Sean Garvin v. New York

This case presents two independent questions of significant practical importance over which the lower courts are deeply divided—one concerning the Fourth Amendment, and the other concerning the Sixth Amendment. The Court should grant review of either or both.

1. In Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573 (1980), this Court held that “the Fourth Amendment * * * prohibits the police from making a warrantless and nonconsensual entry into a suspect’s home in order to make a routine felony arrest.” Id. at 576. Four years earlier, in United States v. Santana, 427 U.S. 38 (1976), the Court held that a suspect who was standing inside of her home but at the open doorway had no reasonable expectation of privacy there, “as if she [were] standing completely outside her house.” Id. at 42. The lower courts are intractably divided over how to reconcile Payton and Santana when officers, who lack a warrant but remain outside the home, arrest a suspect by show of authority when the suspect has come to the front door but remains inside the home. The first question presented is whether a police officer who remains outside a suspect’s home violates the Fourth Amendment by arresting the suspect by show of authority without a warrant when the suspect is at the front door but has not stepped outside.

2. In Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000), this Court held that, “[o]ther than the fact of a prior conviction, any fact that increases the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum must be submitted to a jury, and proved beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id. at 490. In New York, a court has discretion to enhance the sentence of a persistent felony offender. Before exercising that dis-