Court Opinion

ID: 9597799
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:02:58.267279+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:27:04.340716
License: Public Domain

REINHARDT, Circuit Judge,
with whom KOZINSKI, Chief Judge, and PREGERSON, THOMAS, and PAEZ, Circuit Judges,
join, dissenting:
It is a fundamental principle of our Fourth Amendment jurisprudence that warrantless in-home arrests are permissible only when necessitated by exigent circumstances. Even if exigent circumstances existed at 6:30 am. when the police initially constructively seized Fisher by surrounding his home,1 the officers involved in the ensuing standoff violated the Fourth Amendment by failing to seek a warrant before escalating their initial interference with Fisher’s Fourth Amendment rights. This escalation occurred when the police hurled a throw phone, a flash-bang device, and tear gas onto Fisher’s property, forced him from his home, shot him with “less-than-lethal” rubber bullets, and ultimately made an *1090actual forcible arrest some eight hours after the initial constructive seizure. The officers undisputedly had more than enough time and opportunity to procure a warrant before taking those additional invasive actions, and their failure to do so violated the Fourth Amendment. In reaching this determination, I reject the majority’s unprecedented conclusion that, once a police action is initiated without a warrant because there is insufficient time to obtain the approval of a magistrate, that action may be substantially expanded and continued indefinitely without a warrant, even though the police have every opportunity to obtain one with respect to the additional Fourth Amendment intrusions.
I.
Warrantless in-home searches and seizures are permissible only if the police demonstrate exigent circumstances. Such circumstances are not present “unless the government demonstrates that a warrant could not have been obtained in time ....,” United States v. Manfredi, 722 F.2d 519, 522 (9th Cir.1983); see also Bailey v. Newland, 263 F.3d 1022, 1033 (9th Cir.2001) (“ ‘[T]he presence of exigent circumstances necessarily implies that there is insufficient time to obtain a warrant; therefore, the government must show that a warrant could not have been obtained in time.’”) (quoting United States v. Tarazon, 989 F.2d 1045, 1049 (9th Cir.1993)); United States v. Lindsey, 877 F.2d 777, 782 (9th Cir.1989). In other words, the absence of time to obtain a warrant is a necessary condition for a finding of exigent circumstances; if time to obtain a warrant is available, there are necessarily no exigent circumstances.
Here, there is no dispute that the police could have obtained a warrant during the period between their arrival at Fisher’s apartment and the forcible arrest that ended the standoff. Although more than 60 officers participated in the standoff, no officer sought a warrant at any point during the 12 hours in which the incident transpired. Some of the officers who first responded to the incident left the scene at 7 a.m. and returned to the police station; these officers, for example, could easily have prepared a warrant application and sought a magistrate’s approval, without adversely affecting the police activities at the standoff in any way.
As the district court noted, “Defendants have offered no explanation, and none exists, as to why [not] one of these officers was [ ]able to seek and obtain a telephone warrant or make use of the procedures available twenty-four hours a day to obtain a warrant from a judge in person.... ” The standoff here did not involve “rapidly unfold[ing]” events that prevented the police from seeking a warrant. Cf. United States v. Sarkissian, 841 F.2d 959, 964 (9th Cir.1988). Likewise, in light of the return to the station house of a number of officers from the scene at 7 a.m., the defendants cannot assert that their ability to procure a warrant was evident only in hindsight. Cf. Lindsey, 877 F.2d at 782 (finding that no warrant was required where officers had the time to procure a warrant only because of an unforeseeable delay in the arrival of reinforcements). Rather than “taking immediate action in the face of rapidly evolving circumstances,” Majority Opinion at 1084 (emphasis added), the defendants in this case chose a course of action that gave them more than sufficient time and opportunity to procure a warrant, and failed to obtain one only because they elected not to do so.2 Their failure to obtain a warrant in *1091these circumstances violated the Fourth Amendment and compels affirmance of the district court’s decision.
Whether or not the initial constructive seizure was, as the majority claims, justified by exigent circumstances, those circumstances no longer existed after 7 a.m. when the officers returned to the station house with a full opportunity to procure a warrant. In the absence of such circumstances, the officers were required to seek a warrant before further accelerating their intrusion on Fisher’s Fourth Amendment rights, and certainly before forcing him out of his home and making a forcible arrest.
