filed a concurring opinion, in which BRENNAN, J., joined, post, p. 402. REHNQUIST, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, post, p. 405.

Richard Oseran argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the brief was Frederick S. Klein.

Galen H. Wilkes, Assistant Attorney General of Arizona, argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief were Bruce E. Babbitt, Attorney General, Philip G. Urry, Assistant Attorney General, and William J. Schafer III.

MR. JUSTICE STEWART delivered the opinion of the Court. On the afternoon of October 28, 1974, undercover police officer Barry Headricks of the Metropolitan Area Narcotics Squad knocked on the door of an apartment in Tucson, Ariz., occupied by the petitioner, Rufus Mincey. Earlier in the day, Officer Headricks had allegedly arranged to purchase a quantity of heroin from Mincey and had left, ostensibly to obtain money. On his return he was accompanied by nine other plainclothes policemen and a deputy county attorney. The door was opened by John Hodgman, one of three acquaintances of Mincey who were in the living room of the apartment. Officer Headricks slipped inside and moved quickly into the bedroom. Hodgman attempted to slam the door in order to keep the other officers from entering, but was pushed back against the wall. As the police entered the apartment, a rapid volley of shots was heard from the bedroom. Officer Headricks emerged and collapsed on the floor. When other officers entered the bedroom they found Mincey lying on the floor, wounded and semiconscious. Officer Headricks died a few hours later in the hospital.

The petitioner was indicted for murder, assault,' and three

1 The assault charge was based on the wounding of a person in the living room who was hit by a bullet that came through the wall.

counts of narcotics offenses. He was tried at a single trial and convicted on all the charges. At his trial and on appeal, he contended that evidence used against him had been unlawfully seized from his apartment without a warrant and that statements used to impeach his credibility were inadmissible because they had not been made voluntarily. The Arizona Supreme Court reversed the murder and assault convictions on state-law grounds, but affirmed the narcotics convictions. 115 Ariz. 472, 566 P. 2d 273. It held that the warrantless search of a homicide scene is permissible under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments and that Mincey's statements were voluntary. We granted certiorari to consider these substantial constitutional questions. 434 U. S. 902.

I

The first question presented is whether the search of Mincey's apartment was constitutionally permissible. After the shooting, the narcotics agents, thinking that other persons in the apartment might have been injured, looked about quickly for other victims. They found a young woman wounded in the bedroom closet and Mincey apparently unconscious in the bedroom, as well as Mincey's three acquaintances (one of whom had been wounded in the head) in the living room. Emergency assistance was requested, and some medical aid was administered to Officer Headricks. But the agents refrained from further investigation, pursuant to a Tucson Police Department directive that police officers should not investigate incidents in which they are involved. They neither searched further nor seized any evidence; they merely guarded the suspects and the premises.

Within 10 minutes, however, homicide detectives who had

2 The state appellate court held that the jury had been improperly instructed on criminal intent. It appears from the record in this case that the retrial of the petitioner on the murder and assault charges was stayed by the trial court after certiorari was granted by this Court.

heard a radio report of the shooting arrived and took charge of the investigation. They supervised the removal of Officer Headricks and the suspects, trying to make sure that the scene was disturbed as little as possible, and then proceeded to gather evidence. Their search lasted four days,' during which period the entire apartment was searched, photographed, and diagrammed. The officers opened drawers, closets, and cupboards, and inspected their contents; they emptied clothing pockets; they dug bullet fragments out of the walls and floors; they pulled up sections of the carpet and removed them for examination. Every item in the apartment was closely examined and inventoried, and 200 to 300 objects were seized. In short, Mincey's apartment was subjected to an exhaustive and intrusive search. No warrant was ever obtained.

