HOT PURSUIT
A doctrine that provides that the police may enter
the premises where they suspect a crime has been
committed without a warrant when delay would
endanger their lives or the lives of others and lead
to the escape of the alleged perpetrator; also some-
times called fresh pursuit.
Countless crime dramas have portrayed
police officers in a high-speed chase barking
into their radio that they are “in hot pursuit” of
a suspect. This popular image says little about
the legal rule of hot pursuit. As established by
the U.S. Supreme Court, the rule is an important
exception to the freedoms guaranteed by the
FOURTH AMENDMENT. That constitutional pro-
vision safeguards citizens against excessive
police intrusion into their life and property. Its
foremost protection is the SEARCH WARRANT,
which must be obtained from a judge or magis-
trate before the police can conduct most
searches. Under special circumstances, the rule
of hot pursuit gives the police extra powers to
enter private property and conduct a search
without a warrant. The rule recognizes practical
limitations on Fourth Amendment rights in
light of the realities of police work, especially in
emergencies, but it stops far short of giving the
police complete freedom to conduct warrantless
searches.
As a powerful deterrent to the abuse of
power, the Fourth Amendment is designed to
prevent the rise of a police state. The require-
ment that police officers obtain search warrants
prevents ARBITRARY violations of freedom,
applying equally to federal and state authority.
Yet this freedom is not absolute. In the twenti-
eth century, the Supreme Court has carved out
a few exceptions to its protections. These excep-
tions exist under “exigent circumstances”: the
emergencylike demands of specifically defined
situations that call for immediate response by
the police, who must have PROBABLE CAUSE to
conduct a search. Generally, these are circum-
stances under which obtaining a search warrant
would be impractical—ranging from those
requiring officers to frisk suspects for weapons
to those requiring officers to stop and search
automobiles—as well as when suspects explic-
itly consent or imply consent to a search.
Hot pursuit is one such exigent circum-
stance. It usually applies when the police are
pursuing a suspected felon into private premises
or have probable cause to believe that a crime
has been committed on private premises. The
Supreme Court stated that “‘hot pursuit’ means
some sort of a chase, but it need not be an
extended hue and cry ‘in and about the public
streets’” (United States v. Santana, 427 U.S. 38,
96 S. Ct. 2406, 49 L. Ed. 2d 300 [1976]).Hot pur-
suit also applies when the lives of police officers
or others are in danger. Thus, the Court has rec-
ognized two specific conditions that justify war-
