Lange v. California, 20-18, 2021 WL 2557068, at *7 (U.S. June 23, 2021)(Fourth Amendment – hot pursuit and misdemeanors) Short version: Can an officer in hot pursuit of a misdemeanant enter the misdemeanant’s home? Maybe yes, maybe no. It all depends. Long version: Arthur Lange was having a good time; as he was driving along, he was playing his music loud and honking his horn (in what I presume was celebration of said good time). Alas, a California Highway Patrol Officer (a la Ponch and Jon) did not feel this was appropriate behavior for the staid roads of Sonoma. Our CHP officer followed him for a bit, then decided to pull Lange over. (Had to be Jon; Ponch would have been cool with a good time.) But Lange was four-seconds from home. His garage door went up, he went in, and the door began to go down. Our officer stuck his foot in the garage door causing it to go back up (yay for technology! What you never had a garage door close on your foot? Seriously, yay for technology!) and entered the garage. It seems that Mr. Lange was a wee bit drunk. (And by a wee bit I mean over 3 times the legal limit.) He was arrested for DUI (a misdemeanor). Mr. Lange objected to this intrusion into his home. (California did not see the problem). Enter the Supreme Court to answer the burning question: Does the Fourth Amendment always permits an officer to enter a home without a warrant in pursuit of a fleeing misdemeanor suspect? Answer in three parts: 1) Not always! 2) Remember misdemeanors run the gamut from dyeing chicks an artificial color to assault; 3) Ask do exigent circumstances exist? Are you sure? (Is this really about the teal-dyed chick? No?) Fine. Otherwise get a warrant. Notably, Robert’s concurrence (joined by Alito) would create a bright line rule that hot pursuit no-matter the crime is exigent circumstances unless it’s totally unreasonable. Essentially, he reminds us that pretext works and results in discovery of drugs and guns so let officers chase people who run because, after all, why would you run unless you had something to hide? (Thomas’ concurrence primarily reminds us he does not believe in the exclusionary rule and to revel in history. Much as he did in Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L., No. 20-255 (U.S. June 23, 2021) where, as the lone dissenter, he talked about how back in the day, Vermont let a teacher beat a student because he called him old and that was good because it taught that whipper-snapper a lesson. The majority in B.L. believed the cheerleader could use snapchat to drop a few f-bombs even if it was talking about school.).