Quashaun Melsun Reel v. North Carolina

This Court has recognized an “implied license” that permits a “visitor to approach the home by the front path, knock promptly, wait briefly to be received, and then (absent invitation to linger longer) leave.” Fla. v. Jardines, 569 U.S. 1, 10 (2013). Police rely on this “implied license” to conduct untold thousands of so-called “knock-and-talk” investigations each year under the theory that entering the curtilage of the home to conduct a “knock and talk” does not implicate the Fourth Amendment. But this Court in Jardines also instructed that an officer’s purpose in entering the curtilage of the home has constitutional relevance. If police “enter the protected premises of the home in order to do nothing but conduct a search,” they have conducted a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. Id. at 8 n.4 (emphasis added). This Court reinforced these principles in Collins v. Virginia, holding that “[w]hen a law enforcement officer physically intrudes on the curtilage to gather evidence, a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment has occurred,” and the conduct is thus “presumptively unreasonable absent a warrant.” 584 U.S. 586, 593 (2018) (emphasis added). The question presented is: When police enter the curtilage of the home to conduct a “knock-and-talk” investigation with the purpose of gathering incriminating evidence against the homeowner, do police conduct a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment?