Court Opinion

ID: 9427855
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:22:06.509937+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:10.052487
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Blackmun,
concurring;
I joined the Court’s opinion in United States v. Watson, 423 U. S. 411 (1976), upholding, on probable cause, the warrant-less arrest in a public place. I, of course, am still of the view that the decision in Watson is correct. The Court’s balancing of the competing governmental and individual interests properly occasioned that result. Where, however, the warrantless arrest is in the suspect’s home, that same balancing requires that, absent exigent. circumstances, the result be the other way. The suspect’s interest in the sanctity of his home then outweighs the governmental interests.
I therefore join the Court’s opinion, firm in the conviction that the result in Watson and the result here, although opposite, are fully justified by history and by the Fourth Amendment.