Kennedy D. Kirk v. Louisiana (536 U.S. 635)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 24, 2002 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 536 U.S. 635 · 122 S. Ct. 2458
- Decided
- June 24, 2002
- Term
- October Term 2001
- Vote
- 9–0
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Per Curiam. Police officers entered petitioner’s home, where they arrested and searched him. The officers had neither an arrest warrant nor a search warrant. Without deciding whether exigent circumstances had been present, the Louisiana Court of Appeal concluded that the warrantless entry, arrest, and search did not violate the Fourth Amendment of the Federal Constitution because there had been probable cause to arrest petitioner. 00-0190 (La. App. 11/15/00), 773 So. 2d 259. The court’s reasoning plainly violates our holding in Payton v. New York, 445 U. S. 573, 590 (1980), that “[a]bsent exigent circumstances,” the “firm line at the entrance to the house ... may not reasonably be crossed without a warrant.” We thus grant the petition for a writ of certiorari and reverse the Court of Appeal’s conclusion that the officers’ actions were lawful, absent exigent circumstances. On an evening in March 1998, police officers observed petitioner’s apartment based on an anonymous citizen complaint that drug sales were occurring there. After witnessing what appeared to be several drug purchases and allowing the buyers to leave the scene, the officers stopped one of the buyers on the street outside petitioner’s residence. The officers later testified that “[b]ecause the stop took place within a block of the apartment, [they] feared that evidence would be destroyed and ordered that the…
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