By Paul Engel
December 1, 2025
- Your home is your castle.
- Can police enter your home without a warrant?
- Under what criteria do police need to enter your home?
In general, the police need a warrant to enter your home without your permission, however there are exceptions to the warrant requirements. The Fourth Amendment protects you from unreasonable searches, not warrantless searches. The case Case v. Montana is about what makes police entry into a private home reasonable.
Case v. Montana
The Fourth Amendment is supposed to protect you against unreasonable searches and seizures. While most people are aware of the warrant requirements, we don’t talk a lot about what else makes a search reasonable. Enter the case of Case v. Montana.
This petition arises from the warrantless entry into, and search of, Case’s home by the Anaconda-Deer Lodge County Police Department on September 27, 2021. During the search, the police seized evidence used to prosecute Case for a felony (assault on a police officer). Case moved to exclude the evidence under the Fourth Amendment and Montana’s parallel constitutional protections. After Case was convicted, he appealed to the Montana Supreme Court, which affirmed in a divided opinion.
Case v. Montana – Petition For A Writ Of Certiorari
While this may seem like a straightforward case, the details make it interesting.
On September 27, 2021, Case’s ex-girlfriend, J.H., called police dispatch and asserted that Case had threatened suicide during a telephone argument that evening. … J.H. purportedly became concerned when Case said that “he was going to get a note or something like that,” and threatened to harm any officers that came to his home if she called the police. … J.H. claimed Case “was threatening suicide and the phone just went silent, and she didn’t get a response.” … According to J.H., Case “said he had a loaded gun, and all I heard was clicking and, I don’t know, I thought I heard a pop at the end, I don’t know.”
Case v. Montana – Petition For A Writ Of Certiorari
The officers looked through windows and discussed their options, eventually deciding to enter the home.
The four officers entered Case’s residence through the unlocked front door, announcing themselves and “yelling the whole time.” …
As Sergeant Pasha entered and began to sweep an upstairs bedroom, Case began opening a closet curtain. … Sergeant Pasha purportedly saw a “dark object” near Case’s waist and fired one shot, striking Case in the left arm and lower left abdomen. … Officer Linsted entered the room and began administering first aid to Case. … After Captain Heffernan and Chief Sather entered the room, Captain Heffernan noticed and retrieved a handgun lying in a laundry basket near Case.
Case v. Montana – Petition For A Writ Of Certiorari
Case attempted to have the evidence collected in his home suppressed as the result of an unreasonable search. The case brought to the court boils down to what is required to allow government actors to enter a home without a warrant.
Fred A. Rowley, Jr., on behalf of the Petitioner.
We start with the oral arguments of Fred Rowley on behalf of Mr. Case.
- ROWLEY: Thank you, Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the Court:
This Court has never allowed state officials to force their way into someone’s home without a warrant or probable cause. It should not start now. There is no liberty interest more deeply rooted in the Fourth Amendment than the sanctity of the home. The Court has long recognized that physical entry of the home is the chief evil against which the wording of the Fourth Amendment is directed.
And the facts here well illustrate what’s at stake with such entries. The police entered Trevor Case’s home without permission, a warrant, or even probable cause, and they ended up shooting him in his own house.
WILLIAM TREVOR CASE v. MONTANA – Oral Arguments
Yes, police entered Mr. Case’s house without permission or a warrant, but did they have probable cause? Probable cause is defined as:
Apparent facts discovered through logical inquiry that would lead a reasonably intelligent and prudent person to believe that an accused person has committed a crime, thereby warranting his or her prosecution
Probable Cause – The Free Legal Dictionary
I know probable cause is used in criminal cases, but could the basic definition “Apparent facts discovered through logical inquiry that would lead a reasonably intelligent and prudent person to believe…” that person is a danger to themselves or others?
Montana seeks to justify this intrusion under the emergency aid exception, which permits a home entry only when an officer has an objectively reasonable basis for believing that an occupant is seriously injured or imminently threatened with such injury. As Montana previously acknowledged, that standard “requires in function, if not in form, that officers have probable cause to believe someone’s in danger and requires immediate assistance.”
