Lange v. California

P R E L I M I N A R Y P R I N T
Volume 594 U. S. Part 1
Pages 295–337
OFFICIAL REPORTS
OF
T H E S U P R E M E C O U R T
June 23, 2021
REBECCA A. WOMELDORF
reporter of decisions
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N O T I C E : This preliminary print is subject to formal revision before
the bound volume is published. Users are requested to notify the Reporter
of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D.C. 20543,
pio@supremecourt.gov, of any typographical or other formal errors.

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TERM, 2020
295
Syllabus
LANGE v. CALIFORNIA
certiorari
to the court of appeal of california,
rst appellate district
No. 20–18. Argued February 24, 2021—Decided June 23, 2021
This case arises from a police offcer's warrantless entry into petitioner
Arthur Lange's garage. Lange drove by a California highway patrol
offcer while playing loud music and honking his horn. The offcer
began to follow Lange and soon after turned on his overhead lights to
signal that Lange should pull over. Rather than stopping, Lange drove
a short distance to his driveway and entered his attached garage. The
offcer followed Lange into the garage. He questioned Lange and, after
observing signs of intoxication, put him through feld sobriety tests. A
later blood test showed that Lange's blood-alcohol content was three
times the legal limit.
The State charged Lange with the misdemeanor of driving under the
infuence. Lange moved to suppress the evidence obtained after the
offcer entered his garage, arguing that the warrantless entry violated
the Fourth Amendment. The Superior Court denied Lange's mo-
tion, and its appellate division affrmed. The California Court of Ap-
peal also affrmed. It concluded that Lange's failure to pull over when
the offcer fashed his lights created probable cause to arrest Lange for
the misdemeanor of failing to comply with a police signal. And it stated
that Lange could not defeat an arrest begun in a public place by retreat-
ing into his home. The pursuit of a suspected misdemeanant, the court
held, is always permissible under the exigent-circumstances exception
to the warrant requirement. The California Supreme Court denied
review.
Held: Under the Fourth Amendment, pursuit of a feeing misdemeanor
suspect does not always—that is, categorically—justify a warrantless
entry into a home. Pp. 301–314.
(a) The Court's Fourth Amendment precedents counsel in favor of a
case-by-case assessment of exigency when deciding whether a suspected
misdemeanant's fight justifes a warrantless home entry. The Fourth
Amendment ordinarily requires that a law enforcement offcer obtain a
judicial warrant before entering a home without permission. Riley v.
California, 573 U. S. 373, 382. But an offcer may make a warrantless
entry when “the exigencies of the situation,” considered in a case-
specifc way, create “a compelling need for offcial action and no time to
secure a warrant.” Kentucky v. King, 563 U. S. 452, 460; Missouri v.

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296 LANGE
v. CALIFORNIA
Syllabus
McNeely, 569 U. S. 141, 149. The Court has found that such exigencies
may
exist when an offcer must act to prevent imminent injury, the
destruction of evidence, or a suspect's escape.
The amicus contends that a suspect's fight always supplies the exi-
gency needed to justify a warrantless home entry and that the Court
endorsed such a categorical approach in United States v. Santana, 427
U. S. 38. The Court disagrees. In upholding a warrantless entry made
during a “hot pursuit” of a felony suspect, the Court stated that Santa-
na's “act of retreating into her house” could “not defeat an arrest” that
had “been set in motion in a public place.” Id., at 42–43. Even assum-
ing that Santana treated feeing-felon cases categorically, that state-
ment still does not establish a fat rule permitting warrantless home
entry whenever a police offcer pursues a feeing misdemeanant. San-
tana did not resolve the issue of misdemeanor pursuit; as the Court
noted in a later case, “the law regarding warrantless entry in hot pursuit
of a feeing misdemeanant is not clearly established” one way or the
other. Stanton v. Sims, 571 U. S. 3, 8, 10.
Misdemeanors run the gamut of seriousness, and they may be minor.
States tend to apply the misdemeanor label to less violent and less dan-
gerous crimes. The Court has held that when a minor offense (and no
fight) is involved, police offcers do not usually face the kind of emer-
gency that can justify a warrantless home entry. See Welsh v. Wiscon-
sin, 466 U. S. 740, 742–743. Add a suspect's fight and the calculus
changes—but not enough to justify a categorical rule. In many cases,
fight creates a need for police to act swiftly. But no evidence suggests
that every case of misdemeanor fight creates such a need.
The Court's Fourth Amendment precedents thus point toward assess-
ing case by case the exigencies arising from misdemeanants' fight.
When the totality of circumstances shows an emergency—a need to act
before it is possible to get a warrant—the police may act without wait-
ing. Those circumstances include the fight itself. But pursuit of a
misdemeanant does not trigger a categorical rule allowing a warrantless
home entry. Pp. 301–309.
(b) The common law in place at the Constitution's founding similarly
does not support a categorical rule allowing warrantless home entry
whenever a misdemeanant fees. Like the Court's modern precedents,
the common law afforded the home strong protection from government
intrusion and it generally required a warrant before a government off-
cial could enter the home. There was an oft-discussed exception: An
offcer, according to the common-law treatises, could enter a house to
pursue a felon. But in the misdemeanor context, offcers had more lim-
ited authority to intrude on a feeing suspect's home. The commenta-
tors generally agreed that the authority turned on the circumstances;

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297
Syllabus
none suggested a r u le author i zi ng warrantless entry i n every
misdemeanor-pursuit
case. In short, the common law did not have—
and does not support—a categorical rule allowing warrantless home
entry when a suspected misdemeanant fees. Pp. 309–314.
Vacated and remanded.
Kagan, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Breyer,
Sotomayor, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett, JJ., joined, and in
which Thomas, J., joined as to all but Part II–A. Kavanaugh, J., fled a
concurring opinion, post, p. 314. Thomas, J., fled an opinion concurring
in part and concurring in the judgment, in which Kavanaugh, J., joined
as to Part II, post, p. 315. Roberts, C. J., fled an opinion concurring in
the judgment, in which Alito, J., joined, post, p. 319.
Jeffrey L. Fisher argued the cause for petitioner. With
him on the briefs were Brian H. Fletcher and Pamela S.
Karlan.
Samuel T. Harbourt, Deputy Solicitor General of Califor-
nia, argued the cause for respondent supporting vacatur.
With him on the briefs were Xavier Becerra, Attorney Gen-
eral of California, Michael J. Mongan, Solicitor General,
Lance E. Winters, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Jeffrey
M. Laurence, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Helen H.
Hong, Deputy Solicitor General, Donna M. Provenzano, Su-
pervising Deputy Attorney General, and Kimberly M. Cas-
tle, Associate Deputy Solicitor General.
Amanda K. Rice, by invitation of the Court, 592 U. S. –––
(2020), argued the cause and fled a brief as amicus curiae
in support of the judgment below. With her on the brief
were Robert N. Stander and Parker Rider-Longmaid.
Erica L. Ross argued the cause for the United States as
amicus curiae urging affrmance. With her on the brief
were Acting Solicitor General Wall, Acting Assistant Attor-
ney General Burns, and Deputy Solicitor General Feigin.*
*Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were fled for the State of Illi-
nois et al. by Kwame Raoul, Attorney General of Illinois, Jane Elinor
Notz, Solicitor General, Sarah A. Hunger, Deputy Solicitor General, and
Garson S. Fischer, Assistant Attorney General, and by the Attorneys Gen-
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298 LANGE
v. CALIFORNIA
Opinion of the Court
Justice Kagan delivered the opinion of the Court.
The
Fourth Amendment ordinarily requires that police of-
fcers get a warrant before entering a home without permis-
sion. But an offcer may make a warrantless entry when
“the exigencies of the situation” create a compelling law en-
forcement need. Kentucky v. King, 563 U. S. 452, 460 (2011).
eral for their respective jurisdictions as follows: Karl A. Racine of the
District of Columbia, Thomas J. Miller of Iowa, Brian E. Frosh of Mary-
land, Dana Nessel of Michigan, Aaron D. Ford of Nevada, Ellen F. Rosen-
blum of Oregon, and Mark R. Herring of Virginia; for the American Civil
Liberties Union et al. by Lisa S. Blatt, Charles L. McCloud, and David D.
Cole; for the Constitutional Account ability Center by Elizabeth B. Wydra,
Brianne J. Gorod, and Brian R. Frazelle; for the DKT Liberty Project
et al. by Jessica Ring Amunson; for Gun Owners of America, Inc., et al.
by William J. Olson, Jeremiah L. Morgan, Robert J. Olson, and Herbert
W. Titus; for the Institute for Justice by Joshua Windham and Robert
Frommer; for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers et al.
by Jeffrey T. Green, Stephen Dunkle, John T. Philipsborn, and Craig Jen-
nings Lavoie; for the National College for DUI Defense by Donald J.
Ramsell, Fleming Kanan Whited III, and Bell Island; for the Project for
Privacy & Surveillance Accountability et al. by Gene C. Schaerr, Erik S.
Jaffe, Hannah C. Smith, Kathryn E. Tarbert, and Mahesha P. Subbara-
man; and for The Rutherford Institute by Michael B. Kimberly, Ethan H.
Townsend, and John W. Whitehead.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affrmance were fled for the State of Ohio
et al. by Dave Yost, Attorney General of Ohio, Benjamin M. Flowers,
Solicitor General, Michael J. Hendershot, Chief Deputy Solicitor General,
and Zachery Keller, Deputy Solicitor General, and by the Attorneys Gen-
eral for their respective States as follows: Steve Marshall of Alabama,
Leslie Rutledge of Arkansas, Lawrence G. Wasden of Idaho, Theodore E.
Rokita of Indiana, Derek Schmidt of Kansas, Jeff Landry of Louisiana,
Lynn Fitch of Mississippi, Mike Hunter of Oklahoma, Alan Wilson of
South Carolina, Jason Ravnsborg of South Dakota, Herbert H. Slatery III
of Tennessee, Ken Paxton of Texas, and Sean D. Reyes of Utah; for the
Los Angeles County Police Chiefs' Association by J. Scott Tiedemann; for
Mothers Against Drunk Driving by Barbara A. Smith and Jean-Claude
André; for the National Fraternal Order of Police by Larry H. James; for
the Sonoma County District Attorney's Offce et al. by Spencer Ralph
Brady, Robert A. Maddock, and Gregory D. Totten; and for Steven Penney
by David Debold.

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299
Opinion of the Court
The question presented here is whether the pursuit of a
feei
ng misdemeanor suspect always—or more legally put,
categorically—qualifies as an exigent circumstance. We
hold it does not. A great many misdemeanor pursuits in-
volve exigencies allowing warrantless entry. But whether
a given one does so turns on the particular facts of the
case.
