The issue before the Court in this case 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. Our brief argues that permitting such a practice would be squarely inconsistent with the Fourth Amendment’s special solicitude for the privacy of the home. At common law, and under the Fourth Amendment, the protection accorded to the home extends to its surrounding grounds and out-buildings — the so-called “curtilage.” Because this area is closely tied to the home, both physically and psychologically, the curtilage is regarded as part of the home itself for Fourth Amendment purposes. This protection is the foremost example of the Fourth Amendment’s general defense against unreasonable government intrusion into private property. Indeed, the text of the Amendment protects “[t]he right of the people to be secure,” not just in their “persons,” but also in their “houses, papers, and effects.”
The usual justification for allowing warrantless searches of vehicles is the reduced expectation of privacy in vehicles as they travel on public roads. But there is no such reduced expectation when a vehicle is parked at home. To the contrary, expectations of privacy are at their zenith at the home and its surroundings. And to the extent the automobile exception rests on vehicles’ mobility, a vehicle parked at home is immobile; if it leaves the home and curtilage it would become subject to search. Moreover, the existing doctrine on “exigent circumstances” assures that the warrant requirement will not undermine critical law enforcement needs. For example, the need to prevent physical harm or the imminent destruction of evidence would allow officers to intrude on the curtilage without a warrant. But in the absence of those circumstances, the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement protects Americans’ most private refuge against the abusive use of government power.