WILLIAM TREVOR CASE v. MONTANA – Oral Arguments
The emergency aid exception to the warrant requirement is pretty simple. If someone is seriously injured or in imminent danger, then law enforcement can enter without a warrant. But what standard is needed to show there’s a good reason to enter without a warrant?
Now Montana insists probable cause is not the right standard, but it also doesn’t defend the reasonable suspicion standard applied by the Montana Supreme Court below. Instead, Montana and the United States ask the Court to adopt some other threshold that would permit officials for the first time to breach the sanctity of the home when they don’t have permission, don’t have a warrant, and don’t even have facts leading to a fair probability that an emergency is actually taking place within the home.
WILLIAM TREVOR CASE v. MONTANA – Oral Arguments
Much of this case is going to boil down to those two phrases, “reasonable suspicion” and “probable cause.” I’ve already defined probable cause, so let’s define “reasonable suspicion”.
Reasonable suspicion is a legal standard of proof in United States law that is less than probable cause, the legal standard for arrests and warrants, but more than an “inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or ‘hunch’”; it must be based on “specific and articulable facts”, “taken together with rational inferences from those facts”, and the suspicion must be associated with the specific individual.
Reasonable suspicion – The Free Legal Dictionary
So Mr. Case thinks the police needed probable cause to enter a home without a warrant, while Montana thinks the standard should be reasonable suspicion. Mr. Case thinks that reasonable suspicion is too vague a standard.
Their proposed reasonableness standard is so vague that not even the State and its amici can agree on what it means. And its open-ended balancing approach invites abuse and confusion, leaving police and first responders without the guidance they need and citizens without the security promised by the Fourth Amendment.
The Court should adhere to the textual and traditional standard of probable cause.
I welcome the Court’s questions.
WILLIAM TREVOR CASE v. MONTANA – Oral Arguments
Mr. Case claims there is both a textual and traditional standard to require probable cause to enter a home without permission or a warrant.
Christian Corrigan on Behalf of The Respondent
Next we have Christian Corrigan arguing for the State of Montana.
- CORRIGAN: Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the Court:
This Court should affirm the judgment below for three reasons.
First, the Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable searches, not all warrantless ones. The Framers enshrined that tradition of reasonableness, not a rigid warrant rule, in the Fourth Amendment. At common law, officers and private citizens alike could enter the home as — as required by necessity when life is at risk.
WILLIAM TREVOR CASE v. MONTANA – Oral Arguments
Mr. Corrigan is correct, the Fourth Amendment protects us from unreasonable searches. The question is, what makes a search reasonable? Yes, a warrant, which requires probable cause, makes a search reasonable, but is that the only thing that does?
Petitioner’s rule would turn that structure upside down. He asks this Court to graft the Warrant Clause’s probable cause requirement into the Reasonableness Clause itself. That move has no basis in text, no footing in history, and no support in this Court’s exigency precedents.
WILLIAM TREVOR CASE v. MONTANA – Oral Arguments
Again, Mr. Corrigan has a point, the Fourth Amendment requires probable cause for a warrant, but only reasonableness for searches.
Second, this Court has already set the standard for emergency entries at objective reasonableness. To adopt Petitioner’s view, this Court would have to overrule the holding in Brigham City v. Stuart, discard Michigan v. Fisher, and recast probable cause, the classic criminal law concept about belief of guilt, into something entirely new and applicable to non-criminal, non-investigatory emergencies.
WILLIAM TREVOR CASE v. MONTANA – Oral Arguments
“[T]his Court has already set the standard for emergency entries…” No, the Constitution set the standard as reasonableness. The court has merely fleshed out the details, adding the word “objective” to reasonableness.
Third, the objective reasonableness standard provides sufficient guidance and flexibility for emergency aid cases. Conversely, a rule demanding probable cause of peril would force officers to stand outside a dying man’s door calculating legal thresholds instead of saving his life. That’s not what the Framers wrote, and that’s not what this Court has ever required.
WILLIAM TREVOR CASE v. MONTANA – Oral Arguments
I understand the balancing act we’re looking at. On the one hand, our home is our castle and we want to defend it. On the other, do you want to let someone suffer or possibly die, because the standard for entering a home to provide emergency aid is too high?
The Montana Supreme Court applied the rule required by the Constitution and this Court’s precedents. Officers may enter when they have an objectively reasonable basis to believe someone inside needs immediate aid. That standard is faithful to text, history, and common sense.
