LONG BRANCH — The state Supreme Court ruled today that a Long Branch police officer illegally searched a house when he seized drugs from a bedroom while answering a complaint about loud noises coming from party.

In a unanimous decision, the court affirmed a lower court ruling that Officer Ramon Camacho violated the privacy of Derek Kaltner, 23, a Long Branch resident, because he searched the entire house without a warrant. The high court agreed that the drugs, which were in plain sight, could not be used as evidence.

The decision was welcomed by the New Jersey chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed a brief on Kaltner’s behalf.

Alexander Shalom, policy counsel for the ACLU, said the organization was "pleased that the New Jersey Supreme Court declined the invitation to strip New Jersey residents of their expectations of privacy simply because they host a loud party."

"Police can, and should, enforce noise complaints," Shalom said. "But that does not give them carte blanche to invade the sanctity of a person’s home.

Acccording to the court decision, Camacho and four other officers responded to complaints on Oct. 22, 2009, that excessive noise was coming from a house party where several Monmouth University students lived.

The officers knocked on the door and an unidentified man invited them into the house, where Camacho estimated there were more than 100 people drinking beer and talking loudly, the decision said.

Camacho said the officers could not find the residents, and none of the partygoers responded when the officers asked who lived there. The officers fanned out to find the residents, and when Camacho couldn’t find them on the second floor, he said he went to the third floor.

He said it was there that he peered into bedroom through an open door and saw two pills in small plastic bags, later identified as ecstacy, on a table along with a prescription pill bottle, empty plastic bags and a scale covered with white powder.

The other officers identified three of the residents and issued noise summonses, and one of them telephoned Kaltner, whose name was on the pill bottle. When Kaltner returned to Long Branch from his parents’ house in Rochelle Park, he was charged with possession of a controlled dangerous substance.

The state contended that Kaltner, represented by the state Public Defender’s Office, had no expectation of privacy because he was having a large party at his house. But an appellate panel rejected that argument, writing that although entering the house to deal with the noise complaint was legal, a warrant was needed to search the entire residence.

"The objective of noise abatement could have been achieved well short of the full-scale search engaged in by the officers in this matter," Judge Anthony Parrillo of the appellate panel wrote at the time of the ruling on June 29.

The Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments on March 27, did not write a full opinion today, but relied on that of the lower court.

The assistant deputy public defender, Frank Pugliese, said, "This case reaffirms our long-held belief that the home, whether occupied by college age young people or not, is a special place of privacy and that exceptions to the warrant requirement will continue to be narrowly applied to places of residence."

The Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office did not return a call seeking comment.

Editor's note: The story and headline have been updated to reflect that Derek Kaltner is not a Monmouth University student, as the appellate court ruling incorrectly states.