SCOTUSblog by Andrew Hamm 9/2/2020
This week we highlight cert petitions that ask the Supreme Court to decide whether police, without a warrant, may enter a home and remove weapons under a “community caretaking†exception and whether Congress authorized the Trump administration’s spending on the U.S.-Mexico border wall. In Caniglia v. Strom, officers questioned Edward Caniglia at his home after his wife expressed concern that he might be suicidal. They took him to a hospital and then entered the home and removed two handguns. The officers’ justification for the entry and seizures was the “community caretaking†exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement. The Supreme Court’s first case recognizing that exception, Cady v. Dombrowski, involved officers searching the trunk of a car towed after an accident. Since then the federal courts of appeals have divided on whether the exception applies to the home or only to motor vehicles. Caniglia filed a cert petition, asking the Supreme Court to resolve this split and hold that the exception cannot justify warrantless intrusions inside a home.
Trump v. Sierra Club is a challenge to President Donald Trump’s border wall. As SCOTUSblog previously reported, the Supreme Court in July declined to lift a stay that has allowed the federal government to continue to spend funds on construction of the wall while the legal challenge continues. Much of the funding for the wall comes from money that the Pentagon reallocated from other sources. The opponents of the wall argue that the administration lacks the power to spend more than Congress already allocated for border security. After the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit agreed with the challengers, the federal government in August filed a cert petition, asking the Supreme Court to rule directly on the issue.
More:
https://www.scotusblog.com/2020/09/petitions-of-the-week-warrantless-home-searches-border-wall-funding-and-more/#more-295816
