I'm Elizabeth Lattery and I'm Tiffany Bates and welcome to SCOTUS 101 where we break down what's happening at the Supreme Court, what the justices are up to, and other things related to our favorite branch of government.

This week we're talking about SCOTUS and the police, a pair of lingering establishment clause cases, and we'll interview former Associate White House Counsel

Mike McGinley.

The court issued a couple of opinions this week, and they have 29 cases left to decide

before the end of June.

So first up was Collins v. Virginia, and in this case, the Supreme Court held that the

Fourth Amendment does not allow a police officer to enter someone's

driveway to search a parked vehicle without first obtaining a warrant. The Fourth Amendment,

by way of background, protects against unreasonable searches and seizures and generally requires

police to obtain a warrant before searching or seizing someone's property. The Supreme Court has

recognized several exceptions to the warrant

requirement, including for automobiles. But the court has also determined that police may not

search the curtilage of a home. This is the area immediately surrounding a home without first

obtaining a warrant. So this week in Collins v. Virginia, eight members of the court agreed that

when the automobile exception and the curtilage protection collide, curtilage wins the day. Writing for eight members of

the court, Justice Sonia Sotomayor called this an easy case explaining that the scope of the

automobile exception extends no further than the automobile itself. She said that to find otherwise would transform what was meant to be an exception into a tool with far, broader application.

The majority left open for the state court to assess whether one of the other exceptions to the warrant requirements, such as exigent circumstances, might apply to the warrantless search in this case.

Justice Alito dissented, remarking that the hallmark of the Fourth Amendment is reasonableness

and the police officer's conduct here was entirely reasonable.

He also opened his opinion by saying that the court's decision is not reasonable.

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a concurring opinion where he suggested that the court might want to revisit a landmark decision from 1961 Map v. Ohio, but we don't really need to get into the details there.

...