In the context of in-home arrests, the warrant requirement protects two distinct Fourth Amendment rights. First, it protects a right to personal liberty by preventing unjustifiable detentions. Second, it protects the privacy and sanctity of the home. The home is “perhaps the most sacrosanct domain” — the domain in which “Fourth Amendment interests are at their strongest.” LaLonde v. County of Riverside, 204 F.3d 947, 954 (9th Cir.2000). Due to the home’s sanctity, “[t]he Fourth Amendment has drawn a firm line at the entrance to the house. Absent exigent circumstances, that threshold may not reasonably be crossed without a warrant.” Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 590, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 63 L.Ed.2d 639 (1980). For the same reason, any warrantless entries that do occur “must be ‘strictly circumscribed by the exigencies which justify [their] initiation.’ ” Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385, 393, 98 S.Ct. 2408, 57 L.Ed.2d 290 (1978) (quoting Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 25-26, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968)).
The fact that Fisher was constructively seized by the police at approximately 6:30 a.m. cannot justify the subsequent war-rantless intrusions that occurred long after a warrant could have been obtained. Because each subsequent intrusion involves a violation of the sanctity and privacy of a suspect’s home, each intrudes separately upon the suspect’s Fourth Amendment rights. Because any warrantless entry of the home must be strictly circumscribed by the exigent circumstances justifying it, police crossings of that “firm line at the entrance to the house” established by the Fourth Amendment must be supported by either a warrant authorizing the physical entry or by exigent circumstances. Once a warrant is obtained — ordinarily not a very difficult task when time exists — the necessary support is provided, and no additional warrant is needed to justify any subsequent intrusions. However, when the exigency has ended, no additional intrusions are permissible without a warrant. Forcing a suspect out of his home and physically arresting him through the use of force involves an additional intrusion upon his personal liberty far more serious than the surrounding of his home or apartment, and must unquestionably be justified by a warrant or exigent circumstances. Because of the significant additional intrusions upon Fisher’s Fourth Amendment rights resulting from the subsequent actions of the police, his constructive seizure at approximately 6:30 a.m. cannot immunize those subsequent actions from constitutional scrutiny if there was time and opportunity to obtain a warrant before they occurred. Cf. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 17, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). Any contrary rule entirely disregards the fundamental differences between a constructive seizure and an actual, forcible arrest or home invasion.3
*1092Here, hours after the constructive seizure and long after they had an opportunity to obtain a warrant, the police engaged in a series of escalating intrusions into Fisher’s apartment designed to force him out of his home, followed by a forcible physical arrest. They first broke a sliding glass door and threw a “throw phone” — a phone encased in a box that also contains a live microphone — onto Fisher’s patio. Just before 11 a.m., they detonated a flash-bang device on Fisher’s property in order to attempt to disorient him. At 1 p.m.— six and a half hours after the constructive seizure — the police officers threw into his apartment, through a door they had broken, four tear gas canisters. The officers next deployed another round of tear gas at 1:30 p.m. Fisher finally was forced out of his home around 2:35 p.m. and, in accordance with police instructions, walked in a designated direction with his hands in the air. When he stopped walking forward, the police responded by shooting him in the leg with a less-than-lethal bullet, and then physically placed him under arrest.
As the actions of the police who surrounded the house escalated, they became increasingly more dangerous to Fisher and more invasive of his rights. The initial action involved a constructive seizure and presented little risk of damage to his apartment or physical injury to him. The subsequent actions of the police involved the actual physical invasion of his property with a throw phone, a flash-bang device, and tear gas, and the use of increasingly dangerous tactics, including the hurling of the flash-bang device onto the premises, see, e.g., United States v. Ankeny, 502 F.3d 829, 833 (9th Cir.2007) (noting first-and second-degree burns caused by explosion of flash-bang device), followed by tear gas canisters, and finally the firing at him of less-than-lethal bullets, culminating in his physical injury and forcible physical arrest. Given the drastically different consequences of the initial constructive seizure and the subsequent police actions — consequences directly related to the suspect’s interests in privacy, personal security, and the sanctity of the home, all of which are protected by the Fourth Amendment — and the requirement that any warrantless intrusion upon Fourth Amendment rights be strictly circumscribed by the exigent circumstances justifying the intrusion, the alleged legality of the initial warrantless constructive seizure did not render the subsequent warrantless actions of the police constitutional. Those further intrusions on Fisher’s Fourth Amendment rights would have been lawful only if the police had obtained a warrant or if, at the time those further intrusions occurred, exigent circumstances continued to exist; as explained supra, such exigent circumstances would have existed at the time of the further intrusions only if at that point the police had not had an opportunity to obtain a warrant.
