United States v. Willie Lee Cooks

NEWSOM, Circuit Judge:

In the ordinary case, an arrest warrant doesn't automatically authorize police to search the arrestee's residence-the home search requires its own warrant. This isn't the ordinary case.

The question here is whether police violated the Fourth Amendment when they conducted a warrantless search of the crawlspace in Willie Lee Cooks's home following a four-hour standoff that the responding officers deemed a hostage situation and that culminated in Cooks's arrest. Here's the short version: Rather than submitting to arrest, Cooks barricaded himself in his house, thereby…