Matalon v. Hynnes

SELYA, Circuit Judge.

This case requires us to inspect the topography of the seldom-used exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement for warrantless searches by police officers exercising community caretaking functions. The case arises in the context of a warrantless entry by the appellants (Boston police officers) into a dwelling in the Brighton neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. The police lacked probable cause; the jury found that their intrusion into the dwelling was not justified either by exigent circumstances or by any other constitutionally acceptable rationale; and an…