II.
The majority contends that a warrant was not required for the Fourth Amendment intrusions that followed Fisher’s constructive seizure in his home because the protections of the Fourth Amendment were stripped from him at the time his home was surrounded. Thus, the majority argues, the subsequent actions were “no more than an actual continuation of the initial seizure.” Majority Opinion at 1076 (citation omitted). There is no legal authority whatsoever that supports this contention. The majority relies entirely on two wholly inapplicable cases: the Supreme Court’s decision in Michigan v. Tyler, 436 U.S. 499, 98 S.Ct. 1942, 56 L.Ed.2d 486 (1978), and this court’s decision in United States v. Echegoyen, 799 F.2d 1271, 1273 (9th Cir.1986). Neither Tyler nor Echegoyen supports the majority’s holding, and the majority offers no other support for its theory of the stripping of *1093Fourth Amendment rights by an initial constructive seizure.
Tyler dealt with an entirely different question: the intrusion of firefighters onto private property in order to fight a fire and their right to remain on the premises for a reasonable period in order to (1) determine the fire’s cause and (2) make certain that there is no danger that the fire will start up again. The Court held that firefighters do not need a warrant for such an intrusion — i.e., that actual firefighting is categorically exempt from the warrant requirement. It also held that, when at 4 a.m. “darkness, steam and smoke” temporarily prevented fire officials from pursuing that objective, their departure from the premises and return “shortly after daylight” to complete their mission did not constitute a termination of one intrusion and the commencement of another, one for which a warrant might be required. 436 U.S. at 510-11, 98 S.Ct. 1942. Instead, the Court held that when the search resumed the fire officials were still pursuing their initial action, one for which a warrant was not needed. Id.
The Court made plain in Tyler what would appear obvious. It stated, “It would defy reason” to assert that firefighters would need a warrant to enter a building to fight a fire, id. at 509, 98 S.Ct. 1942, or to remain there “for a reasonable time” to determine the fire’s cause and make certain that it would not resume, id. at 510, 98 S.Ct. 1942. The fire itself, the Court explained, provides a sufficient excuse from the requirement that a warrant be obtained; it added that resuming the investigation in the morning was simply “an actual continuation” of the prior evening’s categorically exempt activities.
Here, however, there is no question that a warrant is required for the type of action undertaken by the police, including the initial constructive seizure of Fisher in his home. In Fisher’s case, the requirement that a warrant be obtained was excused only because there was insufficient time to obtain one before undertaking the initial police action. Tyler tells us nothing about whether, in such cases, when conditions change and there is time to seek a magistrate’s authorization a warrant must be offered before the police engage in further and more substantial Fourth Amendment intrusions.
In short, Tyler is a case about a category of actions for which a warrant is not required, while Fisher is about a category of actions for which one is. That the firefighters’ actions in Tyler all constituted a part of a continuing categorically exempt investigation renders the case of no relevance here. To base approval of the war-rantless actions of the police in Fisher’s case on the Supreme Court’s holding in Tyler is to misunderstand fundamentally the nature and purpose of the Fourth Amendment warrant provision.