I welcome the Court’s questions.
WILLIAM TREVOR CASE v. MONTANA – Oral Arguments
The Montana Supreme Court followed the precedent previously established by this court, but is that the correct standard?
Zoe Jacoby For The United States, As Amicus Curiae, Supporting The Respondent
The United States joined as an amicus curiae, friend of the court, on the side of Montana. Arguing the United States point was Zoe Jacoby.
- JACOBY: Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the Court:
This Court should adhere to the objective reasonableness standard for emergency aid entries set out in Brigham City rather than require what Petitioner calls probable cause of a danger. Petitioner’s theory has no basis in the Fourth Amendment’s text, which links probable cause to warrants, not to searches in general. History doesn’t support Petitioner’s theory either. The Framers adopted the Fourth Amendment to guard against overzealous criminal investigation, not to hamstring officers from providing life-saving aid to people in need.
WILLIAM TREVOR CASE v. MONTANA – Oral Arguments
The United States makes pretty much the same argument as Montana. However, their arguments brought out another point I want to look at.
Yet Petitioner’s rule would make it harder for government officials to help people in crisis, from victims of domestic violence to older people who have fallen and can’t get up.
WILLIAM TREVOR CASE v. MONTANA – Oral Arguments
Is it the role of the courts to make things easier for government or to protect the rights of the people? Since the courts are part of the government and the Declaration of Independence states “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men,” I think the courts should be focused more on peoples’ rights than on the government’s ease.
This Court should instead reaffirm that emergency aid entries are assessed for reasonableness, a flexible determination that accounts for both the severity of a danger and its likelihood. States are always free to craft their own rules above that constitutional floor, but the Fourth Amendment does not categorically require probable cause of a danger for an emergency entry. I welcome the Court’s questions.
WILLIAM TREVOR CASE v. MONTANA – Oral Arguments
So both governments, the State of Montana and the United States, want to make it easier for law enforcement to enter someone’s home without a warrant. But again, is that the correct standard?
Probable Cause vs Reasonable Suspicion
While most of the questions from the justices revolved around probable cause vs reasonable suspicion, Chief Justice Roberts brought up a topic that concerns me.
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Well, why isn’t it something like probable concern or reasonable concern? It seems to me that you’re taking a totally different context and applying these things just because we’re — we’re familiar with them and — and because authorities are — are in — involved.
I mean, did they enter this home because they were concerned that — I forget the name of the — the individual — would harm himself, or was it because they wanted to arrest him for a particular criminal activity?
WILLIAM TREVOR CASE v. MONTANA – Oral Arguments
Is the standard really concern rather than cause or suspicion? Concern is just anxiety or unease. Do you think police should be able to enter a home just because they’re anxious? What about suspicion, belief without sure proof.
I agree with Justice Kavanaugh.
JUSTICE KAVANAUGH: Well, and the officers need some clarity, I would think, in circumstances like this about what they can do and what they can’t do. And it seems like they thought about it carefully and — and decided that the risk was sufficiently high, to Justice Jackson’s point, and that harm that would occur was sufficiently substantial that they should go in. And, by the way, they’re going in at great risk to themselves.
- ROWLEY: Of course, Your Honor.
WILLIAM TREVOR CASE v. MONTANA – Oral Arguments
Yes, law enforcement officers need to know the rules when they can enter a home without a warrant, for their own safety as well as the occupant’s. Were the facts at hand sufficient to allow officers to enter? Is a call claiming someone is suicidal enough? What about claims of weapons? These have been used to call illegal raids on people’s home in the past.
Law Enforcement or Community Caretaking
One of the points this case brings up is the idea of community caretaking. Do we hire police to enforce our laws and take care of the community?
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: I’m just trying to think. I would want — I would want — I would want a police officer in a situation who walks by and sees somebody —
- ROWLEY: Sure.
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: — in the community that seems some — something’s wrong, you know, he hasn’t moved in four hours, it doesn’t look like he’s taking a nap. But, you know, and then what happens? I mean, then does he have a sufficient basis to, you know, justify the search that led to the — the illegal drugs? So he doesn’t know anything.