I
This case began when petitioner Arthur Lange drove past
a California highway patrol offcer in Sonoma. Lange, it is
fair to say, was asking for attention: He was listening to loud
music with his windows down and repeatedly honking his
horn. The offcer began to tail Lange, and soon afterward
turned on his overhead lights to signal that Lange should
pull over. By that time, though, Lange was only about
a hundred feet (some four-seconds drive) from his home.
Rather than stopping, Lange continued to his driveway and
entered his attached garage. The offcer followed Lange in
and began questioning him. Observing signs of intoxication,
the offcer put Lange through feld sobriety tests. Lange did
not do well, and a later blood test showed that his blood-alcohol
content was more than three times the legal limit.
The State charged Lange with the misdemeanor of driving
under the infuence of alcohol, plus a (lower-level) noise in-
fraction. Lange moved to suppress all evidence obtained
after the offcer entered his garage, arguing that the war-
rantless entry had violated the Fourth Amendment. The
State contested the motion. It contended that the offcer
had probable cause to arrest Lange for the misdemeanor of
failing to comply with a police signal. See, e. g., Cal. Veh.
Code Ann. § 2800(a) (West 2015) (making it a misdemeanor
to “willfully fail or refuse to comply with a lawful order, sig-
nal, or direction of a peace offcer”). And it argued that the
pursuit of a suspected misdemeanant always qualifes as an
exigent circumstance authorizing a warrantless home entry.
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300 LANGE
v. CALIFORNIA
Opinion of the Court
The Superior Court denied Lange's motion, and its appellate
div
ision affrmed.
The California Court of Appeal also affrmed, accepting
the State's argument in full. 2019 WL 5654385, *1 (2019).
In the court's view, Lange's “fail[ure] to immediately pull
over” when the offcer fashed his lights created probable
cause to arrest him for a misdemeanor. Id., at *7. And a
misdemeanor suspect, the court stated, could “not defeat an
arrest which has been set in motion in a public place” by
“retreat[ing] into” a house or other “private place.” See id.,
at *6–*8 (internal quotation marks omitted). Rather, an “of-
fcer's `hot pursuit' into the house to prevent the suspect
from frustrating the arrest” is always permissible under the
exigent-circumstances “exception to the warrant require-
ment.” Id., at *8 (some internal quotation marks omitted).
That fat rule resolved the matter: “Because the offcer was
in hot pursuit” of a misdemeanor suspect, “the offcer's war-
rantless entry into [the suspect's] driveway and garage [was]
lawful.” Id., at *9. The California Supreme Court denied
review.
Courts are divided over whether the Fourth Amendment
always permits an offcer to enter a home without a warrant
in pursuit of a feeing misdemeanor suspect. Some courts
have adopted such a categorical rule, while others have
required a case-specifc showing of exigency.
1
We granted
1
Compare, e. g., 2019 WL 5654385, *7–*8 (case below) (applying a cate-
gorical rule); Bismarck v. Brekhus, 2018 ND 84, ¶27, 908 N. W. 2d 715,
719–720 (same); Commonwealth v. Jewett, 471 Mass. 624, 634–635, 31 N. E.
3d 1079, 1089 (2015) (same); People v. Wear, 229 Ill. 2d 545, 568, 571, 893
N. E. 2d 631, 644–646 (2008) (same); Middletown v. Flinchum, 95 Ohio
St. 3d 43, 44–45, 765 N. E. 2d 330, 332 (2002) (same); State v. Ricci, 144
N. H. 241, 244–245, 739 A. 2d 404, 407–408 (1999) (same), with, e. g., State
v. Markus, 211 So. 3d 894, 906–907 (Fla. 2017) (requiring a case-specifc
showing); Mascorro v. Billings, 656 F. 3d 1198, 1207 (CA10 2011) (same);
Butler v. State, 309 Ark. 211, 216–217, 829 S. W. 2d 412, 415 (1992) (same);
State v. Bolte, 115 N. J. 579, 597–598, 560 A. 2d 644, 654–655 (1989) (same);
see also Stanton v. Sims, 571 U. S. 3, 6–7 (2013) (per curiam) (noting the
split).

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301
Opinion of the Court
certiorari, 592 U. S. ––– (2020), to resolve the confict. Be-
cause
California abandoned its defense of the categorical
rule applied below in its response to Lange's petition, we
appointed Amanda Rice as amicus curiae to defend the
Court of Appeal's judgment. She has ably discharged her
responsibilities.
II
The Fourth Amendment provides that “[t]he right of the
people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and ef-
fects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not
be violated.” As that text makes clear, “the ultimate touch-
stone of the Fourth Amendment is `reasonableness.' ” Brig-
ham City v. Stuart, 547 U. S. 398, 403 (2006). That standard
“generally requires the obtaining of a judicial warrant”
before a law enforcement offcer can enter a home without
permission. Riley v. California, 573 U. S. 373, 382 (2014)
(internal quotation marks omitted). But not always: The
“warrant requirement is subject to certain exceptions.”
Brigham City, 547 U. S., at 403.
One important exception is for exigent circumstances. It
applies when “the exigencies of the situation make the needs
of law enforcement so compelling that [a] warrantless search
is objectively reasonable.” King, 563 U. S., at 460 (internal
quotation marks omitted). The exception enables law en-
forcement offcers to handle “emergenc[ies]”—situations pre-
senting a “compelling need for offcial action and no time
to secure a warrant.” Riley, 573 U. S., at 402; Missouri v.
McNeely, 569 U. S. 141, 149 (2013). Over the years, this
Court has identifed several such exigencies. An offcer, for
example, may “enter a home without a warrant to render
emergency assistance to an injured occupant[,] to protect an
occupant from imminent injury,” or to ensure his own safety.
Brigham City, 547 U. S., at 403; Riley, 573 U. S., at 388. So
too, the police may make a warrantless entry to “prevent the
imminent destruction of evidence” or to “prevent a suspect's
escape.” Brigham City, 547 U. S., at 403; Minnesota v.
Olson, 495 U. S. 91, 100 (1990) (internal quotation marks
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302 LANGE
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Opinion of the Court
omitted). In those circumstances, the delay required to ob-
t
ain a warrant would bring about “some real immediate and
serious consequences”—and so the absence of a warrant is
excused. Welsh v. Wisconsin, 466 U. S. 740, 751 (1984)
(quoting McDonald v. United States, 335 U. S. 451, 460 (1948)
(Jackson, J., concurring)).
Our cases have genera l ly appl ied the exigent-
circumstances exception on a “case-by-case basis.” Birch-
feld v. North Dakota, 579 U. S. 438, 457 (2016). The excep-
tion “requires a court to examine whether an emergency
justifed a warrantless search in each particular case.”
Riley, 573 U. S., at 402. Or put more curtly, the exception
is “case-specifc.” Id., at 388. That approach refects the
nature of emergencies. Whether a “now or never situation”
actually exists—whether an offcer has “no time to secure a
warrant”—depends upon facts on the ground. Id., at 391
(internal quotation marks omitted); McNeely, 569 U. S., at
149 (internal quotation marks omitted). So the issue, we
have thought, is most naturally considered by “look[ing] to
the totality of circumstances” confronting the offcer as he
decides to make a warrantless entry. Id., at 149.
The question here is whether to use that approach, or in-
stead apply a categorical warrant exception, when a sus-
pected misdemeanant fees from police into his home.
Under the usual case-specifc view, an offcer can follow the
misdemeanant when, but only when, an exigency—for exam-
ple, the need to prevent destruction of evidence—allows in-
suffcient time to get a warrant. The appointed amicus asks
us to replace that case-by-case assessment with a fat (and
sweeping) rule fnding exigency in every case of misde-
meanor pursuit. In her view, those “entries are categori-
cally reasonable, regardless of whether” any risk of harm
(like, again, destruction of evidence) “materializes in a par-
ticular case.” Brief for Court-Appointed Amicus Curiae
31. The fact of fight from the offcer, she says, is itself
enough to justify a warrantless entry. (The principal con-
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303
Opinion of the Court
currence agrees.) To assess that position, we look (as we
of
ten do in Fourth Amendment cases) both to this Court's
precedents and to the common-law practices familiar to the
Framers.
A
The place to start is with our often-stated view of the con-
stitutional interest at stake: the sanctity of a person's living
space. “[W]hen it comes to the Fourth Amendment, the
home is frst among equals.” Florida v. Jardines, 569 U. S.
1, 6 (2013). At the Amendment's “very core,” we have said,
“stands the right of a man to retreat into his own home and
there be free from unreasonable government intrusion.”
Collins v. Virginia, 584 U. S. 586, 592 (2018) (internal quota-
tion marks omitted). Or again: “Freedom” in one's own
“dwelling is the archetype of the privacy protection secured
by the Fourth Amendment”; conversely, “physical entry of
the home is the chief evil against which [it] is directed.”
Payton v. New York, 445 U. S. 573, 585, 587 (1980) (internal
quotation marks omitted). The Amendment thus “draw[s] a
frm line at the entrance to the house.” Id., at 590. What
lies behind that line is of course not inviolable. An offcer
may always enter a home with a proper warrant. And as
just described, exigent circumstances allow even warrantless
intrusions. See ibid.; supra, at 301–302. But the contours
of that or any other warrant exception permitting home en-
try are “jealously and carefully drawn,” in keeping with the
“centuries-old principle” that the “home is entitled to special
protection.” Georgia v. Randolph, 547 U. S. 103, 109, 115
(2006) (internal quotation marks omitted); see Caniglia v.
Strom, 593 U. S. 194, 199 (2021) (“[T]his Court has repeatedly
declined to expand the scope” of “exceptions to the warrant
requirement to permit warrantless entry into the home”).
So we are not eager—more the reverse—to print a new per-
mission slip for entering the home without a warrant.
The amicus argues, though, that we have already created
the rule she advocates. In United States v. Santana, 427
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304 LANGE
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Opinion of the Court
U. S. 38 (1976), the main case she relies on, police offcers
drove
to Dominga Santana's house with probable cause to
think that Santana was dealing drugs, a felony under the
applicable law. When the offcers pulled up, they saw San-
tana standing in her home's open doorway, some 15 feet
away. As they got out of the van and yelled “police,” San-
tana “retreated into [the house's] vestibule.” Id., at 40.
The offcers followed her in, and discovered heroin. We up-
held the warrantless entry as one involving a police “hot pur-
suit,” even though the chase “ended almost as soon as it
began.” Id., at 43. Citing “a realistic expectation that any
delay would result in destruction of evidence,” we recog-
nized the offcers' “need to act quickly.” Id., at 42–43. But
we framed our holding in broader terms: Santana's “act of
retreating into her house,” we stated, could “not defeat an
arrest” that had “been set in motion in a public place.” Ibid.