Unlike the majority’s interpretation, this reading of Tyler accords with the Supreme Court’s subsequent treatment of the case. Tyler has been cited at least twice by the Court for its specific holding that fire investigators may remain on the premises where a continuing or recently extinguished fire has occurred, in order to determine the fire’s cause. See, e.g., Brigham City v. Stuart, 547 U.S. 398, 403, 126 S.Ct. 1943, 164 L.Ed.2d 650 (2006); City of Indianapolis v. Edmond, 531 U.S. 32, 37, 121 S.Ct. 447, 148 L.Ed.2d 333 (2000).4 *1094The Supreme Court has never interpreted Tyler, however, as establishing a “mere continuation” exception to the warrant requirement in criminal cases or suggested that any such exception applies to in-home warrantless arrests. In fact, in the thirty years since Tyler was decided, the Court has never relied upon Tylers “mere continuation” holding to justify a search or seizure for law enforcement purposes.
Echegoyen, upon which the majority also relies, is inapplicable here for the same reason as Tyler. As the district court held, the subsequent entry in Echegoyen “was a[] limited entry done for the purpose of avoiding a possible explosion” at a time when the evidence showed the existence of an “explosive” and “potentially dangerous fire hazard.” 799 F.2d at 1274, 1278. “[T]he subsequent entry ... was based on the need to use [the officers’] expertise in inspecting the premises for a possible fire hazard.” Id. at 1280; see also id. at 1278 (“The second entry was ... done to inspect the premises to determine if any public safety hazard [related to a fire or explosive hazard] remained.”). Thus, the “subsequent” entry in Echegoyen was a Tyler entry designed to investigate and eliminate a potentially explosive fire hazard. Because Echegoyen, like Tyler, involved an entry responding to the public safety risks created by a fire hazard, that case, like Tyler, is entirely irrelevant here.5
Because Tyler involves an intrusion to suppress a fire and make certain that it would not resume — an intrusion for which no warrant is necessary — and Echegoyen involves a similar intrusion for the purpose of investigating a potential explosive fire hazard, neither case offers any support for the majority’s decision. And without Tyler and Echegoyen, the majority is left with nothing, not a single case, that lends any support to its theory: that no warrant is required for any Fourth Amendment intrusion, regardless of its nature, that occurs at any time following the warrant-less surrounding of a dwelling and constructive seizure of its occupant, even though the police have more than sufficient time to obtain a warrant before undertaking such actions.6 The majority may wish the law were different, but we must apply it as it is, and the law as of today limits warrantless intrusions into the home for the purposes of a search or seizure to *1095instances in which exigent circumstances exist — that is, circumstances in which the police do not have time to procure a warrant.
III.
Because a police action may be commenced before a warrant can be obtained, it does not follow that the police may continue that action indefinitely or may significantly escalate their invasion of a suspect’s Fourth Amendment rights without obtaining a warrant, even though they have a full opportunity to obtain one first. Specifically, where a house is surrounded and its occupants constructively seized without a warrant because of lack of time to obtain one, it does not follow that a forceful invasion of the home or a forcible arrest of the person may be initiated without a warrant long after one could be obtained.7 To the contrary, whenever the justification for a serious intrusion on Fourth Amendment rights may be presented to a neutral magistrate for his consideration, law enforcement officers are required to do so. That is the fundamental teaching of the Fourth Amendment, and nothing in the circumstances of this case justifies a departure from that simple rule, particularly as the obtaining of a warrant here would in no way have interfered with or delayed the ongoing police action. As pointed out earlier, any of the numerous officers who withdrew from the scene and returned to the station-house could have prepared the necessary application and presented it to a magistrate.
As Justice Jackson explained more than 60 years ago, the basic protection of the Fourth Amendment “consists in requiring that [the] inferences [justifying a search or seizure] be drawn by a neutral and detached magistrate instead of being judged by the officer engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime.” Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 13-14, 68 S.Ct. 367, 92 L.Ed. 436 (1948). A neutral evaluation protects Fourth Amendment rights by reducing the risk of unjustifiable searches and seizures and by requiring that police carefully define the reasons for and scope of any particular search or seizure. Because of the importance to Fourth Amendment interests of a magistrate’s review of a warrant application, “the police bear a heavy burden when attempting to demonstrate an urgent need that might justify” a departure from the warrant requirement. Welsh v. Wisconsin, 466 U.S. 740, 749-50, 104 S.Ct. 2091, 80 L.Ed.2d 732 (1984). Such departures are “ ‘few in number and carefully delineated.’” Id. at 749-50, 104 S.Ct. 2091 (quoting United States v. United States District Court, 407 U.S. 297, 318, 92 S.Ct. 2125, 32 L.Ed.2d 752 (1972)). It is only in those limited instances where necessity requires abatement of this principle that we do so-in other words, only in exigent circumstances.
