SCOTUS rules against warrantless seizure of guns while man is in hospital for suicide evaluation BY DEBRA CASSENS WEISS
MAY 17, 2021, 11:01 AM CDT
In a unanimous opinion Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against police who seized a man’s guns without a warrant while he was in the hospital for a suicide evaluation.
Police cannot justify the warrantless search and seizure based on the “community caretaking” exception to the Fourth Amendment, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in his opinion for the high court.
The Supreme Court had recognized the exception in a 1973 case, Cady v. Dombrowski, in which police searched the trunk of a car that had been towed after a crash.
The Supreme Court ruled Monday in a challenge by Edward Caniglia, who retrieved an unloaded gun during an argument with his wife, put it on the table and said, “Why don’t you just shoot me and get me out of my misery.”
Caniglia’s wife ended up spending the night at a motel. When she called her husband the next day, the wife was unable to reach him. She called police in Cranston, Rhode Island, for a wellness check.
Caniglia agreed to go to the hospital but only after police allegedly promised that they wouldn’t confiscate his firearms. Police entered Caniglia’s home and took two guns.
The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Boston had ruled against Caniglia, ruling that the community caretaking exception applies to homes and cars. The Supreme Court disagreed.
The 1st Circuit’s community caretaking rule “goes beyond anything this court has recognized,” Thomas wrote. “What is reasonable for vehicles is different from what is reasonable for homes. Cady acknowledged as much.”
In a concurrence, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said the decision Monday implicates but does not address “red flag” laws that allow police to seize guns pursuant to a court order to prevent harm to oneself or others.
Alito also mentioned another category of cases involving warrantless searches of a home to ascertain whether a resident is in urgent need of medical attention and can’t summon help. Current precedent does not address that kind of situation, he said.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh mentioned similar situations in concurrences. Justice Stephen G. Breyer joined Roberts’ concurrence.
“The court’s decision does not prevent police officers from taking reasonable steps to assist those who are inside a home and in need of aid,” Kavanaugh wrote.
The case is Caniglia v. Strom.
Warrantless is the key here. If they get a warrant, then they can. That is still unconstitutional, and is what red flag laws are for. The idea is that they get a court to issue an illegal warrant to come steal your property.
I'm not enough of an expert on red flag laws, which themselves are of a new vintage, to know how they work, and if they require warrants. I'm sure it varies state to state.
They are being promoted and sponsored by Bloomberg’s Every Town for Gun Safety foundation, so they don’t vary much from state to state.
They are unconstitutional in that they remove property and the ability to exercise one’s rights without trial. All it takes is hearsay and a nodding judge.
If we can get them into the SCOTUS before the fanatics pack the court, they will get thrown out.
It's been a cold civil war for a long time.
In a cold civil war, laws, such as they are, are unequally applied and used as weapons.
Oh really? Then why did CA and NJ just undo their justifiable cause requirement for getting a concealed carry license immediately following the NY case saying they are unconstitutional? Depends on the issue, but we are not at a "John Marshall made his decision, now let him enforce it" moment quite yet.
The law, such as it is, provides legitimacy if nothing else. You're speaking glowie speak now.
Next time the cop pulls you over for speeding, since you can go however fast you want since laws are meaningless since we are in a civil war, go ahead and tell him that laws are meaningless and we are in a civil war. This is presuming, of course, that you actually pull over. Since we are in a civil war and all, the cop has no legitimate ability to use force to compel your compliance after all.
See what happens.
Sure. Sure. This sheep, baaah, realizes that every law, no matter how small, is supported by an institutional infrastructure that churns onward, gears ever grinding. You think you're going to be a monkey wrench thrown in those gears? You're not. It takes a storming of the Bastille moment, which is what you're advocating for here, whether you realize or not, you fucking glowie.
You're the one with the blue balls here, waiting for some sort of approval or something. I said you're welcome to believe what you want. Take a chill pill man.
And are you so dense, that you don't understand the common phase "put your glasses on" means that you're not seeing something, but that it need not be taken literally. Sheesh.
No man knows the day or the hour. But you, yourself, will die soon enough, like everything that has ever lived before you died. Don't forget that.
Yep, so keep believing what you want, you're welcome to it.
Your understanding of eschatology is woefully ignorant. shrug
I don't believe what you believe and you're welcome to it. Why does that bother you so much?
So Republicans can support these laws in the knowledge that they will be ruled unconstitutional. They'll be like, "Psych!"
Sometimes that happens. Politicians have passed anti-flag burning laws knowing the courts will strike them down on free speech grounds. Which they did. In this case, I think they want to have their cake and eat it too.