The amicus takes that statement to support a fat rule per-
mitting warrantless home entry when police offcers (with
probable cause) are pursuing any suspect—whether a felon
or a misdemeanant. See Brief for Amicus Curiae 11, 26.
For support, she points to a number of later decisions de-
scribing Santana in dicta as allowing warrantless home en-
tries when police are “in `hot pursuit' of a fugitive” or “a
feeing suspect.” E. g., Steagald v. United States, 451 U. S.
204, 221 (1981); King, 563 U. S., at 460. The concurrence
echoes her arguments.
We disagree with that broad understanding of Santana, as
we have suggested before. In rejecting the amicus's view,
we see no need to consider Lange's counterargument that
Santana did not establish any categorical rule—even one for
feeing felons. See Brief for Petitioner 7, 25 (contending
that Santana is “entirely consistent” with “case-by-case exi-
gency analysis” because the Court “carefully based [its] hold-
ing on [the] specifc facts” and “circumstances”). Assuming
Santana treated feeing-felon cases categorically (that is, as
always presenting exigent circumstances allowing warrant-
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305
Opinion of the Court
less entry), see, e. g., Stanton v. Sims, 571 U. S. 3, 8 (2013)
(
per curiam); McNeely, 569 U. S., at 149; King, 563 U. S., at
450, it still said nothing about feeing misdemeanants. We
said as much in Stanton, when we approved qualifed immu-
nity for an offcer who had pursued a suspected misdemean-
ant into a home. Describing the same split of authority we
took this case to address, we stated that “the law regarding
warrantless entry in hot pursuit of a feeing misdemeanant
is not clearly established” (so that the offcer could not
be held liable for damages). 571 U. S., at 6, 10. In other
words, we found that neither Santana nor any other decision
had resolved the matter one way or the other. And we left
things in that unsettled state. See 571 U. S., at 10. San-
tana, we noted, addressed a police pursuit “involv[ing] a
felony suspect,” 571 U. S., at 9; whether the same approach
governed a misdemeanor chase was an issue for a future
case.
Key to resolving that issue are two facts about misde-
meanors: They vary widely, but they may be (in a word)
“minor.” Welsh, 466 U. S., at 750. In California and else-
where, misdemeanors run the gamut of seriousness. As the
amicus notes, some involve violence. California, for exam-
ple, classifes as misdemeanors various forms of assault.
See Cal. Penal Code Ann. § 241 (West Cum. Supp. 2021);
Brief for Amicus Curiae 15a–16a. And across the country,
“many perpetrators of domestic violence are charged with
misdemeanors,” despite “the harmfulness of their conduct.”
Voisine v. United States, 579 U. S. 686, 689 (2016). So “a
`felon' is” not always “more dangerous than a misdemean-
ant.” Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U. S. 1, 14 (1985). But call-
ing an offense a misdemeanor usually limits prison time to
one year. See 1 W. LaFave, J. Israel, N. King, & O. Kerr,
Criminal Procedure § 1.8(c) (4th ed. Supp. 2020). States
thus tend to apply that label to less violent and less danger-
ous crimes. In California, it is a misdemeanor to litter on a
public beach. See Cal. Penal Code Ann. § 374.7(a) (2020).

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And to “negligently cut” a plant “growing upon public land.”
§
384a(a)(2), (f ). And to “willfully disturb[ ] another person
by loud and unreasonable noise.” § 415(2). And (last one)
to “artifcially color[ ] any live chicks [or] rabbits.” § 599(b).
In forbidding such conduct, California is no outlier. Most
States count as misdemeanors such offenses as traffc viola-
tions, public intoxication, and disorderly conduct. See, e. g.,
Tex. Transp. Code Ann. § 545.413(a), (d) (West 2011) (driving
without a seatbelt); Ill. Comp. Stat., ch. 610, § 90/1 (West
2018) (drinking alcohol in a railroad car); Ark. Code Ann.
§ 5–71–207(a)(3), (b) (2016) (using obscene language likely to
promote disorder). So the amicus's (and concurrence's) rule
would cover lawbreakers of every type, including quite a few
hard to think alarming.
This Court has held that when a minor offense alone is
involved, police offcers do not usually face the kind of emer-
gency that can justify a warrantless home entry. In Welsh,
offcers responded to a call about a drunk driver only to dis-
cover he had abandoned his vehicle and walked home. See
466 U. S., at 742–743. So no police pursuit was necessary,
hot or otherwise. The offcers just went to the driver's
house, entered without a warrant, and arrested him for a
“nonjailable” offense. Ibid. The State contended that exi-
gent circumstances supported the entry because the driver's
“blood-alcohol level might have dissipated while the police
obtained a warrant.” Id., at 754. We rejected that argu-
ment on the ground that the driver had been charged with
only a minor offense. “[T]he gravity of the underlying of-
fense,” we reasoned, is “an important factor to be considered
when determining whether any exigency exists.” Id., at
753. “[W]hen only a minor offense has been committed”
(again, without any fight), there is reason to question
whether a compelling law enforcement need is present; so it
is “particularly appropriate” to “hesitat[e] in fnding exigent
circumstances.” Id., at 750. And we concluded: “[A]pplica-
tion of the exigent-circumstances exception in the context of

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Opinion of the Court
a home entry should rarely be sanctioned when there is prob-
able
cause to believe that only a minor offense” is involved.
Id., at 753.
2
Add a suspect's fight and the calculus changes—but not
enough to justify the amicus's categorical rule. We have no
doubt that in a great many cases fight creates a need for
police to act swiftly. A suspect may fee, for example, be-
cause he is intent on discarding evidence. Or his fight may
show a willingness to fee yet again, while the police
await a warrant. But no evidence suggests that every case
of misdemeanor fight poses such dangers. Recall that mis-
demeanors can target minor, non-vi olent conduct. See
supra, at 305–306. Welsh held that when that is so, offcers
can probably take the time to get a warrant. And at times
that will be true even when a misdemeanant has forced the
police to pursue him (especially given that “pursuit” may
cover just a few feet of ground, see supra, at 304). Those
suspected of minor offenses may fee for innocuous reasons
and in non-threatening ways. Consider from the casebooks:
the man with a mental disability who, in response to offcers
asking him about “fdgeting with [a] mailbox,” retreated in
“a
hurried manner” to his nearby home. Carroll v. Ellington,
2
The concurrence is wrong to say that Welsh applies only to nonjailable
offenses, and not to minor crimes that are labeled misdemeanors. See
post, at 330 (Roberts, C. J., concurring in judgment). No less than four
times, Welsh framed its holding as applying to “minor offenses” generally.
466 U. S., at 750, 752–753. (By contrast, the word “nonjailable” does not
appear in its legal analysis.) The decision cited lower court cases prohib-
iting warrantless home entries when the defendant had committed a mis-
demeanor. See id., at 752. And its essential rationale applies to all
minor crimes, however labeled. As the Court stated (quoting an earlier
Justice Jackson opinion): It would “display[ ] a shocking lack of all sense
of proportion” to say that “private homes, even quarters in a tenement,
may be indiscriminately invaded at the discretion of any suspicious police
offcer engaged in following up offenses that involve no violence or threats
of it.” Id., at 751 (quoting McDonald v. United States, 335 U. S. 451, 459
(1948) (concurring opinion)).
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800 F. 3d 154, 162 (CA5 2015). Or the teenager “driving
w
ithout taillights” who on seeing a police signal “did not stop
but drove two blocks to his parents' house, ran inside, and
hid in the bathroom.” Mascorro v. Billings, 656 F. 3d 1198,
1202 (CA10 2011). In such a case, waiting for a warrant is
unlikely to hinder a compelling law enforcement need. See
id., at 1207 (“The risk of fight or escape was somewhere
between low and nonexistent[,] there was no evidence
which could have potentially been destroyed[,] and there
were no offcer or public safety concerns”). Those non-
emergency situations may be atypical. But they reveal the
overbreadth—fatal in this context—of the amicus's (and con-
currence's) rule, which would treat a dangerous offender and
the scared teenager the same. In misdemeanor cases, fight
does not always supply the exigency that this Court has
demanded for a warrantless home entry.
Our Fourth Amendment precedents thus point toward as-
sessing case by case the exigencies arising from misdemean-
ants' fight. That approach will in many, if not most, cases
allow a warrantless home entry. When the totality of
circumstances shows an emergency—such as imminent harm
to others, a threat to the offcer himself, destruction of evi-
dence, or escape from the home—the police may act without
waiting. And those circumstances, as described just above,
include the fight itself.
3
But the need to pursue a misde-
3
Given that our rule allows warrantless home entry when emergencies
like these exist, we think the concurrence's alarmism misplaced. See,
e. g., post, at 320 (opinion of Roberts, C. J.) (bewailing “danger[ ]” and
“absurd[ity]”). The concurrence spends most of its time worrying about
cases in which there are exigencies above and beyond the fight itself:
when, for example, the feeing misdemeanant will “get a gun and take aim
from inside” or “fush drugs down the toilet.” Post, at 320, 326. But again:
When an offcer reasonably believes those exigencies exist, he does not
need a categorical misdemeanor-pursuit rule to justify a warrantless home
entry. (And contrary to the concurrence's under-explained suggestion, see
post, at 325–326, assessing exigencies is no harder in this context than in any
other.) The only cases in which we and the concurrence reach a dif-

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meanant does not trigger a categorical rule allowing home
entry
, even absent a law enforcement emergency. When the
nature of the crime, the nature of the fight, and surrounding
facts present no such exigency, offcers must respect the
sanctity of the home—which means that they must get a
warrant.
B
The common law in place at the Constitution's founding
leads to the same conclusion. That law, we have many times
said, may be “instructive in determining what sorts of
searches the Framers of the Fourth Amendment regarded
as reasonable.” E. g., Steagald, 451 U. S., at 217. And the
Framers' view provides a baseline for our own day: The
Amendment “must provide at a minimum the degree of pro-
tection it afforded when it was adopted.” United States v.
Jones, 565 U. S. 400, 411 (2012); see Jardines, 569 U. S., at 5.
Sometimes, no doubt, the common law of the time is hard to
fgure out: The historical record does not reveal a limpid
legal rule. See, e. g., Payton, 445 U. S., at 592–597. Here,
we fnd it challenging to map every particular of the common
law's treatment of warrantless home entries. But the evi-
dence is clear on the question before us: The common law did
not recognize a categorical rule enabling such an entry in
every case of misdemeanor pursuit.