Because exigency is an exception to a fundamental principle of the Fourth Amendment mandated by necessity, any warrantless search or seizure “must be *1096‘strictly circumscribed by the exigencies which justify its initiation.’ ” Mincey, 437 U.S. at 393, 98 S.Ct. 2408 (quoting Terry, 392 U.S. at 25-26, 88 S.Ct. 1868).8 Here, as in all cases involving exigent circumstances, there was at the outset insufficient time to obtain a warrant. When that condition of exigency dissipated — i.e., when there was time to obtain a warrant— the exigency itself no longer existed and there was no longer any justification for continuing or escalating the intrusion on Fisher’s Fourth Amendment rights without allowing “a neutral and detached magistrate” to evaluate the circumstances.9
In suggesting that requiring a warrant in the circumstances of Fisher’s case would serve no purpose, the majority fails to comprehend the significance of its abandonment of basic Fourth Amendment principles. According to the majority, “any warrant obtained by the police would have merely authorized them to do exactly what they were already doing, and indeed, exactly what they were already authorized to do: surround Fisher’s home and attempt to neutralize the threat that he posed by arresting him. We do not see what a neutral and detached magistrate would have added in helping to peacefully effect Fisher’s arrest.” Majority Opinion at 1078 (footnote omitted). This analysis is startling. As Justice Jackson explained, the purpose of the warrant requirement is not, as the majority appears to believe, to help police “effect [a suspect’s] arrest,” id., but to ensure that the decision to arrest an individual is consistent with the Constitution. Nothing in the circumstances of Fisher’s constructive seizure eliminates the value of a neutral, detached evaluation of the reasons for the subsequent invasions of his home, including his forcible extraction from it in order to physically arrest him. In such circumstances the magistrate does not “pre-authorize tactical decisions made by police,” Majority Opinion at 1081, as the majority suggests, but instead, as in any other ease, the magistrate provides an independent evaluation of the justifications for the Fourth Amendment intrusions that have not yet occurred — in this case escalating intrusions of a different order than a simple constructive seizure.10 By suggesting that requiring a *1097warrant here would be pointless the majority presumes that officers engaged in a standoff always reach the proper conclusion as to the legality of a search or seizure; however, the Fourth Amendment provides that, whenever possible, the determination of the validity of a prospective search or seizure may not be made by the police alone.
Furthermore, requiring a warrant in these circumstances would not involve a “retroactive warrant practice.” Majority Opinion at 1078. The warrant would not, as the majority seems to believe, justify the prior constructive seizure of the suspect. Instead, it would authorize the additional intrusions upon the suspect’s Fourth Amendment rights that may result from the subsequent actions of the police. Even if a constructive seizure effectively places the suspect under arrest, as the majority claims, but cf. California v. Hodari D., 499 U.S. 621, 626, 111 S.Ct. 1547, 113 L.Ed.2d 690 (1991) (“An arrest requires either physical force ... or, where that is absent, submission to the assertion of authority.”) (emphasis in original), the purpose of the arrest is not fulfilled until the suspect has actually submitted to the authority of the police. Thus, the police are actively engaged in executing the arrest for as long as the suspect does not submit. Where, as here, the constructive seizure continues for a substantial period of time and the efforts of the police to effect the suspect’s submission involve additional serious intrusions upon his Fourth Amendment rights, those intrusions must be supported either by a warrant or by exigent circumstances.