WILLIAM TREVOR CASE v. MONTANA – Oral Arguments
If an officer walks by and sees something, it’s worth investigating, but that should not be the focus of law enforcement. And just who decides that “something’s wrong”? Is someone taking a nap suspicious? And just how far should the officer go based on their suspicion? And what are the consequences if they get things wrong?
Emergency
With all this talk about the emergency exception, was there really an emergency?
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Counsel, we talk about this as an emergency situation, but there’s a lot going on that doesn’t look like an emergency, right? I mean, they get there, they’re walking around for a while. Then they — what, they get the boss to come down? I mean, call for somebody else? And they’re still there, and then they go get a body shield. I mean, it — it doesn’t have the atmosphere of, you know, we’ve got to get in there right away.
And I wonder if that detracts from the idea that they had sufficient justification, and particularly since, at least as it said, the emergency would come in if the officers came in, and then you’d have the question of suicide by police.
WILLIAM TREVOR CASE v. MONTANA – Oral Arguments
The exception to the warrant clause is generally referred to as an exigent circumstance. Exigent means urgent, something that cannot wait. This should apply to the emergency exception as well. How long should police be allowed to wait before the situation is no longer exigent? And just what evidence should they have that there’s an actual emergency before they move?
Rebuttal Argument Of Fred Rowley, Jr. On Behalf Of The Petitioner
Lastly, since Mr. Rowley went first, he gets a chance to rebut the opposing arguments.
- ROWLEY: Thank you, Mr. Chief Justice.
I think it’s critical to remember that what we’re dealing with here is an entry into the home and there are these default constitutional rules that are decades and decades old.
As the Court has repeatedly said, at the very core of the amendment stands the right of a man to retreat — to retreat into his home and there be free from unreasonable government intrusions. In Payton, the Court said that the Fourth Amendment has drawn a firm line at the entrance to the house.
WILLIAM TREVOR CASE v. MONTANA – Oral Arguments
Your home is your castle. Your greatest Fourth Amendment protections exist within the walls of your home. But we also expect law enforcement to keep an eye on us, to protect our safety, and not just in criminal situations.
I would also stress that in a lot of these situations where the emergency aid exception arises, you have not just potential safety implications but also criminal implications. Think of domestic violence situations or the — the situation that the officers faced here.
And so having a parallel standard of probable cause to think a crime is being committed but also probable cause to think that somebody is seriously injured or imminently threatened with such injury makes good sense.
WILLIAM TREVOR CASE v. MONTANA – Oral Arguments
Does anyone else see the conflict of interest? We want police to check on our safety, but then they can search whatever they see. To me, this is the real problem with this case.
Conclusion
So how do we analyze this case? What are the constitutional requirements for law enforcement to enter a home with no warrant or consent?
- CORRIGAN: Well, the — the objective reasonableness standard is the most faithful to the text, history, and tradition of the Constitution. If given a binary choice, we would take reasonable suspicion over probable cause.
WILLIAM TREVOR CASE v. MONTANA – Oral Arguments
I agree with Mr. Corrigan; the objective reasonableness standard is the most faithful to the text of the Constitution. But was the officer’s entry objectively reasonable? After all, what objective facts did law enforcement have? The girl friend’s fear that Mr. Case would commit suicide may be reasonable, but not objective. After all, it’s just her word. When officers looked in his window, they saw no signs of distress, only empty beer cans and an empty holster. They were objective, but not reasonable that there was an emergency. When Mr. Case didn’t answer their knocks, you could make a circumstantial case that Mr. Case may be injured or in need of assistance. Putting all of that together, would that justify a “wellness check”? I believe so, but there is a serious problem.
Does a wellness check authorize government actors to search your home? We do have the “plain sight” rule, which states that anything police observe in plain sight can be used as evidence. But when someone enters your home without your permission, is that really plain sight? So while I disagree with Mr. Rowley that the police didn’t have sufficient cause to enter the home, I also disagree with Mr. Corrigan’s claim that it’s reasonable for police to search while doing a wellness check.
I guess that’s the problem with “reasonableness.” What one person finds reasonable another finds an invasion. How objective can that be?
© 2025 Paul Engel – All Rights Reserved
E-Mail Paul Engel: paul@constitutionstudy.com