Like our modern precedents, the common law afforded the
home strong protection from government intrusion. As this
Court once wrote: “The zealous and frequent repetition
ferent result are cases involving fight alone, without exigencies like the
destruction of evidence, violence to others, or escape from the home. It
is telling that—although they are our sole disagreement—the concurrence
hardly talks about those “fight alone” cases. Apparently, it taxes even
the concurrence to justify as an “exigency” a warrantless entry based only
on a misdemeanant's prior retreat into his home—when the police offcers
do not reasonably believe anything harmful will happen in the time it
takes to get a warrant.

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of the adage that a `man's house is his castle' made it abun-
dantly
clear that both in England and in the Colonies `the
freedom of one's house' was one of the most vital elements
of English liberty.” Id., at 596–597 (footnote omitted); see
Semayne's Case, 5 Co. Rep. 91a, 91b, 77 Eng. Rep. 194, 195
(K. B. 1604) (“[T]he house of every one is to him as his castle
and fortress, as well for his defen[s]e against injury and vio-
lence, as for his repose” (footnote omitted)); 3 W. Blackstone,
Commentaries on the Laws of England 288 (1768) (“[E]very
man's house is looked upon by the law to be his castle of
defen[s]e and asylum”).
4
To protect that interest, “promi-
nent law lords, the Court of Common Pleas, the Court of
King 's Bench, Parliament,” and leading treatise writers all
“c[a]me to embrace” the “understanding ” that generally “a
warrant must issue” before a government offcial could enter
a house. Donohue, The Original Fourth Amendment, 83 U.
Chi. L. Rev. 1181, 1238–1239 (2016); see Davies, Recovering
the Original Fourth Amendment, 98 Mich. L. Rev. 547, 642–
646 (1999). That did not mean the Crown got the message;
its offcers often asserted power to intrude into any home
they pleased—thus adding to the colonists' list of grievances.
See Steagald, 451 U. S., at 220. But the law on the books
offered a different model: “To enter a man's house” without
a proper warrant, Lord Chief Justice Pratt proclaimed in
1763, is to attack “the liberty of the subject” and “destroy
the liberty of the kingdom.” Huckle v. Money, 2 Wils. K.
B. 206, 207, 95 Eng. Rep. 768, 769 (K. B. 1763). That was
the idea behind the Fourth Amendment.
4
In a 1763 Parliamentary debate, about searches made to enforce a tax,
William Pitt the Elder orated as follows: “The poorest man may in his
cottage bid defance to all the forces of the Crown. It may be frail; its
roof may shake; the wind may blow through it; the storm may enter; the
rain may enter; but the King of England cannot enter—all his force dares
not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement!” Miller v. United States,
357 U. S. 301, 307, and n. 7 (1958) (citing The Oxford Dictionary of Quota-
tions 379 (2d ed. 1953); 15 T. Hansard, Parliamentary History of England,
col. 1307 (1813)).

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Opinion of the Court
There was an oft-discussed exception: An offcer, according
to
the day's treatises, could enter a house to pursue a felon.
The felony category then was a good deal narrower than now.
Many modern felonies were “classifed as misdemeanors” at
common law, with the felony label mostly reserved for crimes
“punishable by death.” Garner, 471 U. S., at 13–14; see 4
W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 98
(1791) (Blackstone). In addressing those serious crimes, the
law “allow[ed of] extremities” to meet “necessity.” R. Burn,
The Justice of the Peace, and Parish Offcer 86 (6th ed. 1758).
So if a person suspected “upon probable grounds” of a felony
“fy and take house,” Sir Matthew Hale opined, then “the
constable may break open the door, tho he have no warrant.”
2 History of the Pleas of the Crown 91–92 (1736) (Hale).
Sergeant William Hawkins set out a more restrictive rule in
his widely read treatise. He wrote that a constable, “with
or without a warrant,” could “break open doors” if “pursu[-
ing]” a person “known to have committed” a felony—but not
if the person was only “under a probable suspicion.” 2 Pleas
of the Crown 138–139 (1787) (Hawkins). On the other hand,
Sir William Blackstone went broader than Hale. A consta-
ble, he thought, could “break open doors”—no less than
“upon a justice's warrant”—if he had “probable suspicion [to]
arrest [a] felon,” even absent fight or pursuit. Blackstone
292. The commentators thus differed on the scope of the
felony exception to the warrant requirement. But they
agreed on one thing: It was indeed a felony exception. All
their rules applied to felonies as a class, and to no other
whole class of crimes.
In the misdemeanor context, offcers had more limited au-
thority to intrude on a feeing suspect's home.
5
Once again,
some of the specifcs are uncertain, and commentators did
not always agree with each other. But none suggested any
5
Note, though, that if a person had already been arrested and then es-
caped from custody, an offcer could always search for him at home. See
2 W. Hawkins, Pleas of the Crown 87 (1721).
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kind of all-misdemeanor-fight rule. Instead, their approval
of
entry turned on the circumstances. One set of cases in-
volved what might be called pre-felonies. Blackstone ex-
plained that “break[ing] open doors” was allowable not only
“in case of [a] felony” but also in case of “a dangerous wound-
ing whereby [a] felony is like[ly] to ensue.” Ibid. In other
words, the felony rule extended to crimes that would become
felonies if the victims died. See Hale 94.
6
Another set of
cases involved crimes, mostly violent themselves, liable to
provoke felonious acts. Often called “affrays” or “breaches
of the peace,” a typical example was “the fghting of two
or more persons” to “the terror of his majesty's subjects.”
Blackstone 145, 150.
7
Because that conduct created a “dan-
ger of felony”—because when it occurred, “there is likely to
be manslaughter or bloodshed committed”—“the constable
may break open the doors to keep the peace.” Hale 90, 95
(emphasis deleted); see Hawkins 139 (blessing a warrantless
entry “where those who have made an affray in [the consta-
ble's] presence fy to a house, and are immediately pursued”).
Hale also approved a warrantless entry to stop a more mun-
dane form of harm: He (though not other commentators)
thought a constable could act to “suppress the disorder” as-
sociated with “drinking or noise in a house at an unseason-
6
Both felonies and pre-felonies justifed the common law's “hue and cry”:
when a constable or other person “raise[d] the power of the towne”—“with
horn and with voice”—to pursue an offender. 3 E. Coke, Institutes of the
Laws of England 116 (1644); Blackstone 293. Most of the common-law
authorities approved warrantless home entries upon a hue and cry. But
because that process was generally available only to apprehend felons and
those who had “dangerously wounded any person,” it did not enlarge the
range of qualifying offenses. Hale 98; see Brief for Constitutional Ac-
countability Center as Amicus Curiae 17–18.
7
The term “breach of the peace” can today encompass many kinds of
behavior, and even in common-law times it “meant very different things
in different” contexts. Atwater v. Lago Vista, 532 U. S. 318, 327, n. 2
(2001). But “[m]ore often than not, when used in reference to common-
law arrest power, the term seemed to connote an element of violence.”
Id., at 327–328, n. 2.

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Opinion of the Court
able time of night.” Hale 95. But differences aside, all the
comment
ators focused on the facts of cases: When a sus-
pected misdemeanant, feeing or otherwise, threatened no
harm, the constable had to get a warrant.
The common law thus does not support a categorical rule
allowing warrantless home entry when a misdemeanant
fees. It had a rule of that kind for felonies. But much as
in Welsh centuries later, the common law made distinctions
based on “the gravity of the underlying offense.” 466 U. S.,
at 753. When it came to misdemeanors, fight alone was not
enough. Whether a constable could make a warrantless
entry depended as well on other circumstances suggesting a
potential for harm and a need to act promptly.
8
In that way,
the common-law rules (even if sometimes hard to discern
with precision) mostly mirror our modern caselaw. The for-
mer too demanded—and often found—a law enforcement
exigency before an offcer could “break open” a feeing misde-
meanant's doors. Blackstone 292.
III
The fight of a suspected misdemeanant does not always
justify a warrantless entry into a home. An offcer must
consider all the circumstances in a pursuit case to determine
whether there is a law enforcement emergency. On many
occasions, the offcer will have good reason to enter—to pre-
vent imminent harms of violence, destruction of evidence, or
escape from the home. But when the offcer has time to get
a warrant, he must do so—even though the misdemeanant
fed.
8
The concurrence professes to disagree with this conclusion, see post, at
335–337 (opinion of Roberts, C. J.), but its account of the common law
ends up in much the same place as ours. The concurrence recognizes a
categorical rule permitting warrantless home entry in pursuit of feeing
felons. See post, at 335. But for misdemeanants, the concurrence pre-
sents only discrete circumstances—mostly the same as ours—allowing
home entry without a warrant. Post, at 335–336. Those particular in-
stances of permissible entry do not create a categorical rule.
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314 LANGE
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Kavanaugh, J., concurring
Because the California Court of Appeal applied the
categor
ical rule we reject today, we vacate its judgment and
remand the case for further proceedings not inconsistent
with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice Kavanaugh, concurring.
The Court holds that an offcer may make a warrantless
entry into a home when pursuing a feeing misdemeanant if
an exigent circumstance is also present—for example, when
there is a risk of escape, destruction of evidence, or harm to
others. I join the Court's opinion. I also join Part II of
Justice Thomas’s concurrence regarding how the exclusion-
ary rule should apply to hot pursuit cases.
I add this brief concurrence simply to underscore that, in
my view, there is almost no daylight in practice between the
Court's opinion and The Chief Justice’s opinion concurring
in the judgment.
In his thoughtful opinion, The Chief Justice concludes
that pursuit of a feeing misdemeanant should itself con-
stitute an exigent circumstance. The Court disagrees. As
I see it, however, the di fference between The Chief
Justice's approach and the Court's approach will be aca-
demic in most cases. That is because cases of feeing misde-
meanants will almost always also involve a recognized
exigent circumstance—such as a risk of escape, destruction
of evidence, or harm to others—that will still justify warrant-
less entry into a home. See ante, at 298–299, 301–302, 313; see
also, e. g., City and County of San Francisco v. Sheehan, 575
U. S. 600, 612 (2015); Kentucky v. King, 563 U. S. 452, 460
(2011); Brigham City v. Stuart, 547 U. S. 398, 403 (2006); Min-
nesota v. Olson, 495 U. S. 91, 100 (1990). As Lange's able
counsel forthrightly acknowledged at oral argument, the ap-
proach adopted by the Court today will still allow the police to
make a warrantless entry into a home “nine times out of 10 or
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315
Opinion of Thomas, J.
more” in cases involving pursuit of a feeing misdemeanant.
Tr
. of Oral Arg. 34.
Importantly, moreover, the Court's opinion does not dis-
turb the long-settled rule that pursuit of a feeing felon is
itself an exigent circumstance justifying warrantless entry
into a home. See United States v. Santana, 427 U. S. 38,
42–43 (1976); cf. Stanton v. Sims, 571 U. S. 3, 8, 9 (2013) (per
curiam). In other words, the police may make a warrant-
less entry into the home of a feeing felon regardless of
whether other exigent circumstances are present.
