VIDEO: Why Red Flag Laws are a Violation of the 4th, 5th and 14th Amendments

Seems to me this recent May 17th, 2021 SCOTUS ruling in Caniglia v. Strom et al. could help in declaring Risk Protection Orders unconstitutional.  I’ve often stated they not only violate the 5th and 14th Amendments requiring Due Process but the 4th Amendment involving home invasion as well. Watch:

CANIGLIA v. STROM | Supreme Court | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute  – Cornell.edu


Syllabus

CANIGLIA v. STROM
953 F. 3d 112, vacated and remanded.

NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

Syllabus Caniglia v. Strom et al.

certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the first circuit


No. 20–157. Argued March 24, 2021—Decided May 17, 2021


During an argument with his wife, petitioner Edward Caniglia placed a handgun on the dining room table and asked his wife to “shoot [him] and get it over with.” His wife instead left the home and spent the night at a hotel. The next morning, she was unable to reach her husband by phone, so she called the police to request a welfare check. The responding officers accompanied Caniglia’s wife to the home, where they encountered Caniglia on the porch. The officers called an ambulance based on the belief that Caniglia posed a risk to himself or others. Caniglia agreed to go to the hospital for a psychiatric evaluation on the condition that the officers not confiscate his firearms. But once Caniglia left, the officers located and seized his weapons. Caniglia sued, claiming that the officers had entered his home and seized him and his firearms without a warrant in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The District Court granted summary judgment to the officers. The First Circuit affirmed, extrapolating from the Court’s decision in Cady v. Dombrowski, 413 U. S. 433, a theory that the officers’ removal of Caniglia and his firearms from his home was justified by a “community caretaking exception” to the warrant requirement.
Held: Neither the holding nor logic of Cady justifies such warrantless searches and seizures in the home. Cady held that a warrantless search of an impounded vehicle for an unsecured firearm did not violate the Fourth Amendment. In reaching this conclusion, the Court noted that the officers who patrol the “public highways” are often called to discharge noncriminal “community caretaking functions,” such as responding to disabled vehicles or investigating accidents. 413 U. S., at 441. But searches of vehicles and homes are constitutionally different, as the Cady opinion repeatedly stressed. Id., at 439, 440–442. The very core of the Fourth Amendment’s guarantee is the right  of a person to retreat into his or her home and “there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion.” Florida v. Jardines569 U. S. 1, 6. A recognition of the existence of “community caretaking” tasks, like rendering aid to motorists in disabled vehicles, is not an open-ended license to perform them anywhere. Pp. 3–4.

953 F. 3d 112, vacated and remanded.

Thomas, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court. Roberts, C. J., filed a concurring opinion, in which Breyer, J., joined. Alito, J., and Kavanaugh, J., filed concurring opinions.

©Royal A. Brown, III. All rights reserved.

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