It is not news to anyone that searches conducted without warrants are per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment—subject only to a few narrowly construed exceptions.1 One such exception to the warrant requirement is commonly referred to as “hot pursuit.”
The U.S. Supreme Court laid the groundwork for the hot pursuit exception in 1967 when the court concluded that “(t)he Fourth Amendment does not require police officers to delay in the course of an investigation if to do so would gravely endanger their lives or the lives of others.”2 By 1976 the exception was firmly established when the U.S. Supreme Court concluded that an officer’s warrantless entry in a home while in hot pursuit of a felony suspect did not violate the Fourth Amendment.3 While the Supreme Court has made it clear that a hot pursuit exception to the warrant requirement exists, it has not clearly established the scope of the exception.