The neutral judicial evaluation provided by a magistrate judge’s review of a warrant application is especially important in cases involving nighttime in-home arrests, often after forcible entries, and lengthy standoffs, which are inherently dangerous and may lead to tragic consequences. Such occurrences can lead to the death of the suspect or the destruction of the suspect’s home, see, e.g., Bing, 456 F.3d at 558, 562 (suspect killed during raid and home burned down by fire started by flash-bang device); or to the death of innocent third parties, see, e.g., Ewolski v. Brunswick, 287 F.3d 492, 499 (6th Cir.2002) (suspect killed his son during standoff). An infamous police standoff in Philadelphia resulted in the deaths of eleven people, including five children, and the destruction of an entire city block. Don Terry, Philadelphia Held Liable for Firebomb Fatal to 11, N.Y. Times, June 25, 1996, at A10. Even where no deaths result from a standoff, the consequences may nonetheless be tragic. See, e.g., O’Brien v. Grand Rapids, 23 F.3d 990, 994 (6th Cir.1994) (suspect rendered quadriplegic during raid). Closer to home, this Circuit has seen its own share of tragic police standoffs, from the shootout at Ruby Ridge, see Harris v. Roderick, 126 F.3d 1189, 1193-94 (9th Cir.1997) (describing the deaths of the wife and son of the subject named in the arrest warrant the enforcement of which led to the Ruby Ridge incident), to the destructive fire that ended the 1974 standoff between the Los Angeles Police Department and members of the Symbionese Liberation Army. Requiring that, when there is time to do so, police procure a warrant in such circumstances helps ensure that high-stakes standoffs occur only when legally proper.
*1098Furthermore, in any standoff it is entirely conceivable that, following its commencement, information may be developed that establishes that the person in a residence is not the person who committed the offense in question and is not armed or dangerous. If the magistrate judge hearing a warrant request prepared after an initial constructive seizure determines that a physical arrest would be impermissible, either because the police do not have probable cause to believe that they have the right person or because they otherwise lack probable cause to make an arrest, then the standoff can be terminated peacefully before the escalating efforts to extract the suspect from his home increase the likelihood of a tragic end to the confrontation. Procuring a warrant in such circumstances is anything but an “empty gesture,” as the majority suggests. Majority Opinion at 1079.
The primary question, however, is not the presence of probable cause; it is who should make the determination required by the Constitution. Asking a magistrate judge to determine whether an arrest is supported by probable cause is not simply a “reasonable role for a judicial officer,” id.; it is constitutionally required, absent exigent circumstances, and is especially important in the high stakes context of nighttime in-home arrests or potential armed standoffs. The Fourth Amendment requires that, before certain invasions of constitutional interests may transpire, a neutral magistrate must determine whether probable cause exists. Whether a warrant is issued by the magistrate or not, submitting the application to him for his review fulfills the dictates and purpose of the Constitution and helps safeguard the rights of all individuals. The Constitution requires a warrant unless exigent circumstances exist at the time of the Fourth Amendment intrusion in question. Exigency requires a lack of time, and any exigency here no longer existed when the police engaged in the substantial Fourth Amendment intrusions that occurred hours after the initial constructive seizure of Fisher. The majority provides no support for its departure from the Constitution’s requirements.
IV.
Finally, the majority justifies its decision on the ground that requiring a warrant in these circumstances would interfere with the efficiency and efficacy of police operations. However, “the privacy of a person’s home and property may not be totally sacrificed in the name of maximum simplicity in enforcement of the criminal law.” Mincey, 437 U.S. at 393, 98 S.Ct. 2408. The majority’s concerns for police efficiency are commendable, but they are extra-constitutional and exceed the proper role of the judiciary — absent exigent circumstances, the Fourth Amendment requires a warrant regardless of the majority’s view that the Fourth Amendment may be inefficient.
The majority’s efficiency concerns are also chimerical. Requiring officers with the time and ability to procure a warrant to follow the dictates of the Constitution would not “divert one or more officers from the task of resolving the standoff,” Majority Opinion at 1079, nor would it lead police to “ponder with each passing moment whether the exigency ... that existed at the start of the standoff had sufficiently dissipated such that they must immediately” obtain a warrant. Id. No diversion of officers is necessary and no pondering by officers is required. If the officers do not have the time or ability to procure a warrant, the exigency continues. The officers’ first priority is to perform the duties in which they are engaged. If all of the officers at a standoff are engaged in responding to the “rapidly unfolding]” events, there is no time for *1099them to procure a warrant and, accordingly, no need for them to do so. Sarkissian, 841 F.2d at 964. The police here chose a course of action that afforded a number of the officers all the time necessary to procure a warrant. Numerous officers left the scene during the twelve hour period at issue and those officers had a more than sufficient opportunity to seek a warrant. All chose not to do so, despite the clear requirements of the Fourth Amendment.
