Cite as: 514 U. S. 927 (1995)
Opinion of the Court
II
The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution protects "[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures." In evaluating the scope of this right, we have looked to the traditional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures afforded by the common law at the time of the framing. See California v. Hodari D., 499 U. S. 621, 624 (1991); United States v. Watson, 423 U. S. 411, 418- 420 (1976); Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132, 149 (1925). "Although the underlying command of the Fourth Amendment is always that searches and seizures be reasonable," New Jersey v. T. L. O., 469 U. S. 325, 337 (1985), our effort to give content to this term may be guided by the meaning ascribed to it by the Framers of the Amendment. An examination of the common law of search and seizure leaves no doubt that the reasonableness of a search of a dwelling may depend in part on whether law enforcement officers announced their presence and authority prior to entering.
Although the common law generally protected a man's house as "his castle of defence and asylum," 3 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *288 (hereinafter Blackstone), common-law courts long have held that "when the King is party, the sheriff (if the doors be not open) may break the party's house, either to arrest him, or to do other execution of the K[ing]'s process, if otherwise he cannot enter." Semayne's Case, 5 Co. Rep. 91a, 91b, 77 Eng. Rep. 194, 195 (K. B. 1603). To this rule, however, common-law courts appended an important qualification:
"But before he breaks it, he ought to signify the cause of his coming, and to make request to open doors . . . , for the law without a default in the owner abhors the destruction or breaking of any house (which is for the habitation and safety of man) by which great damage and inconvenience might ensue to the party, when no
931
Page: Index Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007