With those observations, I join the Court's opinion.
Justice Thomas, with whom Justice kavanaugh joins
as to Part II, concurring in part and concurring in the
judgment.
I join the majority opinion, except for Part II–A, which
correctly rejects the argument that suspicion that a person
committed any crime justifes warrantless entry into a home
in hot pursuit of that person. I write separately to note two
things: the general case-by-case rule that the Court an-
nounces today is subject to historical, categorical exceptions;
and under our precedent, the federal exclusionary rule does
not apply to evidence discovered in the course of pursuing a
feeing suspect.
I
The majority sets out a general rule requiring a case-by-
case inquiry when an offcer enters a home without a warrant
in pursuit of a person suspected of committing a misde-
meanor. But history suggests several categorical excep-
tions to this rule. First, warrantless entry is categorically
allowed when a person is arrested and escapes. E. g., J.
Parker, Conductor Generalis 28–29 (1788) (constables may
break into houses without a warrant “[w]herever a person is
lawfully arrested for any cause, and afterwards escapes, and
shelters himself in an house”); ante, at 311, n. 5. This excep-
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tion is potentially very broad. See Torres v. Madrid, 592
U
. S. 306, 309 (2021) (holding that an arrest occurs whenever
an offcer applies physical force to the body with intent to
restrain); Genner v. Sparks, 6 Mod. 173, 174, 87 Eng. Rep.
928, 929 (Q. B. 1704). Second, authorities at common law
categorically allowed warrantless entry when in hot pursuit
of a person who committed an affray. Ante, at 312. Third,
those authorities allowed the same for what the majority
calls certain “pre-felonies.” Ibid. Finally, some authorities
appear to have allowed warrantless entry when in pursuit of
a person who had breached the peace. See, e. g., 2 M. Hale,
History of the Pleas of the Crown 95 (1736) (Hale); Wilgus,
Arrest Without a Warrant, 22 Mich. L. Rev. 798, 802–803
(1924). What crimes amounted to “breach of peace” for pur-
poses of warrantless entry is not immediately clear. The
term sometimes was used to refer to violence, but the majority
recognizes historical support for a broader defnition. Ante,
at 312–313 (citing Hale 95). And cases decided before and
after the Fourteenth Amendment was ratifed similarly used
the term “breach of peace” in a broad sense. E. g., State v.
Lafferty, 5 Del. 491 (1854) (“blow[ing] a trumpet at night
through the streets”); Hawkins v. Lutton, 95 Wis. 492, 494,
70 N. W. 483 (1897) (“loud, profane, and indecent” language).
I join the relevant parts of the majority on the understand-
ing that its general case-by-case rule does not foreclose
historical, categorical exceptions. Although the majority
unnecessarily leads with doctrine before history, it does not
disturb our regular rule that history—not court-created
standards of reasonableness—dictates the outcome when-
ever it provides an answer. See, e. g., Wilson v. Arkansas,
514 U. S. 927, 931 (1995); Virginia v. Moore, 553 U. S. 164,
171 (2008).
I also join on the understanding that the majority has not
sought to settle the contours of any of these historical
exceptions.

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Opinion of Thomas, J.
II
I
also write to point out that even if the state courts on
remand conclude that the offcer's entry here was unlawful,
the federal exclusionary rule does not require suppressing
any evidence.
“[O]ffcers who violated the Fourth Amendment were tra-
ditionally considered trespassers. ” U tah v. Str i e ff, 579
U. S. 232, 237 (2016). For that reason, “individuals subject
to unconstitutional searches or seizures historically enforced
their rights through tort suits or self-help.” Ibid. But
beginning in the 20th century, this Court created a new rem-
edy: exclusion of evidence in criminal trials. Ibid.
Est abl ish i ng a v i olati on of the Four th Amendment,
though, does not automatically entitle a criminal defendant
to exclusion of evidence. Far from it. “[T]he exclusionary
rule is not an individual right.” Herring v. United States,
555 U. S. 135, 141 (2009). It is a “ `prudential' doctrine cre-
ated by this Court,” Davis v. United States, 564 U. S. 229,
236 (2011) (citation omitted), and there is always a “high
obstacle for those urging application of the rule,” Pennsylva-
nia Bd. of Probation and Parole v. Scott, 524 U. S. 357, 364–
365 (1998). Relevant here, the rule “does not apply when
the costs of exclusion outweigh its deterrent benefts.”
Strieff, 579 U. S., at 235.
On the benefts side, “we have said time and again that the
sole” factor courts can consider is “deter[ring] misconduct by
law enforcement.” Davis, 564 U. S., at 246. And not just
any misconduct. The exclusionary rule developed to deter
“intentional conduct that was patently unconstitutional.”
Herring, 555 U. S., at 143 (emphasis added). For the past
several decades, we have thus declined to exclude evidence
where exclusion would not substantially deter “intentional”
and “fagrant” behavior. Id., at 144. For example, the
exclusionary rule does not apply where “some intervening
circumstance” arises between unconstitutional conduct and
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discovery of evidence, Strieff, 579 U. S., at 238; where evi-
dence
would inevitably have been discovered, ibid.; or where
offcers have acted in good faith, United States v. Leon, 468
U. S. 897, 908 (1984).
On the other side of the ledger, we consider all “costs.”
E. g., Davis, 564 U. S., at 237. One cost is especially salient:
excluding evidence under the Fourth Amendment always ob-
structs the “ `truth-fnding functions of judge and jury.' ”
Leon, 468 U. S., at 907; accord, Nix v. Williams, 467 U. S.
431, 443 (1984) (recognizing “the public interest in having
juries receive all probative evidence”). This interference
with the purpose of the judicial system also creates a down-
stream risk that “some guilty defendants may go free or
receive reduced sentences.” Leon, 468 U. S., at 907.
By itself, this high cost makes exclusion under our prece-
dent rarely appropriate. “Suppression of evidence . . . has
always been our last resort, not our frst impulse.” Hudson
v. Michigan, 547 U. S. 586, 591 (2006). When additional
costs are present, the ba lance tips decisively agai nst
exclusion.
Cases of feeing suspects involve more than enough added
costs to render the exclusionary rule inapplicable. First,
our precedents make clear that the exclusionary rule does
not apply when it would encourage bad conduct by criminal
defendants. For example, evidence obtained during an un-
lawful search is still admissible to impeach a witness because
exclusion would create “ `a license to use perjury.' ” United
States v. Havens, 446 U. S. 620, 626 (1980). Here, exclusion
is inappropriate because it would encourage suspects to fee.
Second, our precedents similarly make clear that criminal
defendants cannot use the exclusionary rule as “a shield
against” their own bad conduct. Walder v. United States,
347 U. S. 62, 65 (1954). In most—if not all—States, feeing
from police after a lawful order to stop is a crime. All the
evidence that petitioner seeks to exclude is evidence that
inevitably would have been discovered had he complied with
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319
Roberts, C. J., concurring in judgment
the offcer's order to stop. A criminal defendant should
“
not . . . be put in a better position than [he] would have
been in if no illegality had transpired.” Nix, 467 U. S., at
443–444.
Aware of the substantial costs created by the exclusionary
rule, courts have sometimes narrowed the protections histor-
ically afforded by the Fourth Amendment to avoid having to
exclude evidence. See Collins v. Virginia, 584 U. S. 586, 601
(2018) (Thomas, J., concurring); A. Amar, The Constitution
and Criminal Procedure: First Principles 30 (1997) (“Judges
do not like excluding bloody knives, so they distort doc-
trine”). But it should be the judicially created remedy, not
the Fourth Amendment, that contracts in the face of that
pressure. Courts should follow the plain dictates of our
precedent: Offcers cannot chase a feeing person into a home
simply because that person is suspected of having committed
any misdemeanor, but if the offcer nonetheless does so, ex-
clusion under the Fourth Amendment is improper. Crimi-
nal defendants must rely on other remedies.
Chief Justice Roberts, with whom Justice Alito
joins, concurring in the judgment.
Suppose a police offcer on patrol responds to a report of
a man assaulting a teenager. Arriving at the scene, the of-
fcer sees the teenager vainly trying to ward off the assailant.
The offcer attempts to place the assailant under arrest, but
he takes off on foot. He leads the offcer on a chase over
several blocks as the offcer yells for him to stop. With the
offcer closing in, the suspect leaps over a fence and then
stands on a home's front yard. He claims it's his home and
tells the offcer to stay away. What is the offcer to do?
The Fourth Amendment and our precedent—not to men-
tion common sense—provide a clear answer: The offcer can
enter the property to complete the arrest he lawfully initi-
ated outside it. But the Court today has a different take.
Holding that fight, on its own, can never justify a warrant-
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Roberts, C. J., concurring in judgment
less entry into a home (including its curtilage), the Court
requires
that the offcer: (1) stop and consider whether the
suspect—if apprehended—would be charged with a misde-
meanor or a felony, and (2) tally up other “exigencies” that
might be present or arise, ante, at 298–299, 301–302, before
(3) deciding whether he can complete the arrest or must in-
stead seek a warrant—one that, in all likelihood, will not
arrive for hours. Meanwhile, the suspect may stroll into the
home and then dash out the back door. Or, for all the offcer
knows, get a gun and take aim from inside.
The Constitution does not demand this absurd and danger-
ous result. We should not impose it. As our precedent
makes clear, hot pursuit is not merely a setting in which
other exigent circumstances justifying warrantless entry
might emerge. It is itself an exigent circumstance. And
we have never held that whether an offcer may enter a home
to complete an arrest turns on what the feeing individual
was suspected of doing before he took off, let alone whether
that offense would later be charged as a misdemeanor or fel-
ony. It is the fight, not the underlying offense, that has
always been understood to justify the general rule: “Police
offcers may enter premises without a warrant when they
are in hot pursuit of a feeing suspect.” Kentucky v. King,
563 U. S. 452, 460 (2011). The Court errs by departing from
that well-established rule.
I
A
The Fourth Amendment protects “[t]he right of the people
to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects,
against unreasonable searches and seizures” and provides
that “no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause.”
While the Amendment does not specify when a warrant must
be obtained, we have typically required that offcers secure
one before entering a home to execute a search or seizure.
King, 563 U. S., at 459. We have also, however, recognized
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exceptions to that requirement “because the ultimate touch-
s
tone of the Four th Amendment is `reasonableness. ' ”
Brigham City v. Stuart, 547 U. S. 398, 403 (2006).