Moreover, rather than inviting judicial review “months if not years later by a jury or a judge from the confines of a courtroom” or placing judges in “the role of incident commander,” requiring a warrant in such circumstances will decrease the possibility of judicial “second-guessing.” Majority Opinion at 1079, 1080. Obtaining a warrant will afford the police protection against a number of potential lawsuits. Similarly, should a magistrate decide that the issuance of a warrant is not justified, the police will likely avoid a serious constitutional error and subsequent unfavorable judicial review years later; in addition, they may even discover that they are wrong as to the merits of the case. At the very least, requiring the police to procure a warrant ensures that they will do a proper job in obtaining the evidence necessary to establish that they have the right person. Under the majority’s rule, however, an initial constructive seizure of an individual that occurs before there is an opportunity to obtain a warrant will relieve the parties of the ordinary obligation to obtain the objective view of a magistrate judge before engaging in major armed actions, thereby jeopardizing the public safety and opening the police to liability against which they might otherwise be protected.
Finally, the majority’s concern that requiring a warrant would create a “safe harbor” for suspects in active standoffs, Majority Opinion at 1080 n. 7, is entirely baseless and reflects its failure to comprehend the relationship between the exigent circumstances exception and the fundamental Fourth Amendment warrant requirement. Should “a clear opportunity to peacefully resolve a dangerous situation” arise “in the midst of a pending, but not yet approved, warrant request,” Majority Opinion at 1080, or should the suspect’s actions demonstrate the need for an immediate police response while a warrant request is pending, the police officers are free to act without a warrant because they would not have had time to obtain one before acting. This would seem to be a fairly elementary proposition, but one that the majority fails to comprehend. In sum, once again, the crisis the majority fears is wholly nonexistent.
The majority’s contention that requiring a warrant in the circumstances presented by this case would be pointless and inefficient suggests that today’s opinion has less to do with the conduct of Fisher — whose drunken interaction with a security guard led to a twelve-hour, hostage-free standoff; a single misdemeanor conviction; and an award of nominal damages and additional police training — and more to do with the majority’s lack of respect for the warrant requirement. This court is not free to abandon that requirement, and it is regrettable that the majority renders it a nullity in the category of cases before us. It does so without any precedent in law, and its sole legal rationale consists of an erroneous extension of a single Supreme Court case — a case designed to allow emergency efforts by firefighters to eliminate unsafe fire conditions — to circumstances in which it has absolutely no applicability. Even more regrettable is the majority’s failure to respect the historic Fourth Amendment *1100principles that give meaning to the warrant requirement. Accordingly, I dissent.

. I do not believe it necessary to decide for purposes of this dissent whether exigent circumstances existed when the police constructively seized Fisher by surrounding his home.

. It appears from the record that it was approximately three and a half hours after the constructive seizure when the officers first escalated the Fourth Amendment intrusion.

. In light of these substantial additional intrusions of Fisher's Fourth Amendment rights, we need not determine in this case whether the simple continuation of a constructive seizure also requires the procuring of a warrant after the police have the time and opportunity to obtain one.

. Another part of Tyler has been cited as a ruling on administrative searches. See, e.g., Soldal v. Cook County, Ill., 506 U.S. 56, 67, 113 S.Ct. 538, 121 L.Ed.2d 450 (1992) (citing Tyler for the proposition that "the[Fourth] Amendment’s protection applies in the civil context”); Michigan v. Clifford, 464 U.S. 287, 291, 104 S.Ct. 641, 78 L.Ed.2d 477 (1984) ("In Tyler, we restated the Court’s position that administrative searches generally require warrants.”).

