Whether police may enter and perform a 'protective sweep' of a home not proximate to an arrest scene and when they lack affirmative information suggesting anyone is inside the home

QUESTIONS PRESENTED Maryland v. Buie, 494 U.S. 325 (1990), recognized a narrow exception to the warrant requirement called a “protective sweep,” i.e., “a quick and limited search of [the] premises, incident to an arrest .. . [and] narrowly confined to a cursory visual inspection of those places in which a person might be hiding.” Jd. at 327. Before police may perform a protective sweep, “there must be [specific] and articulable facts which, taken together with the rational inferences from those facts, would warrant a reasonably prudent officer in believing that the area to be swept harbors an individual posing a danger to those on the arrest scene.” Id. at 334. Here, the Ninth Circuit upheld a warrantless sweep through every room of a home several blocks away from an arrest based on no more than the officers’ “inability” to know whether someone posing a danger might be inside, deepening one circuit split and creating another. It alternatively permitted admission of any unlawfully obtained evidence under the “inevitable discovery” doctrine, Nix v. Williams, 467 U.S. 431, 432 (1984), taking sides in still another split that allows police to forgo a warrant if they “likely” would have been able to obtain one had they tried. The questions presented are: 1. Whether police may enter and perform a “protective sweep” of a home not proximate to an arrest scene and when they Jack affirmative information suggesting anyone is inside the home. 2. Whether the inevitable discovery doctrine permits admission of unlawfully seized evidence when police likely could have obtained, yet failed to seek, a search warrant before entering the home.