In some instances the Court has determined that this
question of reasonableness can be decided by application of
a rule for a particular type of case. Mitchell v. Wisconsin,
588 U. S. 840, 849–850, n. 2 (2019) (plurality opinion); see Illi-
nois v. McArthur, 531 U. S. 326, 330 (2001) (“[T]his Court
has interpreted the Amendment as establishing rules and
presumptions.”). This approach refects our recognition of
the need “to provide clear guidance to law enforcement.”
Riley v. California, 573 U. S. 373, 398 (2014). We strive to
“draw standards suffciently clear and simple to be applied
with a fair prospect of surviving judicial second-guessing
months and years after an arrest or search is made.” At-
water v. Lago Vista, 532 U. S. 318, 347 (2001).
We have, for example, established general rules giving ef-
fect to the “well-recognized exception [that] applies when the
exigencies of the situation make the needs of law enforce-
ment so compelling that [a] warrantless search is objectively
reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.” King, 563 U. S.,
at 460 (some alterations in original; internal quotation marks
omitted). In fact, “our exigency case law is full of general
rules” that provide “guidance on how police should handle
[such] cases.” Mitchell, 588 U. S., at 850, n. 3 (plurality opin-
ion) (internal quotation marks omitted). These rules allow
warrantless entry into the home when necessary to “protect
individuals who are threatened with imminent harm, or pre-
vent the imminent destruction of evidence.” Carpenter v.
United States, 585 U. S. 296, 320 (2018). Or—relevant
here—“to pursue a feeing suspect.” Ibid.
We take a case-by-case approach in deciding whether a
search or seizure was conducted in reaction to an exigent
circumstance, such as whether an offcer had an objective
basis to “fear the imminent destruction of evidence.” Birch-
feld v. North Dakota, 579 U. S. 438, 456 (2016). But once
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faced with an exigency, our rule is clear: offcers are “not
bound
to learn anything more or wait any longer before
going in.” United States v. Banks, 540 U. S. 31, 40 (2003).
Today, the Court holds that hot pursuit merely sets the
table for other exigencies that may emerge to justify war-
rantless entry, such as imminent harm. This comes as a sur-
prise. For decades we have consistently recognized pursuit
of a feeing suspect as an exigency, one that on its own justi-
fes warrantless entry into a home.
Almost a half century ago in United States v. Santana, 427
U. S. 38 (1976), we considered whether hot pursuit supports
warrantless home entry. We held that such entry was justi-
fed when Santana “retreat[ed] into her house” after a drug
transaction upon hearing law enforcement “shout[ ] `police' ”
and seeing them “display[ ] their identifcation.” Id., at 40,
42. As we explained, “a suspect may not defeat an arrest
which has been set in motion in a public place . . . by the
expedient of escaping to a private place.” Id., at 43. Our
interpretation of the Fourth Amendment did not hinge on
whether the offense that precipitated her withdrawal was a
felony or a misdemeanor. See Stanton v. Sims, 571 U. S. 3,
9 (2013) (per curiam).
We have repeatedly and consistently reaffrmed that hot
pursuit is itself an exigent circumstance. See, e. g., Carpen-
ter, 585 U. S., at 319–320 (“[E]xigencies include the need to
pursue a feeing suspect.”); Collins v. Virginia, 584 U. S.
586, 599 (2018) (distinguishing prior case approving warrant-
less entry onto the curtilage as best sounding in “hot pur-
suit”); Birchfeld, 579 U. S., at 456 (exception for exigent cir-
cumstances authorizes “the warrantless entry of private
property . . . when police are in hot pursuit of a feeing sus-
pect”); King, 563 U. S., at 460 (“Police offcers may enter
premises without a warrant when they are in hot pursuit of
a feeing suspect.”); Brigham City, 547 U. S., at 403 (“We
have held, for example, that law enforcement offcers may
make a warrantless entry onto private property . . . to en-
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gage in `hot pursuit' of a feeing suspect.”); Steagald v.
U
nited States, 451 U. S. 204, 221 (1981) (“[W]arrantless entry
of a home would be justifed if the police were in `hot pursuit'
of a fugitive.”); see also Mitchell, 588 U. S., at 871 (Soto-
mayor, J., dissenting) (“ `hot pursuit' of a feeing suspect”
qualifes as an exigency); Missouri v. McNeely, 569 U. S. 141,
176–177 (2013) (Thomas, J., dissenting) (same).
These cases, it bears repeating, have not viewed hot pur-
suit as merely the background against which other exigen-
cies justifying warrantless entry might arise. See, e. g.,
Carpenter, 585 U. S., at 319–320 (identifying destruction of
evidence, emergency aid, and hot pursuit as separate exigen-
cies); Birchfeld, 579 U. S., at 456 (same); McNeely, 569 U. S.,
at 148–149 (opinion of the Court) (same); King, 563 U. S., at
460 (same); Brigham City, 547 U. S., at 403 (same); see also
Mitchell, 588 U. S., at 871 (Sotomayor, J., dissenting) (same).
And our decisions do not dismiss the existence of an exi-
gency—including hot pursuit—based on the underlying of-
fense that precipitated law enforcement action, even if
known. To the contrary, until today, we have explicitly re-
jected invitations to do so. See Brigham City, 547 U. S., at
405 (dismissing defendants' contention that offenses at issue
were “not serious enough” to justify reliance on the emer-
gency aid doctrine); Michigan v. Fisher, 558 U. S. 45, 47
(2009) (per curiam); see also Atwater, 532 U. S., at 354 (re-
jecting exception for “very minor criminal offense[s]” to rule
allowing warrantless arrests).
The Court displays little patience for this precedent.
With regard to Santana, the Court concedes that “we
framed our holding in broad[ ] terms.” Ante, at 304. Yet it
narrows those terms based on rationales that played no role
in the decision. The Court then brushes off our slew of
cases reaffrming Santana's broad holding as nothing more
than “dicta.” Ante, at 304. I would not override decades
of guidance to law enforcement in favor of a new rule that
provides no guidance at all.
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B
A
proper consideration of the interests at stake confrms
the position our precedent amply supports. Pursuit impli-
cates substantial government interests, regardless of the of-
fense precipitating the fight. It is the fight, not the under-
lying offense, that justifes the entry.
At the start, every hot pursuit implicates the government
interest in ensur ing compl iance w ith law enforcement.
California v. Hodari D., 499 U. S. 621, 627 (1991). Flight is
a direct attempt to evade arrest and thereby frustrate our
“society's interest in having its laws obeyed.” Terry v.
Ohio, 392 U. S. 1, 26 (1968). Disregarding an order to yield
to law enforcement authority cannot be dismissed with a
shrug of the shoulders simply because the underlying offense
is regarded as “innocuous,” ante, at 307. As the many state
courts to approve of warrantless entry in hot pursuit have
reminded us, “[l]aw enforcement is not a child's game of pris-
oners base, or a contest, with apprehension and conviction
depending upon whether the offcer or defendant is the
feetest of foot.” Commonwealth v. Jewett, 471 Mass. 624,
634, 31 N. E. 3d 1079, 1089 (2015) (quoting State v. Ricci, 144
N. H. 241, 245, 739 A. 2d 404, 408 (1999)).
Flight also always involves the “paramount” government
interest in public safety. Scott v. Harris, 550 U. S. 372, 383
(2007); see Hodari D., 499 U. S., at 627 (“Street pursuits
always place the public at some risk, and compliance with
police orders to stop should therefore be encouraged.”). A
feeing suspect “intentionally place[s] himself and the public
in danger.” Scott, 550 U. S., at 384. Vehicular pursuits, in
particular, are often catastrophic. See Dept. of Justice,
Bureau of Justice Statistics, B. Reaves, Police Vehicle Pur-
suits, 2012–2013, p. 6 (May 2017) (average of about one death
per day in the United States from vehicle pursuits from 1996
to 2015). Affording suspects the opportunity to evade ar-
rest by winning the race rewards fight and encourages dan-
gerous behavior.
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And the problems do not end there because hot pursuit
of
ten gives rise to multiple other exigencies, such as destruc-
tion of evidence, violence, and escape. The Court acknowl-
edges this reality, but then posits that not “every case of
misdemeanor fight poses such dangers.” Ante, at 307 (em-
phasis added). Of course not. But we have never required
such a level of certainty before crafting a general rule that
law enforcement can follow. For example, in Washington v.
Chrisman, 455 U. S. 1 (1982), we held that an offcer may
accompany an arrestee into his residence without any show-
ing of exigency and regardless of the “nature of the offense
for which the arrest was made,” because there “is no way
for an offcer to predict reliably how a particular subject will
react to arrest” and “the possibility that an arrested person
will attempt to escape if not properly supervised is obvious.”
Id., at 6–7. In Michigan v. Summers, 452 U. S. 692 (1981),
we concluded that, although “no special danger to the police”
was suggested by the evidence in the record, the execution
of a search warrant merited a categorical rule allowing de-
tention of present individuals because it was the “kind of
transaction” that could give rise to other exigencies. Id., at
702. And in United States v. Robinson, 414 U. S. 218 (1973),
we held that the search incident to arrest exception applies
to all arrests regardless “what a court may later decide was
the probability in a particular arrest situation that weapons
or evidence would in fact be found,” because arrests require
“quick ad hoc judgment[s].” Id., at 235.
Such concerns are magnifed here. The act of pursuing a
feeing suspect makes simultaneously assessing which other
exigencies might arise especially diffcult to ascertain “on the
spur (and in the heat) of the moment.” Atwater, 532 U. S., at
347. The Court disputes this proposition, ante, at 308–309,
n. 3, but the diffculty of discerning hidden weapons or drugs
on a suspect running or driving away seems clear to us.
The risks to offcer safety posed by the Court's suggestion
that an offcer simply abandon pursuit and await a warrant
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are severe. We are warned in this case that “attempting
warrant
service for an unknown suspect in an unknown home
at night is fat dangerous.” Brief for Sonoma County Dis-
trict Attorney's Offce et al. as Amici Curiae 33. Whether
at night or during the day, the offcer is obviously vulnerable
to those inside the home while awaiting a warrant, including
danger from a suspect who has already demonstrated himself
to be undeterred by police orders. See, e. g., Thompson v.
Florence, 2019 WL 3220051, *4 (ND Ala., July 17, 2019) (at
feeing suspect's urging, resident grabbed a handgun); State
v. Davis, 2000–278, p. 5 (La. App. 5 Cir. 8/29/00), 768 So. 2d
201, 206 (feeing suspect “reached for a handgun” inside
home).
Even if the area outside the home remains tranquil, the
suspect inside is free to destroy evidence or continue his es-
cape. Flight is obviously suggestive of these recognized ex-
igencies, which could materialize promptly once the offcer is
compelled to abandon pursuit. The destruction of evidence
can take as little as “15 or 20 seconds,” Banks, 540 U. S., at
38; and a suspect can dash out the back door just as quickly,
while the offcer must wait outside. Forcing the offcer to
wait and predict whether such exigencies will occur before
entry is in practice no different from forcing the offcer to
wait for these exigencies to occur.
