{ "id": "R41871", "type": "CRS Report", "typeId": "REPORTS", "number": "R41871", "active": true, "source": "EveryCRSReport.com", "versions": [ { "source": "EveryCRSReport.com", "id": 388852, "date": "2011-06-17", "retrieved": "2016-04-06T22:03:58.605539", "title": "Warrantless, Police-Triggered Exigent Searches: Kentucky v. King in the Supreme Court", "summary": "Authorities may enter and search a home without a warrant if they have probable cause and reason to believe that evidence is being destroyed within the home. So declared the United States Supreme Court in an 8-1 decision, Kentucky v. King, 131 S.Ct. 1849 (2011)(No. 09-1272).\nThe Kentucky Supreme Court had overturned King\u2019s conviction for marijuana possession and drug dealing, because the evidence upon which it was based had been secured following a warrantless search which failed to conform with that court\u2019s restrictions under its \u201cpolice-created exigencies\u201d doctrine.\nThe Fourth Amendment usually permits authorities to search a home only if they have both probable cause and a warrant. The warrant requirement may be excused in the presence of exigent circumstances, for instance, when it appears the occupants are attempting to flee or to destroy evidence. Leery lest authorities create exigent circumstances to avoid the warrant requirement, some state and lower federal courts had adopted one form or another of a police-created exigencies doctrine. \nThe Court rejected each of these and endorsed searches conducted under the exigent circumstance exception, unless authorities had created the exigency by threatening to, or engaging in, activities which themselves violated the Fourth Amendment.\nIn order to reach the question of limitations on police-created exigencies, the Court assumed the existence of exigent circumstances in King. The concerns from which the police-created exigencies doctrine emerged may now give rise to more stringent standards for what qualifies as an exigency.", "type": "CRS Report", "typeId": "REPORTS", "active": true, "formats": [ { "format": "HTML", "encoding": "utf-8", "url": "http://www.crs.gov/Reports/R41871", "sha1": "66fe4e40dc8f00979a097ec20d66f069f9a3ad72", "filename": "files/20110617_R41871_66fe4e40dc8f00979a097ec20d66f069f9a3ad72.html", "images": null }, { "format": "PDF", "encoding": null, "url": "http://www.crs.gov/Reports/pdf/R41871", "sha1": "ba1da600e4a5162df994359fbb1bb5316d89d172", "filename": "files/20110617_R41871_ba1da600e4a5162df994359fbb1bb5316d89d172.pdf", "images": null } ], "topics": [] } ], "topics": [] }