CA11: Reaching into a house to effect a Terry stop without exigent circumstances violates the Fourth Amendment; but qualified immunity here

Reaching into a house to effect a Terry stop without exigent circumstances violates the Fourth Amendment. “Dorothy may have said it best when she said, ‘There is no place like home.’ Though we are pretty sure that she was not talking about the Fourth Amendment, she may as well have been. Under the Fourth Amendment, the home is a sacrosanct place that enjoys special protection from government intrusion. The government may not enter a person’s home to effect an arrest without a warrant or probable cause plus either consent or exigent circumstances. For this reason, we hold today that, in the absence of exigent circumstances, the government may not conduct the equivalent of a Terry stop inside a person’s home. But because the law on this point was not clearly established in this Circuit before our decision today, we affirm the district court’s entry of summary judgment on qualified-immunity grounds to Defendant-Appellee Deputy Kevin Pederson, who reached into Plaintiff-Appellant Elvan Moore’s home to arrest and handcuff him when, in the course of what Pederson described as a Terry stop, Moore declined to identify himself in response to Pederson’s questioning.” Moore v. Pederson, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 17894 (11th Cir. Oct. 15, 2015) (substituted opinion).