Indeed, from the perspective of the offcer, many instances
of fight leading to further wrongdoing are the sort of “fight
alone” cases the Court deems harmless, ante, at 309, n. 3.
Despite the Court's suggestion to the contrary, examples of
“fight alone” generating exigencies diffcult to identify in ad-
vance are not hard to fnd. See, e. g. State v. Lam, 2013-
Ohio-505, 989 N. E. 2d 100, 101–102 (App.) (warrantless entry
in hot pursuit of someone who committed turn signal viola-
tion revealed heroin on suspect and suggested attempt to
fush drugs down the toilet); State v. Mitchem, 2014-Ohio-
2366, 2014 WL 2565680, *1 (App., June 4, 2014) (suspect who
committed trespass, fed from the police into private drive-
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way, and stated to offcers “[Y]ou can't touch me, I'm at my
house
,” turned out to have a gun). (And, as we will see, it
is apparently hard to decide which cases qualify as “fight
alone” cases, see infra, at 334.)
If the suspect continues to fee through the house, while
the offcer must wait, even the quickest warrant will be far
too late. Only in the best circumstances can one be obtained
in under an hour, see Brief for Respondent 33, and it usually
takes much longer than that, see Brief for Los Angeles
County Police Chiefs' Association as Amicus Curiae 24–25.
Even electronic warrants may involve “time-consuming for-
malities.” McNeely, 569 U. S., at 155. And some States
typically require that a warrant application be in writing,
see, e. g., Colo. Rev. Stat. § 16–3–303 (2020), or that the appli-
cant appear in person before a judge, see, e. g., Mass. Gen.
Laws, ch. 276, § 2B (2019), or permit oral applications only
for certain cases, see, e. g., Iowa Code § 321J.10.3 (2019). All
of these factors make it very possible that the offcer will
never be able to identify the suspect if he cannot continue the
pursuit. See Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial Dist. Court of Nev.,
Humboldt Cty., 542 U. S. 177, 186 (2004) (recognizing identi-
fcation as an “important government interest[ ]”). The
Court today creates “perverse incentives” by imposing an
“invitation to impunity-earned-by-recklessness.” Scott, 555
U. S., at 385–386.
Against these government interests we balance the sus-
pect's privacy interest in a home to which he has voluntarily
led a pursuing offcer. If the residence is not his the suspect
has no privacy interest to protect. Rakas v. Illinois, 439
U. S. 128, 141 (1978); see also State v. Walker, 2006–1045,
p. 7 (La. 4/11/07), 953 So. 2d 786, 790–791 (suspect fed into
third person's residence where he was unwelcome); Ulysse
v. State, 899 So. 2d 1233, 1234 (Fla. App. 2005) (suspect ran
inside the home of “a complete stranger”). The police may
well have no reason to know whether the suspect entered
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escape into his own home, his privacy interest is diminished
because
he was the one who chose to move his encounter
with the police there. See State v. Legg, 633 N. W. 2d 763,
773 (Iowa 2001) (nature of intrusion is “slight” in hot pursuit
because the offcer's entry “was no surprise to [the suspect];
he was following closely on her heels”); 4 W. LaFave, Search
and Seizure § 9.2(d), p. 419 (6th ed. 2020) (“the suspect has
only himself to blame for the fact that the encounter has
been moved from a public to a private area”). In cases of
hot pursuit, “[t]he offender is then not being bothered by the
police unexpectedly while in domestic tranquility. He has
gone to his home while feeing solely to escape arrest.” R.
v. Macooh, [1993] 2 S. C. R. 802, 815. Put differently, just
as arrestees have “reduced privacy interests,” Riley, 573
U. S., at 391, so too do those who evade arrest by leading the
police on car chases into their garages.
C
“In determining what is reasonable under the Fourth
Amendment, we have given great weight to the essential
interest in readily administrable rules.” Virginia v. Moore,
553 U. S. 164, 175 (2008) (internal quotation marks omitted).
This is particularly true with respect to the rules governing
exceptions to the warrant requirement because of exigent
circumstances. See Mitchell, 588 U. S., at 850, n. 3 (plurality
opinion). And contrary to the Court's suggestion, the home
is not immune from the application of such rules consistent
with the Fourth Amendment. See, e. g., Summers, 452
U. S., at 705; Chimel v. California, 395 U. S. 752, 763 (1969).
Like most rules, this one is not without exceptions or qual-
ifcations. The police cannot manufacture an unnecessary
pursuit to enable a search of a home rather than to execute
an arrest. Cf. Fernandez v. California, 571 U. S. 292, 302
(2014) (“evidence that the police have removed the poten-
tially objecting tenant from the entrance for the sake of
avoiding a possible objection” would be probative of the ob-
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jective unreasonableness of a warrantless entry based on the
consent
of another occupant). Additionally, if a reasonable
offcer would not believe that the suspect fed into the home
to “thwart an otherwise proper arrest,” Santana, 427 U. S.,
at 42, warrantless entry would not be reasonable.
Additional safeguards limit the potential for abuse. The
offcer must in all events effect a reasonable entry. United
States v. Ramirez, 523 U. S. 65, 71 (1998). As the lower
courts have recognized, hot pursuit gives the offcer author-
ity to enter a home, but “it does not have any bearing on the
constitutionality of the manner in which he enters the home.”
Trent v. Wade, 776 F. 3d 368, 382 (CA5 2015). And his au-
thority to search is circumscribed, limited to “those spaces
where a person may be found” for “no longer than it takes
to complete the arrest and depart the premises.” Maryland
v. Buie, 494 U. S. 325, 335–336 (1990). Finally, arrests con-
ducted “in an extraordinary manner, unusually harmful to an
individual's privacy or even physical interests” are subject
to even more stringent review. Whren v. United States, 517
U. S. 806, 818 (1996).
Courts must also ascertain whether a given set of circum-
stances actually qualifes as hot pursuit. While the fight
need not be reminiscent of the opening scene of a James
Bond flm, there must be “some sort of a chase.” Santana,
427 U. S., at 43. The pursuit must be “immediate or continu-
ous.” Welsh v. Wisconsin, 466 U. S. 740, 753 (1984). And
the suspect should have known the offcer intended for him
to stop. Cf. Michigan v. Chesternut, 486 U. S. 567, 573–574
(1988). Where a suspect, for example, chooses to end a vol-
untary conversation with law enforcement and go inside her
home, that does not constitute fight. Florida v. Royer, 460
U. S. 491, 497–498 (1983) (plurality opinion).
Because the California Court of Appeal assumed that hot
pursuit categorically permits warrantless entry, I would va-
cate the decision below to allow consideration of whether the
circumstances at issue in this case fall within an exception
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to the general rule of the sort outlined above. Lange would
be
free to argue that his is the “unusual case,” Mitchell, 588
U. S., at 857 (plurality opinion), in which the general rule
that hot pursuit justifes warrantless entry does not apply.
II
Now consider the regime the Court imposes. In rejecting
the amicus' proposed categorical rule favoring warrantless
home entry, the Court creates a categorical rule of its own:
Flight alone can never justify warrantless entry into a home
or its curtilage. Instead, fight is but one factor of unclear
weight to “consider,” ante, at 313, and it must be supple-
mented with at least one additional exigency. This is neces-
sary, the Court explains, because people “fee for innocuous
reasons,” ante, at 307, although the Court offers just two ac-
tual examples of “innocuous” fight, the harmlessness of which
would not have been apparent to the police, see ante, at 307–
308 (citing Carroll v. Ellington, 800 F. 3d 154, 162 (CA5 2015;
Mascorro v. Billings, 656 F. 3d 1198, 1202 (CA10 2011)).
In order to create a hot pursuit rule ostensibly specifc to
misdemeanors, the Court must turn to a case concerning nei-
ther misdemeanors nor hot pursuit. In Welsh v. Wisconsin,
we held that the warrantless entry of a drunk driver's home
to arrest him for a nonjailable offense violated the Fourth
Amendment. 466 U. S., at 754. The Court relies on Welsh
for the proposition that “when a minor offense alone is in-
volved . . . offcers can probably take the time to get a war-
rant” to execute an arrest. Ante, at 306–307. The Court's
determination that Welsh applies to all cases involving
“minor” offenses—although we never learn what qualifes as
a minor offense—ignores that we have already declined to
apply Welsh to cases involving misdemeanors because of the
“signifcant” distinction between nonjailable offenses and
misdemeanors. McArthur, 531 U. S., at 336. And in any
event, we explicitly differentiated the circumstances at issue
in Welsh from “immediate or continuous pursuit of [a person]
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from the scene of a crime.” 466 U. S., at 753; see Brigham
Ci
ty, 547 U. S., at 405 (rejecting Welsh's application to a situ-
ation involving exigent circumstance of emergency aid).
Accordingly, as we have already held, “nothing in [Welsh]
establishes that the seriousness of the crime is equally im-
portant in cases of hot pursuit.” Stanton, 571 U. S., at 9
(emphasis in original). The Court's citation to Justice Jack-
son's concurrence in McDonald v. United States, 335 U. S.
451 (1948), ante, at 307, n. 2, is similarly inapt. That case
involved entry for mere “follow[ ] up,” not anything resem-
bling hot pursuit. McDonald, 335 U. S., at 459.
The Court next limits its consideration of the interests at
stake to a balancing of what it perceives to be the govern-
ment's i nterest i n captur i ng innocuous misdemeanants
against a person's privacy interest in his home. The ques-
tion, however, is not whether “litter[ing]” presents risks to
public safety or the potential for escape, ante, at 305, but
whether fight does so. And fight from the police is never
innocuous.
The Court ultimately decides that, when it comes to misde-
meanors, States do not have as much of an interest in seeing
such laws enforced. But, as the Court concedes, we have
already rejected as “untenable” the “assumption that a
`felon' is more dangerous than a misdemeanant.” Tennessee
v. Garner, 471 U. S. 1, 14 (1985). This is so because “numer-
ous misdemeanors involve conduct more dangerous than
many felonies.” Ibid. At any rate, the fact that a suspect
fees when suspected of a minor offense could well be indica-
tive of a larger danger, given that he has voluntarily exposed
himself to much higher criminal penalties in exchange for
the prospect of escaping or delaying arrest. Cf. Illinois v.
Wardlow, 528 U. S. 119, 124 (2000).