The petitioner's pretrial motion to suppress the fruits of this search was denied after a hearing. Much of the evidence introduced against him at trial (including photographs and diagrams, bullets and shell casings, guns, narcotics, and narcotics paraphernalia) was the product of the four-day search of his apartment. On appeal, the Arizona Supreme Court reaffirmed previous decisions in which it had held that the warrantless search of the scene of a homicide is constitutionally permissible. It stated its ruling as follows:

"We hold a reasonable, warrantless search of the scene of a homicide or of a serious personal injury with likelihood of death where there is reason to suspect foul play

The police also returned to the apartment in November 1974, at the request of the petitioner's landlord, to remove property of the petitioner that remained in the apartment after his lease had expired on October 31.

State v. Sample, 107 Ariz. 407, 489 P. 2d 44; State ex rel. Berger v. Superior Court, 110 Ariz. 281, 517 P. 2d 1277; State v. Duke, 110 Ariz. 320, 518 P. 2d 570. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed the denial of a petition for a writ of habeas corpus filed by the defendant whose conviction was upheld in State v. Sample, supra, on the ground, inter alia, that the warrantless search of the homicide scene violated the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. Sample v. Eyman, 469 F. 2d 819.

does not violate the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution where the law enforcement officers were legally on the premises in the first instance. . For the search to be reasonable, the purpose must be limited to determining the circumstances of death and the scope must not exceed that purpose. The search must also begin within a reasonable period following the time when the officials first learn of the murder (or potential murder)." 115 Ariz., at 482, 566 P. 2d, at 283.

Since the investigating homicide detectives knew that Officer Headricks was seriously injured, began the search promptly upon their arrival at the apartment, and searched only for evidence either establishing the circumstances of death or "relevant to motive and intent or knowledge (narcotics, e. g.)," id., at 483, 566 P. 2d, at 284, the court found that the warrantless search of the petitioner's apartment had not violated the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments.

We cannot agree. The Fourth Amendment proscribes all unreasonable searches and seizures, and it is a cardinal principle that "searches conducted outside the judicial process, without prior approval by judge or magistrate, are per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment-subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions." Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347, 357 (footnotes omitted); see also South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U. S. 364, 381 (POWELL, J., concurring); Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U. S. 443, 481; Vale v. Louisiana, 399 U. S. 30, 34; Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1, 20; Trupiano v. United States, 334 U. S. 699, 705. The Arizona Supreme Court did not hold that the search of the petitioner's apartment fell within any of the exceptions to the warrant requirement previously recognized by this Court, but rather that the search of a homicide scene should be recognized as an additional exception.

Several reasons are advanced by the State to meet its "bur

den... to show the existence of such an exceptional situation" as to justify creating a new exception to the warrant requirement. See Vale v. Louisiana, supra, at 34; United States v. Jeffers, 342 U. S. 48, 51. None of these reasons, however, persuades us of the validity of the generic exception delineated by the Arizona Supreme Court.

The first contention is that the search of the petitioner's apartment did not invade any constitutionally protected right of privacy. See Katz v. United States, supra. This argument appears to have two prongs. On the one hand, the State urges that by shooting Officer Headricks, Mincey forfeited any reasonable expectation of privacy in his apartment. We have recently rejected a similar waiver argument in Michigan v. Tyler, 436 U. S. 499, 505-506; it suffices here to say that this reasoning would impermissibly convict the suspect even before the evidence against him was gathered." On the other hand, the State contends that the police entry to arrest Mincey was so great an invasion of his privacy that the additional intrusion caused by the search was constitutionally irrelevant. But this claim is hardly tenable in light of the extensive nature of this search. It is one thing to say that one who is legally taken into police custody has a lessened right of privacy in his person. See United States v. Edwards, 415 U. S. 800, 808809; United States v. Robinson, 414 U. S. 218. It is quite another to argue that he also has a lessened right of privacy in his entire house. Indeed this very argument was rejected when it was advanced to support the warrantless search of a dwelling where a search occurred as "incident" to the arrest of its occupant. Chimel v. California, 395 U. S. 752, 766 n. 12.

5 Moreover, this rationale would be inapplicable if a homicide occurred at the home of the victim or of a stranger, yet the Arizona cases indicate that a warrantless search in such a case would also be permissible under the "murder scene exception." Cf. State v. Sample, supra, at 409, 489 P. 2d, at 46.