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4 

CANIGLIA v. STROM 

KAVANAUGH, J., concurring 

able to act now.  See, e.g., Sheehan, 575 U. S., at 612; Mich-
igan v. Fisher, 558 U. S., at 48–49; Brigham City, 547 U. S., 
at 406–407.  The officers do not need to show that the harm 
has  already  occurred  or  is  mere  moments  away,  because 
knowing that will often be difficult if not impossible in cases
involving, for example, a person who is currently suicidal or 
an elderly person who has been out of contact and may have 
fallen.  If someone is at risk of serious harm and it is rea-
sonable for officers to intervene now, that is enough for the 
officers to enter. 

A few (non-exhaustive) examples illustrate the point.
Suppose that a woman calls a healthcare hotline or 911
and  says  that  she  is  contemplating  suicide,  that  she  has 
firearms in her home, and that she might as well die.  The 
operator alerts the police, and two officers respond by driv-
ing to the woman’s home.  They knock on the door but do 
not receive a response.  May the officers enter the home?  Of 
course. 

The  exigent  circumstances  doctrine  applies  because  the 
officers have an “objectively reasonable basis” for believing 
that  an  occupant  is  “seriously  injured  or  threatened  with
such injury.”  Id., at 400, 403; cf. Sheehan, 575 U. S., at 612 
(officers could enter the room of a mentally ill person who 
had locked herself inside with a knife).  After all, a suicidal 
individual in such a scenario could kill herself at any mo-
ment.  The Fourth Amendment does not require officers to 
stand idly outside as the suicide takes place.1 

Consider another example.  Suppose that an elderly man 
is uncharacteristically absent from Sunday church services 

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1 In 2019 in the United States, 47,511 people committed suicide.  That 
number is more than double the number of annual homicides.  See Dept. 
of Health and Human Servs., Centers for Disease Control and Preven-
tion, D. Stone, C. Jones, & K. Mack, Changes in Suicide Rates––United
States,  2018–2019,  70  Morbidity  and  Mortality  Weekly  Rep.  261,  263
(2021) (MMWR); Dept. of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Uni-
form Crime Report, Crime in the United States, 2019, p. 2 (2020).