Criminal Law Newsletter
| Publication year | 1980 |
| Pages | 1885 |
1980, September, Pg. 1885. Criminal Law Newsletter
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On April 15, 1980, the United States Supreme Court addressed the question of warrantless arrests in homes in Payton v. New York,(fn1) and held such arrests unconstitutional. In doing so, the Court further extended Fourth Amendment protection to arrests. Most of the Fourth Amendment questions which the Court had addressed prior to Payton related to searches and seizures of evidence, and the protection provided in those situations was more clearly defined than in arrest situations.
With Payton, the long-standing, widespread practice in many jurisdictions of allowing warrantless arrests in homes will be modified, and it would seem logical to assume that further litigation will clarify other circumstances in which an arrest warrant may also be required.
The Supreme Court addressed the question of the constitutionality of New York statutes authorizing police to enter a home or dwelling without a warrant and with force, if necessary, to make a routine felony arrest.(fn2)
In both People v. Payton(fn3) and People v. Riddick,(fn4) the police were acting with probable cause, but without warrants, when they went to the defendants' homes to make routine felony arrests. The New York trial judge in each case refused to suppress evidence seized after entry into the homes.
The New York Court of Appeals affirmed the convictions in a single opinion, holding that the seizures were proper since the police were authorized by state statute to make warrantless arrests in a home and to use force in gaining entry, if necessary, to effect the arrest.(fn5)
Although numerous U.S. Supreme Court opinions concerning Fourth Amendment problems have alluded to the question of the constitutionality of warrantless home arrests,(fn6) and although the Court ruled on warrantless arrests in public places,(fn7) the question has repeatedly been reserved by the Court for resolution until now. Consistent with its custom of restricting its holding to a narrowly defined question, the Court's opinion in Payton leaves other related questions unanswered.
The questions not addressed by the Court included: (1) whether a warrantless arrest could be made under exigent circumstances; (2) the authority of the police, without either a search or arrest warrant, to enter a third party's home to arrest a suspect; (3) the requirements for an arrest warrant which
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would authorize entry into the home; and (4) the nature of the interests to be protected.
Prior judicial decisions construing the first clause of the Fourth Amendment are numerous, but have been primarily applicable to invasions for the purposes of searches and seizures of evidence, not people.
The Court has stated that a warrantless arrest of a person is a seizure which is...
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