Page:Mike Stanton v. Drendolyn Sims.pdf/6

6 were unknown. 256 F. 3d, at 908. The court held that the officers' entry required a warrant, in part because Smith was wanted for only misdemeanor offenses. Then, in a footnote, the court said: "In situations where an officer is truly in hot pursuit and the underlying offense is a felony, the Fourth Amendment usually yields [to law enforcement's interest in apprehending a fleeing suspect]. See [Santana, supra, at 42–43]. However, in situations where the underlying offense is only a misdemeanor, law enforcement must yield to the Fourth Amendment in all but the 'rarest' cases. Welsh, [supra, at 753]." Johnson, supra, at 908, n. 6.

In concluding—as it must have—that Stanton was "plainly incompetent," al-Kidd, 563 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 12), the Ninth Circuit below read Welsh and the footnote in Johnson far too broadly. First, both of those cases cited Santana with approval, a case that approved an officer's warrantless entry while in hot pursuit. And though Santana involved a felony suspect, we did not expressly limit our holding based on that fact. See 427 U. S., at 42 ("The only remaining question is whether [the suspect's] act of retreating into her house could thwart an otherwise proper arrest. We hold that it could not"). Second, to repeat, neither Welsh nor Johnson involved hot pursuit. Welsh, supra, at 753; Johnson, supra, at 908. Thus, despite our emphasis in Welsh on the fact that the crime at issue was minor—indeed, a mere nonjailable civil offense—nothing in the opinion establishes that the seriousness of the crime is equally important in cases of hot pursuit. Third, even in the portion of Welsh cited by the Ninth Circuit below, our opinion is equivocal: We held not that warrantless entry to arrest a misdemeanant is never justified, but only that such entry should be rare. 466 U. S., at 753.

That is in fact how two California state courts have read Welsh. In both People v. Lloyd, 216 Cal. App. 3d 1425,