Police Not Caretakers During Manhunt

Community caretaking exception will not grant qualified immunity to police officers for a warrantless entry into a home while hunting down a robbery suspect.

 

Matalon v. Hynnes, 2015 BL 379728, 1st Cir., No. 15-1372, 11/18/15

    Police officers were chasing a robbery suspect and a witness directed the police officers to a home where they arrested the occupant. The occupant was not involved with the robbery and sued the officers. The officers claimed that the community caretaker exception applied to them, the court ruled that it did not.

    The First Circuit Court of Appeals said that the community caretaking exception to the Fourth Amendment's protections has become a "catchall for the wide range of possibilities that police officers must discharge aside from their criminal enforcement activities."    

    The community caretaking exception does not apply in this case because the officers' search was not "aside from their criminal enforcement activities" because it was that exact activity. The standard for this activity is that "[a]n objectively reasonable officer should have known that a warrantless entry into the plaintiff's home could not be effected on the basis of the community caretaker exception."

http://www.bloomberglaw.com/public/desktop/document/Matalon_v_Hynnes_No_151372_2015_BL_379728_1st_Cir_Nov_18_2015_Cou?1451317442