Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/20-157_8mjp.pdf
Page Number: 6

4 

CANIGLIA v. STROM 

Opinion of the Court 

Nor did it find that respondents’ actions were akin to what
a  private  citizen  might  have  had  authority  to  do  if  peti-
tioner’s wife had approached a neighbor for assistance in-
stead of the police.

Neither  the  holding  nor  logic  of  Cady  justified  that  ap-
proach.  True, Cady also involved a warrantless search for 
a  firearm.  But  the  location  of  that  search  was  an  im-
pounded  vehicle—not  a  home—“ ‘a  constitutional  differ-
ence’ ”  that  the  opinion  repeatedly  stressed.    413  U. S.,  at 
439; see also id., at 440–442.  In fact, Cady expressly con-
trasted its treatment of a vehicle already under police con-
trol with a search of a car “parked adjacent to the dwelling 
place of the owner.”  Id., at 446–448 (citing Coolidge v. New 
Hampshire, 403 U. S. 443 (1971)). 

Cady’s  unmistakable  distinction  between  vehicles  and 
homes also places into proper context its reference to “com-
munity caretaking.”  This quote comes from a portion of the 
opinion explaining that the “frequency with which . . . vehi-
cle[s] can become disabled or involved in . . . accident[s] on 
public highways” often requires police to perform noncrim-
inal  “community  caretaking  functions,”  such  as  providing
aid  to  motorists.  413  U. S.,  at  441.    But,  this  recognition
that police officers perform many civic tasks in modern so-
ciety  was  just  that—a  recognition  that  these  tasks  exist,
and not an open-ended license to perform them anywhere. 

* 

* 

* 
What is reasonable for vehicles is different from what is 
reasonable  for  homes.    Cady  acknowledged  as  much,  and 
this Court has repeatedly “declined to expand the scope of 
. . . exceptions to the warrant requirement to permit war-
rantless entry into the home.”  Collins, 584 U. S., at ___ (slip 
op., at 8).  We thus vacate the judgment below and remand 
for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. 

It is so ordered.