The Supreme Court declared that police need an arrest warrant before they make a nonconsensual entrance into an accused’s residence to make an arrest.

Justice John Paul StevensStevens, John Paul;Payton v. New York[Payton v. New York] wrote the opinion for the 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court, declaring that an arrest warrant was needed before an arrest was made if the arrest required a nonconsensual entrance into a home. Exceptions could be made if there were exigent circumstances, such as if the police were in hot pursuit of a felon. The long-standing rule had been that a search warrant was necessary to make a nonconsensual search of a residence, but this principle had not been previously applied to the arrest itself. Some experts have argued that a search warrant should also be necessary in these circumstances. Still others, including the dissenters in Payton, would not have gone as far as the Court did in this case. Chief Justice Warren E. Burger and Justices Byron R. White and William H. Rehnquist dissented. Justice Harry A. Blackmun concurred separately.Search and seizure;Payton v. New York[Payton v. New York]

Automobile searches

Due process, procedural

Fourteenth Amendment

Fourth Amendment

Search warrant requirement