Attorney General Knudsen files opening brief in SCOTUS case
HELENA –Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen filed the opening brief in William Trevor Case v. State of Montana ahead of oral arguments at the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) in October. The Attorney General’s Office will defend a Montana Supreme Court decision that law enforcement may enter a home without a search warrant if there is reason to believe a life-threatening emergency is occurring.
In 2021, law enforcement in Anaconda entered Case’s home after receiving and witnessing credible information that the defendant, William Case, may have committed suicide. The officers entered the home to provide emergency aid if needed, and instead Case was hiding in a closet and upon seeing police he exited the closet and pointed a gun at an officer. The officer subsequently shot and wounded Case. Ultimately, Case was found guilty by a jury of assaulting a peace officer. He appealed that decision to the Montana Supreme Court, which affirmed the jury’s verdict.
While Case claims the officers violated his Fourth Amendment rights, which protect citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government, when they entered his home, the Fourth Amendment’s plain text does not require either warrants or probable cause for all searches, it commands only that searches must be “reasonable.” In this instance, officers believed they had enough objectively reasonable evidence that supported that Case may have died and that was enough reason to enter the home without a warrant.
“The officers did exactly what Case says the Fourth Amendment requires –they corroborated the emergency report with on-the-ground observations and acted based on a reasonable belief that Case needed urgent aid,” Attorney General Knudsen wrote in the brief.
Attorney General Knudsen also refutes Case’s “probable cause” standard for law enforcement needing a warrant to enter his home as probable cause is inseparably tied to criminal investigations and not emergency-aid situations.
SCOTUS agreed to hear the case in June and it will be argued by Attorney Geneal Knudsen and Solicitor General Christian Corrigan on October 15.
Click here to read the brief.
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