The Supreme Court last year unanimously ruled that police could not rely on a "community caretaking exception" to justify their warrantless seizure of firearms from the home of a man who had consented to a psychiatric evaluation after a dispute with his wife. Yet six months later, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit approved a warrantless seizure of firearms in strikingly similar circumstances.
Instead of "community caretaking," the appeals court cited "special needs," an even more commodious exception to the presumption that the Fourth Amendment requires police to obtain a warrant before entering someone's home and seizing his property. In a brief asking the Supreme Court to hear an appeal of that decision, the Institute for Justice urges the justices to renounce that seemingly all-purpose excuse for dispensing with warrants, warning that it threatens to nullify the general rule.
