Law: House Arrests

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The court requires warrants

Until last week, police in at least 24 states could arrest a felony suspect in his home without a warrant. No longer. In a 6-3 decision on two New York cases, the Supreme Court ruled that lawmen everywhere need warrants for such arrests, except possibly in "exigent circumstances," like hot pursuit of a criminal. Otherwise, evidence seized at the time cannot be used by the prosecution.

In the majority opinion Justice John Paul Stevens noted that Fourth Amendment safeguards against unreasonable searches and seizures specifically mention "the right of the people to be secure in their ... houses." The Constitution, he wrote, has "drawn a firm line at the entrance to the house." Police have long been required to have warrants to make most nonconsensual searches; this, said the majority, should also apply to arrests. The fact that the court as a whole rejected Justice Byron White's dissenting opinion that the decision would only help felons avoid capture may signal a significant change: in the early and mid-1970s the Justices usually took a hard line in Fourth Amendment decisions, chipping away at the liberal precedents established by the Warren Court. ∎