Earlier this week, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Case v. Montana, No. 24-625 (June 2, 2025) (cert. granted), to decide “whether law enforcement may enter a home without a search warrant based on less than probable cause that an emergency is occurring, or whether the emergency-aid exception requires probable cause.”
This case gives the Court the opportunity to clarify “the contours of the exigent circumstances doctrine as applied to emergency-aid situations,” an issue that has divided the lower courts. Caniglia v. Strom, 593 U.S. 194, 206 (2021) (Kavanaugh, J., concurring). In Brigham City v. Stuart, 547 U.S. 398 (2006), the Court held that before police officers enter a home without a warrant, they must have “an objectively reasonable basis for believing that an occupant is seriously injured or imminently threatened with such injury.” But the lower courts are deeply divided on whether this “objectively reasonable basis” standard requires police making a warrantless entry to have probable cause to believe an emergency exists or some lower level of suspicion.
In a 4-3 decision, the Montana Supreme Court joined three other state high courts, as well as the First, Eighth, and Tenth Circuits, in rejecting the probable cause requirement. The majority held that police need only have some “objective, specific, and articulable facts from which an experienced officer would suspect that a citizen is in need of help or is in peril.”
In contrast, a dissenting Montana Supreme Court justice “assess[ed] the presence of exigent circumstances” by examining “whether there was probable cause to believe [someone] was subject to imminent harm, distress, or in need of assistance.” The “probable cause requirement,” the dissent reasoned, “is not limited to only the commission of a criminal offense but applies to whether there is probable cause to believe a person is in imminent peril.” This reasoning tracks the position taken by the D.C., Second, and Eleventh Circuits, as well as the Nebraska and Colorado high courts. Those courts have held that officers must have “probable cause to believe that a person is ‘seriously injured or threatened with such injury” before entering a home without a warrant.
Certiorari stage filings are available on the Supreme Court’s website here.