Dan Epps

I think this is a good strategy, though, to schedule a recording with a fixed hard stop so we don't just go on and on.

And hopefully, you know, we're going to get an episode that might even clock in under 60 minutes, the rare short episode.

OK, going quickly.

Next case.

is also called case, confusingly.

Case versus Montana.

So case, the case, is a Fourth Amendment case, Fourth Amendment opinion, which is a sort of increasingly rare slice of the court's docket.

I mean, we used to have, you know, I feel like a couple, you know, meaty Fourth Amendment cases a term, you know, and the court, as Orrin Kerr has noted repeatedly, the court has really slowed down on granting those.

So this is one.

We haven't had one, a good one for a while.

It is going to be a unanimous opinion by Justice Kagan.

The issue in the case is basically the relevant standard of evidence for something called the emergency aid doctrine.

Emergency aid doctrine is an exception to the traditional warrant requirement.

Typically, if government wants to go barge into your house without permission, the government needs permission.

A warrant supported by probable cause and meeting the requirements of particularity and authorized by a magistrate and so forth.

And the emergency aid doctrine says, well, you know, actually, if police have an objectively reasonable basis for believing that there's some kind of emergency going on in the house and that they need to – to which the police need to provide assistance –

they can go in without a warrant.

That language I just quoted about an objectively reasonable basis comes from a decision from now 20 years ago.

I was like trying to think how long ago this case was from.

And I was like, I don't know, like 10 years ago.