Today our firm filed an amicus brief in support of a challenge to a First Circuit decision which upheld an illegal search and seizure of firearms by police after a Petitioner husband and his wife had a non-violent, non-threatening argument. Tired of arguing with his wife, the husband threw down an unloaded handgun and said something like “just shoot me.” The next day the police showed up to do a “wellness check,” and insisted the husband go to a hospital to be interviewed, a request to which he submitted, and he was found to be non-suicidal. The police lied to the husband, and then lied to the wife, and searched for and seized his firearms without a warrant, and now assert that the supposed “community caretaking” exception to the Fourth Amendment permitted the search and seizure.
Additionally, the police did not give Petitioner any instructions as to how he might obtain the seized firearms, and in fact arbitrarily refused to return them until he filed suit. Our brief explains the danger of the “community caretaking” exception, which has no textual, historical or tradition-based support. Moreover, we explain that the First Circuit erred in determining that a person forfeits one constitutional right (the Fourth Amendment) by exercising another (the Second Amendment).