Fourth Amendment–Protective Sweep Doctrine: When Does the Fourth Amendment Allow Police Officers to Search the Home Incident to a Lawful Arrest
I. INTRODUCTION
In Maryland v. Buie,' the Supreme Court held that the fourth amendment permits an officer executing an arrest warrant in a private awelling to search rooms other than the room in which the arrest is made, whenever the searching officer possesses a reason- able belief, based on specific and articulable facts, that the adjacent rooms harbor another individual posing a danger to those on the arrest scene. The majority based its approval of this "protective sweep" on the "reasonable suspicion" exception to traditional fourth amendment searches first articulated in Terry v. State of Ohio. The majority thus extended the Terry holding, which permits officers to conduct a protective, warrantless search of a person, to "protective sweeps" conducted by police officers incident to a lawful, in home arrest. Conversely, the Buie dissent argued that the Terry test does not extend to searches of the home and that the fourth amendment war- rant and probable cause requirements should be applied to protective...