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When Police Are Called to a House

N.D.C.C. § 14-07.1-10 — with probable cause of domestic violence, an officer presumes an arrest is the response

An officer with probable cause to believe a person committed a crime involving domestic violence, felony or misdemeanor, in the officer's presence or not, presumes that arresting the person is the appropriate response.

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  • The officer may not threaten that everyone in the household will be arrested to discourage calls for help.
  • With complaints from two household members, the officer looks first at self-defense, then at which one was the predominant aggressor.
  • An arrest without a warrant for assaulting a household member is made within twelve hours of probable cause, after seeing recent injury; after that, a warrant is needed.
  • Someone arrested for a domestic violence crime is not released on bail until appearing before a magistrate.

The Fourth Amendment draws its firmest line at the entrance to a home, and the Supreme Court of the United States has held where it falls in situations police meet at a door. Absent consent or exigent circumstances, officers may not enter a home without a warrant to make a routine felony arrest. Where one occupant consents to a search of a shared home and another who is physically present expressly refuses, the search is unreasonable as to the one who refused. And officers may enter without a warrant when they have an objectively reasonable basis for believing someone inside is seriously injured or imminently threatened with such injury. Those holdings are a floor: a state's own constitution and statutes can give more protection than they do, never less.

  • Payton v. New York
  • Georgia v. Randolph
  • Brigham City v. Stuart
Sources for this section (5)
  1. N.D.C.C. § 14-07.1-10 — Arrest procedures
  2. N.D.C.C. § 14-07.1-11 — Arrest without warrant
  3. Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573 (1980) — Warrantless entry into a home to make a routine arrest is barred
  4. Georgia v. Randolph, 547 U.S. 103 (2006) — A present occupant's refusal defeats another occupant's consent
  5. Brigham City v. Stuart, 547 U.S. 398 (2006) — Police may enter to render emergency aid

Legal information, not legal advice. Verified as of October 2026. Applying it to a particular situation is the work of a licensed North Dakota attorney.

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