Welsh v. Wisconsin (466 U.S. 740)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided May 15, 1984 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 466 U.S. 740 · 104 S. Ct. 2091
- Decided
- May 15, 1984
- Term
- October Term 1983
- Vote
- 6–3
- Majority author
- Justice Brennan
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Vacated and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice Brennan delivered the opinion of the Court. Payton v. New York, 445 U. S. 573 (1980), held that, absent probable cause and exigent circumstances, warrantless arrests in the home are prohibited by the Fourth Amendment. But the Court in that case explicitly refused “to consider the sort of emergency or dangerous situation, described in our cases as ‘exigent circumstances,’ that would justify a warrantless entry into a home for the purpose of either arrest or search.” Id., at 583. Certiorari was granted in this case to decide at least one aspect of the unresolved question: whether, and if so under what circumstances, the Fourth Amendment prohibits the police from making a warrantless night entry of a person’s home in order to arrest him for a nonjailable traffic offense. h — < A Shortly before 9 o’clock on the rainy night of April 24,1978, a lone witness, Randy Jablonic, observed a car being driven erratically. After changing speeds and veering from side to side, the car eventually swerved off the road and came to a stop in an open field. No damage to any person or property occurred. Concerned about the driver and fearing that the car would get back on the highway, Jablonic drove his truck up behind the car so as to block it from returning to the road. Another passerby also stopped at the scene, and Jablonic asked her to call the police. Before the police arrived,…
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