But the ground staked out by the two quarreling sides may require some fine-tuning of the way the two factions are henceforth described.

At issue was a 2001 quarrel over child custody at the home of Janet and Scott Randolph of Americus, Ga. When officers arrived at the home, Mrs. Randolph told them where they could find Mr. Radolph’s cocaine. An officer asked Scott Randolph for permission to search the house. Demonstrating some common sense, he refused. But Janet Randolph said yes and led the officers to a straw covered in cocaine crystals. Scott Randolph was arrested and went to jail for cocaine possession, an outcome which may or may not have benefitted the upbringing of the Randolph children.

Georgia’s Supreme Court ultimately ruled the evidence should be suppressed because it was gathered without a warrant. On March 22 the high court agreed, ruling a permission to search, granted by one resident of a home, does not overrule the right of a second occupant to be free of warrantless searches, providing the second resident is present and actively asserts his right by refusing permission.

The case could have obvious repercussions for police investigation of domestic violence complaints, which frequently involve a female complainant welcoming police, and a male suspect less likely to cooperate or invite officers into the home.

Thus, a simplistic presumption might be that the “bleeding-heart liberal” branch of the court -- Justices David Souter, John Paul Stevens, Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer -- might have voted to make it easier for police to ride to the rescue of oppressed female victims of domestic abuse, while the hard-hearted “strict constructionists” -- Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas (newcomer Samuel Alito did not vote because he was not on the court when arguments were heard last fall) might have been expected to elevate the language of the constitutional protection above any mundane, pragmatic concerns.

In fact, just the opposite occurred. The “liberal” branch of the court proved willing to accept the pragmatic likelihood that some domestic violence victims will be left without immediate succor in their homes, while the Scalia-Thomas branch appeared happy to place the pragmatic needs of police above any niggling difficulties presented by the actual constitutional text.

(Perhaps it would be best to henceforth drop “constitutionalist” from any description of this minority, simply referring to them as the “law-and-order” bunch.)

The ruling changes the law as it will be applied in most of the country, where up till now the permission of just one occupant of a house was considered adequate to justify a warrantless entry and search.

Previous rulings, which hold that permission of one partner or spouse is sufficient for a search if the other is asleep or absent, remain unchanged. While that may at first seem an awfully thin distinction, it could indeed be absurd to disallow police from entering a home upon one spouse’s legitimate call for help, simply because the other spouse is out of town or unconscious, rendering his or her permission impossible to obtain.

Justice Souter, who wrote the majority opinion, responded to a criticism from Chief Justice Roberts, aimed at precisely the example of battered wives seeking help, by stressing that police still have authority to enter a home without waiting for a warrant if they believe any resident is in imminent danger.

In the end, the court reached the proper conclusion. The rights to privacy and against government intrusion set forth in the first 10 amendments are a thin enough line of defense against a hyperactive government. This makes it all the more important that they be “guarded jealously,” as more than one founder warned.

The default setting is not that government agents should be able to enter our homes except when the stars align just right, but rather that “The right of the people to be secure in their homes, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated. ...”

The family existed before the government. Given the choice between families with no government, or a government that erodes the integrity of our families, we’ll keep the family, thank you very much. If government agents argue their jobs could be made easier by allowing them to drive a wedge between members of a family sharing the privacy of the same house ... that’s just tough.