Sample Query
If the police don’t have a warrant or probable cause to make an arrest, what is the relevant case law in regards to California Penal Code section 1538.5? What are the relevant Federal cases as well?
Sample Response
The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects citizens against unreasonable searches and seizures. While this reasonableness requirement usually requires police to have a warrant to conduct a search or make an arrest, there are certain situations where police officers are allowed to make a warrantless arrest. In 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court stated that “The cases construing the Fourth Amendment thus reflect the ancient common-law rule that a peace officer was permitted to arrest without a warrant for a misdemeanor or felony committed in his presence as well as for a felony not committed in his presence if there was reasonable ground for making the arrest.” United States v. Watson, 423 U.S. 411, 418 (1976). The Court also stated that “The necessary inquiry, therefore, was not whether there was a warrant or whether there was time to get one, but whether there was probable cause for the arrest.” Watson at 417.
However, there are exceptions to this allowance of warrantless arrests. The Supreme Court has decided that “it is a basic principle of Fourth Amendment law that searches and seizures inside a home without a warrant are presumptively unreasonable.” Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 587 (1980). The Court went on to state that “the notion that the warrantless entry of a man’s house in order to arrest him on probable cause is per se legitimate is in fundamental conflict with the basic principle of Fourth Amendment law that searches and seizures inside a man’s house without a warrant are per se unreasonable in the absence of some one of a number of well defined exigent circumstances.” Payton at 587.
Likewise, the Supreme Court adopted the following language from the Second Circuit: “The Fourth Amendment protects the individual’s privacy in a variety of settings. In none is the zone of privacy more clearly defined than when bounded by the unambiguous physical dimensions of an individual’s home — a zone that finds its roots in clear and specific constitutional terms: ‘The right of the people to be secure in their … houses … shall not be violated.’ That language unequivocally establishes the proposition that at the very core of the Fourth Amendment stands the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion. In terms that apply equally to seizures of property and to seizures of persons, the Fourth Amendment has drawn a firm line at the entrance to the house. Absent exigent circumstances, that threshold may not reasonably be crossed without a warrant.” Payton at 589-590 (internal quotations and citations omitted).
While Payton seems to require exigent circumstances to make a warrantless arrest of a person in their home, California courts have allowed such arrests based on probable cause. For example, one California court ruled: “With exceptions not pertinent to this case, a peace officer has authority to enter a private residence without a warrant or consent of the resident only for the purpose of making a lawful arrest. In order to make a lawful arrest without a warrant, the officer must have probable cause to arrest — i.e., he must know facts that would lead a person of ordinary prudence to entertain a strong suspicion that the person arrested is guilty of the crime for which he is arrested. The arresting officer must also entertain a belief, at the time an arrest is made, not only that the person arrested has committed a public offense, but also that a particular crime has been committed.” People v. Apodaca, 54 Cal. App. 3d Supp. 6, 9-10 (1975).
While it is questionable whether the Apodaca decision would still be valid after Payton, it should not matter in your query. If the police did not have a warrant or probable cause to make an arrest, it seems that the arrest would be illegal under federal law (Payton) or under California law (Apodaca).