put to the test before the Supreme Court. The Payton case involved two separate criminal prosecutions in the state of New York. In the first case, Theodore Payton was suspected of murder by New York City detectives. After investigating Payton for two days, the police decided that they had probable cause to believe that Payton had committed the murders, and went to his apartment to arrest him. The police entered the apartment based on a New York state statute which permitted officers to enter a home without a search or arrest warrant to arrest a person if they had probable cause to believe that the person committed a felony. Although Payton was not at home, the police discovered a bullet shell casing, which was used against Payton in his trial. In the second case, Obie Riddick was suspected of two armed robberies. The police, acting pursuant to the New York statute, arrested Riddick in his home without obtaining a warrant. During the arrest, the police discovered narcotics and narcotics paraphernalia. Riddick was tried and convicted on narcotics charges. Both Payton and Riddick moved to suppress the evidence against them discovered by the police, arguing that the police violated their Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable seizures by entering their homes without a warrant. The state trial courts denied their motions, and both were convicted. They each appealed their convictions to the New York Court of Appeals which, in a single opinion, agreed with the trial courts that the Fourth Amendment does not require a police officer to obtain a warrant before entering a home to arrest a person for committing a felony. Warrant Required for Entry of a Home Payton and Riddick asked for the New York Court of Appeals decision to be reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court. Noting that both state and federal courts have disagreed over whether the Fourth Amendment prohibits a warrantless arrest in a person's home, the Supreme Court decided to hear the case. In the 1976 case United States v. Watson, the Court held that a police officer need not obtain an arrest warrant before arresting a person suspected of a felony in a public place. However, the Court refused to extend the rule of Watson to arrests occurring within the home. In an opinion written by Justice John Paul Stevens, the Court concluded that, absent special or "exigent" circumstances, the Fourth Amendment prohibits police officers from entering a person's home to make an arrest without first obtaining an arrest warrant. The Court began by noting that the Fourth Amendment was designed to protect the privacy of individuals in various settings, and that in no setting "is the zone of privacy more clearly defined than when bounded by the unambiguous physical dimensions of an individual's home." The Court then rejected New York's argument that, because warrantless arrests in the home were allowed in common law England, the founders did not intend the Fourth Amendment to prohibit such arrests. Examining old English cases and the works of English legal commentators, the Court concluded that there was no general common law rule regarding whether a police officer needed to obtain a warrant before entering a home to make an arrest at the time the Fourth Amendment was adopted. The Court also rejected New York's argument that requiring a warrant before entering a home to make an arrest would have practical consequences for law enforcement. The Court noted that several states had already required a warrant, and there was no evidence that law enforcement was hampered in making arrests in any of these states. Thus, the Court concluded that "neither history nor this Nation's experience requires us to disregard the overriding respect for the sanctity of the home that has been embedded in our traditions since the origins of the Republic," and held that the Fourth Amendment requires an officer to obtain an arrest warrant before entering a person's home to make an arrest, in the absence of exigent circumstances. Impact A few years prior to the Payton decision, the Supreme Court held in United States v. Watson that the police may arrest a felony suspect in a public place without obtaining an arrest warrant. The Court's decision in Payton made clear that this rule does not extend to arrests which occur in the home, due to the Fourth Amendment's particular protection of the home, where a person's privacy interest is nearly absolute. Thus it is clear after Payton that in the absence of certain emergency, or "exigent," circumstances such as where there is a possibility that the suspect will escape, destroy evidence, or harm the police or others, the police must obtain a warrant from a judge before entering a person's home to make a felony arrest. Further, the holding of Payton has been extended to prohibit warrantless entry into a home to arrest a guest in the home. CLICK HERE FOR SOURCE AND FULL TEXT OF CASE |
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