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(Slip Opinion) 

OCTOBER  TERM,  2020 

1 

Syllabus 

NOTE:  Where  it  is  feasible,  a  syllabus  (headnote)  will  be  released,  as  is 
being  done  in  connection  with  this  case,  at  the  time  the  opinion  is  issued. 
The  syllabus  constitutes  no  part  of  the  opinion  of  the  Court  but  has  been 
prepared  by  the  Reporter  of  Decisions  for  the  convenience  of  the  reader. 
See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

Syllabus 

CANIGLIA v. STROM ET AL. 

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR 
THE FIRST CIRCUIT 

No. 20–157.  Argued March 24, 2021—Decided May 17, 2021 

During an argument with his wife, petitioner Edward Caniglia placed a 
handgun on the dining room table and asked his wife to “shoot [him] 
and  get  it  over  with.”  His  wife  instead  left  the  home  and  spent  the 
night at a hotel.  The next morning, she was unable to reach her hus-
band by phone, so she called the police to request a welfare check.  The 
responding  officers  accompanied  Caniglia’s  wife  to  the  home,  where 
they encountered Caniglia on the porch.  The officers called an ambu-
lance based on the belief that Caniglia posed a risk to himself or others. 
Caniglia agreed to go to the hospital for a psychiatric evaluation on the
  But  once 
condition  that  the  officers  not  confiscate  his  firearms.
Caniglia  left,  the  officers  located  and  seized  his  weapons.    Caniglia
sued, claiming that the officers had entered his home and seized him 
and his firearms without a warrant in violation of the Fourth Amend-
ment.  The District Court granted summary judgment to the officers. 
The First Circuit affirmed, extrapolating from the Court’s decision in 
Cady v. Dombrowski, 413 U. S. 433, a theory that the officers’ removal 
of Caniglia and his firearms from his home was justified by a “commu-
nity caretaking exception” to the warrant requirement.  

Held: Neither  the  holding  nor  logic  of  Cady  justifies  such  warrantless 
searches  and  seizures  in  the  home.  Cady  held  that  a  warrantless 
search of an impounded vehicle for an unsecured firearm did not vio-
late  the  Fourth  Amendment.    In reaching this  conclusion,  the  Court 
noted  that  the  officers  who  patrol  the  “public  highways”  are  often 
called  to  discharge  noncriminal  “community  caretaking  functions,” 
such as responding to disabled vehicles or investigating accidents.  413 
U. S., at 441.  But searches of vehicles and homes are constitutionally
different, as the Cady opinion repeatedly stressed.  Id., at 439, 440– 
442.  The very core of the Fourth Amendment’s guarantee is the right