Can the police enter someone’s home without a warrant? The Supreme Court is set to decide in its 2025-26 term.
The justices heard oral arguments Wednesday in the case stemming from a suicidal Montana man and police entering his home. In Case v. Montana, William Case argues that police violated the Fourth Amendment by wrongfully entering his home when his former girlfriend called concerned he’d commit suicide.
The Fourth Amendment typically requires police to obtain a warrant before entering a home, but some exceptions have been made for emergency purposes. The case before the justices will examine how certain the officers must be that there is an emergency before entering.
The case
In Case’s situation, police waited for 40 minutes after arriving at his Anaconda, Montana, home in 2021. They knocked and shouted into an open window and noticed beer cans, a notepad believed to be a suicide note and an empty handgun holster.
Case had told the girlfriend that if she sent police to his home, he would harm them. The 2021 incident followed another where police were called to calm Case from committing suicide at the school he worked at. Police believed that Case, an Army veteran, was intentionally trying to get officers to shoot him, known as police-assisted suicide or suicide by cop.
Police entered after 40 minutes of deliberation and encountered Case in an upstairs bedroom closet. An officer saw a dark object believed to be a gun near his waist and shot him in the abdomen. A handgun was later found near where Case fell down. Case was charged with assault on a police officer, a felony in Montana, for what the officer believed to be a gun pointed at him.
Case is seeking to have the felony expunged because he said officers shouldn’t have entered the house without the warrant. The state argues that police acted lawfully in accordance to an emergency aid exception when performing a welfare check on the man. Case’s lawyers, however, argue there was no emergency and instead was speculation based on the girlfriend’s call.
The lower courts denied Case’s request to have the evidence thrown out and the Montana Supreme Court upheld the ruling and said police can enter homes without a warrant as long as it’s a reasonable entry given the circumstances.
Case is asking the justices to hold that there was no probable cause for entry. The state, however, says it would overturn a precedent and change the Fourth Amendment. They argue that the Montana Supreme Court ruling should remain in place since the state justices determined the officers’ actions to be covered by the Fourth Amendment’s exception for emergency situations.
That precedent was carved out in the 2006 ruling Brigham City v. Stuart. The Supreme Court ruled police can enter a home without a warrant if they have a reasonable belief that someone needs immediate aid. It stemmed from a Brigham City, Utah, noise complaint for a house party where officers entered a home after witnessing a fight.
Oral arguments
Justices asked questions during oral arguments on Wednesday. It appeared they had several sticking points with the precedent and what police should do in these situations.
Under the Fourth Amendment, individuals’ homes are a private space. The justices questioned how much risk or suspicion police officers should have before entering someone’s home without a warrant.
Justice Neil Gorsuch pressed Case’s attorney, Fred Rowley, if it was a matter of a “labeling exercise” and why the police officers shouldn’t be considered the same as private citizens who were assisting an individual in crisis.
The justices also examined if the probable cause standard was too high and if police have a hard time proving someone is in need and could arrive too late to save someone’s life.
Justice Samuel Alito questioned Rowley, asking what more the officers could have waited for, “a gunshot?” On the other hand, liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor expressed concern that if the standard for entry was lower and relied on vague information about the individual, it would result in police more easily being able to enter homes without warrants.
They often brought up whether it was really necessary for them to expand upon the language already outlined in the Brigham City case, and if so, how broad or narrow that language would be.
The justices hammered in on the language of the case, noting that in the Brigham City case the court used a term “objectively reasonable belief” for an officer to enter the home. In Case’s situation, the justices questioned if that is equivalent to officers having probable cause or if it’s a lower threshold.
Rowley argued that in the Brigham City situation, the objectively reasonable belief was able to be proven since officers in Utah saw a fight break out inside the house. And in Case’s situation, officers only saw beer cans, a notebook and empty gun holster and nothing else.
The language decided upon in the justices’ decision could have large impacts on how hard it is for police to justify entering someone’s home without a warrant.
Several justices also expressed concern about what implications the ruling would have across the country. Justice Elena Kagan posed hypothetical questions about what police across the country would have to do in certain situations and how changing the legal basis could have broad impacts. Similarly, Justice Sotomayor said granting police more authority for entry could disproportionately impact marginalized groups.
The justices did not provide much clarity about where they stood on the issue. However, with the court’s conservative majority, it appears that they may side with the state in upholding the officer’s actions under Brigham City’s objectively reasonable belief and not create a new probable cause requirement for emergency entry into someone’s home.
A ruling is expected by the end of June 2026.