	Introduction

The United States Supreme Court recently held that the police may enter and search a home without the usually required warrant if they reasonably believe steps are being taken within the home to destroy the evidence they seek, Kentucky v. King . In doing so, the Court rejected limitations which some of the state and lower federal courts had imposed on the exigent circumstance exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement. For some courts, inexcusable exigencies occurred when the police created them in order to avoid seeking a warrant. On the question of whether exigent circumstances justified the warrantless search of the apartment, the Kentucky Supreme Court adopted a two-part test: 
First, courts must determine whether the officers deliberately created the exigent circumstances with the bad faith intent to avoid the warrant requirement. Thus, the Court reasoned, where "the police did not create the exigency by engaging or threatening to engage in conduct that violates the Fourth Amendment, warrantless entry to prevent the destruction of evidence is reasonable and thus allowed." It gave no credence to the suggestion that the exception should be unavailable if officers had sufficient probable cause and time to secure a warrant. The Kentucky Supreme Court had incorrectly held that the Fourth Amendment imposed a "foreseeability" limitation on warrantless searches conducted under exigent circumstances. Certiorari had been granted on the question of the permissible limits, if any, on police-created exigencies. The existence of a police-created exigency was assumed by both the Kentucky Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court. The concern that gave rise to the "police-created exigency" doctrine in the lower courts may lead to a more demanding threshold of exigency in the future.
Authorities may enter and search a home without a warrant if they have probable cause and reason to believe that evidence is being destroyed within the home. So declared the United States Supreme Court in an 8-1 decision, Kentucky v. King, 131 S.Ct. 1849 (2011)(No. 09-1272).
The Kentucky Supreme Court had overturned King's conviction for marijuana possession and drug dealing, because the evidence upon which it was based had been secured following a warrantless search which failed to conform with that court's restrictions under its "police-created exigencies" doctrine.
The Fourth Amendment usually permits authorities to search a home only if they have both probable cause and a warrant. The warrant requirement may be excused in the presence of exigent circumstances, for instance, when it appears the occupants are attempting to flee or to destroy evidence. Leery lest authorities create exigent circumstances to avoid the warrant requirement, some state and lower federal courts had adopted one form or another of a police-created exigencies doctrine.
The Court rejected each of these and endorsed searches conducted under the exigent circumstance exception, unless authorities had created the exigency by threatening to, or engaging in, activities which themselves violated the Fourth Amendment.
In order to reach the question of limitations on police-created exigencies, the Court assumed the existence of exigent circumstances in King. The concerns from which the police-created exigencies doctrine emerged may now give rise to more stringent standards for what qualifies as an exigency.