In 2011, Henderson, Nevada police officers demanded to use Anthony Mitchell's home as a tactical position during a neighbor's domestic violence call. When Mitchell refused, officers broke down his door, shot him with pepper rounds, and occupied his house. Mitchell sued under the Third Amendment, but in 2015, U.S. District Judge Andrew Gordon ruled that police officers are not "soldiers" and dismissed the Third Amendment claim.
That case captures why the Third Amendment still matters even though no one expects troops at the front door. The amendment established a constitutional principle: the government cannot commandeer your home for its own purposes. Legal scholars trace a direct line from the Third Amendment to the Supreme Court's landmark 1965 ruling in Griswold v. Connecticut, where Justice William O. Douglas cited it as evidence of a constitutional right to privacy. The only federal appeals court to rule on the amendment, in Engblom v. Carey (1982), held that National Guard members count as "soldiers" and that tenants -- not just homeowners -- have Third Amendment protections.