The panel says the police could enter the home - with no suspicion whatsoever - because Lemus's living room "immediately adjoined" the place surrounding the arrest, but Buie only authorizes a suspicionless search when the police make an "in-home arrest" (and then only for a small area near the arrest, not a grand tour of the entire apartment). Here there was no in-home arrest. How do we know this? Because the opinion says so: After making the arrest, Longoria “sent” the patrol officers "in" to Lemus's apartment. Officers who are already inside an apartment don't need to be sent in.
The entire justification Buie gives for a warrantless search is that officers must be able to protect themselves when they perform an "in-home arrest." When an arrest doesn't take the police into a suspect's home, they aren't forced into the "confined setting of unknown configuration" that Buie worries about. They're outside, just the same as in an "on-the-street or roadside investigatory encounter." Yet "[e]ven in high crime areas, where the possibility that any given individual is armed is significant," the Court still requires "reasonable, individualized suspicion" before police can perform a search.
H/t to Western Rifle Shooters Association.
Do you get it yet?
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