United States v. Johnson

In Payton v. New York, 445 U. S. 573 (1980), this Court held that the Fourth Amendment1 prohibits the police from making a warrantless and nonconsensual entry into a sus*539pect’s home to make a routine felony arrest. The question before us in the present case is whether the rule announced in Payton applies to an arrest that took place before Payton was decided.

I

Special Agents Hemenway and Pickering of the United States Secret Service suspected respondent Raymond Eugene Johnson and his codefendant, Oscar Joseph Dodd, of attempting to negotiate a misdelivered United States Tréasury check.2…