Thursday, June 19, 1997

US Supreme Court US v. Santana 75-19

Decided  June 24, 1976

   THE hot pursuit case.  In this case, an undercover officer arranged to buy drugs from a suspect.  The suspect had him drive her to Santana's house, where she went inside and bought drugs with bills that the undercover officer had marked.  She came back outside with the heroin, and the undercover officer drove a couple blocks away and arrested her.  She told the officer that Santana had the money.

   Other officers went back to Santana's house to arrest her.  She was standing on the threshold of her house (which the court deemed to be a public place, allowing her to be arrested without a warrant).  The police attempted to apprehend her, and she retreaded into her home.  They chased her inside and completed the arrest.  She was found to be in possession of more heroin and of most of the aforementioned marked bills.  At her trial, she sought to exclude that evidence as the fruit of an unlawful entry into her home.

   The Supreme Court found the warrantless entry to be reasonable, saying that "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."

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