Cato: Protecting the Home from Warrantless Searches: Collins v. Virginia

Cato: Protecting the Home from Warrantless Searches by Jay Schweikert:

“A man’s home is his castle”—this is not just an aphorism, but a longstanding legal principle. From Biblical times through to the English common law, the home was recognized as a place of refuge in which the owner is protected against uninvited private parties and unjustified government intrusion. That legal shield against arbitrary invasions of the home was embodied in the Fourth Amendment, which resulted in large measure from Americans’ reaction to the British authorities’ use of general warrants to search colonists’ homes without individualized suspicion. As a result of this history, “when it comes to the Fourth Amendment, the home is first among equals.” Florida v. Jardines, 569 U.S. 1, 6 (2013). 

In Collins v. Virginia, the issue before the Supreme Court is whether a police officer, uninvited and without a warrant, may enter private property, approach a home, and search a vehicle parked just a few feet from the house. Cato has filed a brief arguing that permitting such a practice would be squarely inconsistent with the Fourth Amendment’s special solicitude for the privacy of the home.