. Tyler and Echegoyen are inapplicable here for another reason. In both cases, the “continuation’' was identical to the initial Fourth Amendment intrusion; no more, no less. In Tyler, the investigation that was interrupted by a lack of visibility was not expanded in any manner, nor was it more intrusive on Fourth Amendment rights, when it resumed at daybreak. Likewise, the two searches at issue in Echegoyen were identical with respect to the extent of the invasion of the interests protected by the Fourth Amendment. By contrast, the majority here holds that any police action for which there was insufficient time to obtain a warrant at the outset is thereafter entirely exempted from the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement, no matter how much greater the subsequent intrusions.

. The majority's citations to Bing ex rel. Bing v. City of Whitehall, 456 F.3d 555 (6th Cir.2006) also do not support its theory. I wholeheartedly agree with Bing that "[ejxigent circumstances terminate when the factors creating the exigency are negated.” Id. at 565. One necessary "factor[ ] creating ... exigency” is the inability to procure a warrant in a timely fashion. Here, there is no dispute that that factor was "negated” before fundamental intrusions upon Fisher’s Fourth Amendment rights occurred many hours after the constructive seizure. For the same reason, the majority’s second citation to Bing is inappo-site: Even if Fisher "was at all times dangerous,” id., the second factor required to demonstrate exigency — the inability to obtain a warrant in time — had dissipated before the subsequent entries and ultimate arrest, and thus the reason not to obtain a warrant no longer existed.

. Although the majority suggests that "we are dealing with an unrestrained, armed suspect who poses a continuing public safety risk— not a compliant arrestee or innocent homeowner,” Majority Opinion at 1080-81, it does not so limit its holding. Its rule — that an initial constructive seizure based on exigent circumstances eliminates any further need for a warrant, no matter how much time elapses or how much more invasive the subsequent police actions — could be applicable to all constructive seizures justified by exigent circumstances, not just those involving armed standoffs or individuals who pose a continuing public safety risk. In truth, the majority suggests just the kind of "rigid” “ ‘bright-line’ ” rule that it, itself, tells us is improper in the Fourth Amendment context. Majority Opinion at 1082 (quoting United States v. Turvin, 517 F.3d 1097, 1103 (9th Cir.2008)).

. In addition to relying upon Tyler and Eche-goyen in a way that the Supreme Court itself has never done, the majority departs from the Court's prior authority by entirely ignoring Mincey's requirement that warrantless searches and seizures be “strictly circumscribed.” This is not surprising, because the majority's approach is utterly irreconcilable with that requirement.

. The majority asserts that my "focus on whether police had time to obtain a warrant ... is erroneous.” Majority Opinion at 1078-79 n. 9. However, it is the majority's understanding of exigent circumstances that is faulty. Newland, Lindsey, and Manfredi establish that exigent circumstances do not exist unless there is inadequate time to obtain a warrant. Of course, the absence of time alone is not sufficient for a finding of exigent circumstances. The situation must also involve " 'a substantial risk of harm to the persons involved or to the law enforcement process. ... ”' United States v. Gooch, 6 F.3d 673, 679 (9th Cir.1993) (quoting United States v. Al-Azzawy, 784 F.2d 890, 894 (9th Cir.1985)). Exigent circumstances exist only where both of the conditions are met. Because the police had time to obtain a warrant, one of the two requisite conditions was not met, and the general constitutional rule requiring the obtaining of a warrant applied.

.The majority suggests that this approach would require magistrate judges to evaluate the tactics used by police during a standoff. That is simply incorrect. The majority confuses a reason we must require a warrant after exigent circumstances have dissipated— namely, that police actions subsequent to the constructive in-home seizure of a suspect involve additional, greater intrusions upon the suspect’s Fourth Amendment rights — with the role played by the magistrate judge hearing the warrant request. The magistrate judge would treat a warrant application in these circumstances no differently from any other warrant application: He would simply ask whether the requested warrant meets the re*1097quirements of the Fourth Amendment, including probable cause, specificity, and support by oath or affirmation. U.S. Const, amend. IV. If a warrant for the suspect’s arrest is obtained, no additional resort to the magistrate is necessary, regardless of the subsequent tactics chosen by the police. The majority’s bogeyman — a magistrate judge at the scene of a standoff evaluating each and every tactical decision — is wholly illusory and bears no relationship to judicial reality.