The Court's rule is also famously diffcult to apply. The
difference between the two categories of offenses is esoteric,
to say the least. See Atwater, 532 U. S., at 350; Berkemer
v. McCarty, 468 U. S. 420, 431, n. 13 (1984) (“[O]ffcers in the
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feld frequently have neither the time nor the competence
to
determine the severity of the offense for which they are
considering arresting a person.” (internal quotation marks
omitted)). For example, driving while under the infuence
is a misdemeanor in many States, but becomes a felony if
the suspect is a serial drunk driver. See, e. g., Alaska Stat.
§ 28.35.030(n) (2020). Drug possession may be a misde-
meanor or a felony depending on the weight of the drugs.
See, e. g., Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 2925.11(C) (Lexis 2019) (out-
lining 50 potential iterations of unlawful drug possession,
some misdemeanors others felonies). Layer on top of this
that for certain offenses the exact same conduct may be
charged as a misdemeanor or felony depending on the discre-
tionary decisions of the prosecutor and the judge (what Cali-
fornia refers to as a “wobbler”), and we have a recipe for
paralysis in the face of fight. See Cal. Penal Code Ann.
§§ 486–490.1 (West Cum. Supp. 2021) (classifying theft as an
infraction, misdemeanor, wobbler, or felony depending on the
value of the stolen item).
The Court permits constitutional protections to vary based
on how each State has chosen to classify a given offense. For
example, “human traffcking ” can be a misdemeanor in Mary-
land, Md. Crim. Law Code Ann. § 3–1102(c)(1) (2021), contra,
Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 20A.02 (West Cum. Supp. 2020), and
in Pennsylvania so can involuntary manslaughter, 18 Pa. Cons.
Stat. § 2504(b) (2015); contra, Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 2903.04(C)
(Lexis 2020). The vehicular flight at issue in this very case
is classified as a felony in several States. See, e. g., Fla.
Stat. § 316.1935 (2014); Del. Code Ann., Tit. 21, § 4103 (2013).
Law enforcement entities and state governments across the
Nation tell us that they have accordingly developed stand-
ards for warrantless entry in hot pursuit tailored to their
respective legal regimes. See Brief for Los Angeles County
Police Chiefs' Association as Amicus Curiae 14–20; Brief for
State of Ohio et al. as Amici Curiae 25. Given the distinct
nature of each State's legal code, such an approach is more
appropriate than the Court's blunt constitutional reform.
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For all these reasons, we have not crafted constitutional
r
ules based on the distinction between modern day misde-
meanors and felonies. In Tennessee v. Garner, for example,
we held that deadly force could not categorically be used to
seize a feeing felon, even though the common law supplied
such a rule, because at common law the “gulf between the
felonies and the minor offences was broad and deep,” but
today it is “minor and often arbitrary.” 471 U. S., at 14 (in-
ternal quotation marks omitted).
Similarly, in Atwater, we held that the general probable-
cause rule for warrantless arrests applied to “even a very
minor criminal offense,” “without the need to balance the
interests and circumstances involved in particular situa-
tions.” 532 U. S., at 354 (internal quotation marks omitted).
We explained that we could not expect every police offcer
to automatically recall “the details of frequently complex
penalty schemes,” and concluded that distinguishing be-
tween “permissible and impermissible arrests for minor
crimes” was a “very unsatisfactory line to require police of-
fcers to draw on a moment's notice.” Id., at 348, 350 (inter-
nal quotation marks and alteration omitted).
The Court's approach is hopelessly indeterminate in other
respects as well. The Court admonishes law enforcement
to distinguish between “dangerous offender[s]” and “scared
teenager[s],” ante, at 308, as if an offcer can easily tell one
from the other, and as if the two categories are mutually
exclusive. See Dept. of Justice, Offce of Juvenile Justice
and Delinquency Prevention, Offending by Juveniles (Mar.
31, 2020) (about 16% of serious violent crimes in the United
States from 2007 to 2017 were committed by juveniles).
And police are instructed to wait for a warrant if there is
suffcient “time,” ante, at 313, but they are not told time
before what, how many hours the Court would have them
wait, and what to do if other “pressing needs” arise. See
Mitchell, 588 U. S., at 851 (plurality opinion) (“[A]n offcer's
duty to attend to more pressing needs may leave no time to
seek a warrant.”).
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The Court tut-tuts that we are making far too much of all
th
is, and that our “alarmism [is] misplaced.” Ante, at 308,
n. 3. In fact, the Court says, its “approach will in many, if not
most, cases allow a warrantless home entry.” Ante, at 308.
In support of that assurance, the Court lists several “exigen-
cies above and beyond the fight itself ” that would permit
home entry, notably when “the feeing misdemeanant” will
“escape from the home.” Ante, at 308–309, n. 3. If an offcer
“reasonably believes” such an exigency exists, the Court
says, “he does not need a categorical misdemeanor-pursuit
rule to justify a warrantless home entry.” Ante, at 308, n. 3.
When a suspect fees into a dwelling there typically will
be another way out, such as a back door or fre escape. See
Cal. Code Regs., tit. 24, §§ 1113.2, 1114.8 (2019) (apartments,
foors of high-rise buildings, and many other homes must
have access to at least two means of egress). If the offcer
reasonably believes there are multiple exits, then surely the
offcer can conclude that the suspect might well “escape from
the home,” ante, at 309, n. 3, by running out the back, rather
than “slowing down and wiping his brow” while the offcer
attempts to get a warrant. Scott, 550 U. S., at 385. Under
the Court's rule warrantless entry into a home in hot pursuit
of a feeing misdemeanant would presumably be permissible,
as long as the offcer reasonably believed the home had an-
other exit. Question: Is that correct? Police in the feld
deserve to know.
But the Court will not answer the question, leaving it to
the offcer to fgure out in the midst of hot pursuit. The
answer apparently depends on whether the police “believe
anything harmful will happen in the time it takes to get a
warrant,” ante, at 309, n. 3, but again, what the police reason-
ably believe will happen is of course that the suspect will
continue his fight and escape out the back. If that reason-
able belief is an exigency, then it is present in almost every
case of hot pursuit into the home. Perhaps that is why
Lange's counsel admitted that “nine times out of 10 or

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335
Roberts, C. J., concurring in judgment
more” warrantless entry in hot pursuit of misdemeanants
wou
ld be reasonable. Tr. of Oral Arg. 34.
III
Although the Fourth Amendment is not “frozen” in time,
we have used the common law as a reference point for assess-
ing the reasonableness of police activity. Garner, 471 U. S.,
at 13. The Court errs, however, in concluding with the sug-
gestion that history supports its novel incentive to fee.
The history is not nearly as clear as the Court suggests.
The Court is forced to rely on an argument by negative im-
plication: if common law authorities supported a categorical
rule favoring warrantless entry in pursuit of felons, warrant-
less entry in pursuit of misdemeanants must have been pro-
hibited. That is wrong. Countless sources support the
proposition that offcers could and did pursue into homes
those who had committed all sorts of offenses that the Court
seems to deem “minor.” Ante, at 305.
For example, common law authorities describe with ap-
proval warrantless home entry in pursuit of those who had
committed an affray (public fghting), 1 W. Hawkins, Pleas of
the Crown 137 (3d ed. 1739), and “disorderly drinking,” W.
Simpson, The Practical Justice of the Peace and Parish-
Offcer 26 (1761). And the doctrine of “hue and cry” permit-
ted townspeople to pursue those suspected of “misdemean-
or[s]” if the perpetrator “escape[d] into [his] house.” R.
Bevill, Law of Homicide 162–163 (1799). In colonial
America, the hue and cry extended to a “great diversity of
crimes,” including stealing livestock and revealing oneself to
be a Quaker. W. Cuddihy, The Fourth Amendment: Origins
and Original Meaning 244–246 (2009).
Finally, at common law an offcer could “break open Doors,
in order to apprehend Offenders” whenever a person was
arrested for “any Cause,” and thereafter escaped. 2 Haw-
kins, Pleas of the Crown, at 86–87 (emphasis added). The
Court's attempt to dispose of this awkward reality in a foot-
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note, ante, at 311, n. 5, is unconvincing. Flight and escape
both
present attempts to “thwart an otherwise proper ar-
rest,” Santana, 427 U. S., at 42, and as noted, the common
law did not differentiate among escapees based on the per-
ceived magnitude of their underlying offense, R. Burn, The
Justice of the Peace 101–103 (14th ed. 1780).
Clearly the list of offenses that historically justifed war-
rantless home entry in hot pursuit of a feeing suspect were
as broad and varied as those found in a contemporary compi-
lation of misdemeanors. See also Macooh, [1993] 2 S. C. R.,
at 817 (concluding after review that at common law “the
right to enter in hot pursuit” was not “limited to arrest for
felonies”); Lyons v. R., [1984] 2 S. C. R. 633, 657 (recognizing
“right of pursuit” as a longstanding exception to common law
protection of the sanctity of the home).
In the face of this evidence, the Court fails to cite a single
circumstance in which warrantless entry in hot pursuit was
found to be unlawful at common law. It then acknowledges
that “some of the specifcs are uncertain, and commentators
did not always agree with each other.” Ante, at 311. In
Atwater, we declined to forbid warrantless arrests for minor
offenses when we found “disagreement, not unanimity,
among both the common-law jurists and the text writers who
sought to pull the cases together.” 532 U. S., at 332. The
historical ambiguity is at least as pervasive here.
Even if the common law practice surrounding hot pursuit
were unassailably clear, its treatment of the topic before us
would still be incomplete. That is because the common law
did not recognize the remedy Lange seeks: exclusion of evi-
dence in a criminal case. Collins, 584 U. S., at 603 (Thomas,
J., concurring). It is often diffcult to conceive of how com-
mon law rights were infuenced by the absence of modern
remedies. And in this case we have no guidance from his-
tory as to how our doctrines surrounding the exclusionary
rule, such as inevitable discovery, would map onto situations
in which a person attempts to thwart a public arrest by re-
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treating to a private place. See Nix v. Williams, 467 U. S.
431,
443–444 (1984).
* * *
Recall the assault we started with. The offcer was clos-
ing in on the suspect when he hopped the fence and stopped
in a yard. The offcer starts to climb over the fence to
arrest him, but wait—was the assault a misdemeanor or a
felony? In Lange's State of California, it could have been
either depending on the identity of the victim, the amount of
force used, and whether there was a weapon involved. See
Cal. Penal Code Ann. § 245 (West 2014). How much force
was the man using against the teenager? Is this really the
assailant's home in the frst place? Pretty suspicious that
he jumped the fence just as the offcer was about to grab
him. If it is his home, are there people inside and, if so, how
many? And why would the man run from a mere fght—
does he have something more serious to hide?
By this time, of course, the assailant has probably gone
out the back door or down the fre escape and is blocks away,
with the offcer unable to give a useful description—except
for how he looks from behind.