CA: Police can arrest DUI suspects in homes with no warrant

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Justices: Police can arrest DUI suspects in homes with no warrant
DAVID KRAVETS
Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO - Police may enter Californians' homes without warrants to arrest those suspected of driving under the influence, the California Supreme Court ruled Thursday in a case testing the scope of the Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.

The 6-1 decision follows similar rulings in about a dozen other states. A dissenting justice said the majority handed authorities a "free pass" to unlawfully enter private homes and arrest people without warrants.

Under the Fourth Amendment, authorities are prohibited from entering a home and making an arrest without a warrant unless so-called "exigent" circumstances are present. Those include "hot pursuit" of a fleeing felon, imminent destruction of evidence and the risk of danger to the police or other persons inside or outside of a house, among others.

In this case, Justice Marvin Baxter wrote that the loss of evidence at issue was obtaining a measurement of the suspect's blood-alcohol level. Baxter added that a contrary ruling would allow "the corruption of evidence that occurs when the suspect takes advantage of any delay to ingest more alcohol - or to claim to have done so - or when the suspect evades police capture until he or she is no longer intoxicated."

Baxter and the majority was cautious in saying the decision would not give police carte blanche powers.

"In holding that exigent circumstances justified the warrantless entry here, we need not decide, and do not hold, that the police may enter a home without a warrant to effect an arrest of a DUI suspect in every case," Baxter wrote.

In dissent, Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar said the majority was fooling itself. There is "always" the possibility that a suspect might destroy evidence, especially in drug and bookmaking cases in which officers routinely obtain warrants to search and make arrests, she said.

The case concerned the 2003 Santa Barbara arrest of Daniel Thompson, whom a neighbor suspected was driving drunk and notified authorities. They found a parked car matching the description the neighbor provided and went to the front door of the adjoining residence during a summer evening.

The door was open and a woman said the car's driver was asleep. Moments later, Thompson walked by the officers and they entered the house and arrested him. The neighbor confirmed it was the person she suspected of driving intoxicated and throwing an empty vodka bottle out the car door.

Thompson's blood-alcohol level was 0.21, almost three times the legal limit for driving. He was convicted and handed a three-year suspended sentence. He appealed.

A state court of appeal tossed the conviction, saying Thompson's constitutional rights were violated. The Supreme Court reversed, saying the lower court misapplied search-and-seizure precedent.

Santa Barbara County prosecutor Gerald McC. Franklin said the decision means there is no "absolute bar into entering a house without a warrant for the purpose of arresting somebody for driving under the influence of alcohol."

Thompson's attorney, Richard B. Lennon of Los Angeles, was not immediately available for comment.

The case is People v. Thompson, S130174.
 
Let's see... on one hand the court held that officers investigating a complaint of a crime can enter a residence and arrest a suspect under "probable cause" without a warrant.

On the other hand, the minority decision says that once a drunk driver gets into their residence they're nearly "home free" (pun intended) as police shouldn't have made the arrest.

Hmmmm....

It's not a cut & dried situation that will apply in every case. The witness presumeably gave a clear description of the car, a matching car is found parked. A registration check reveals the address. Cops go to the door and a woman resident says the driver is asleep. He appears to officers (no doubt to questions like "is that him?" or "are you Daniel Thompson?") and using probable cause they enter to detain & question him, find him sotted and take him into custody. Witness identifes subject as driver.

Change one or two facts in this case and the ability to arrest evaporates. E.g. the car is registered to the woman. At the door she's cold sober. Denies her male companion has driven the car that night and is asleep. He appears, is sotted, but denies driving the car. Add a 2nd male in the residence and the case blurs even more.
 
So now any witness can assess ones blood alcohol level from a unknown distance. If anything he should have been charged with littering. To go by the article that's all she knew positively. He might have started with a nearly empty bottle.
 
More Stupid Court Tricks. But in other threads the idea courts could do amazingly stupid things continues to be met with "It can't happen here" and "the Constitution says"... :rolleyes:

*sigh*
 
I say if they are driving drunk

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

inside their house... the cops have a right to arrest them
Click to expand...

I say, if they are driving drunk inside their house, well....that's a pretty big house:D
 
This is really nothing radically new. You're not getting the whole story here, you're getting a brief synopsis of the issue that the court ruled on.
I could have done the same thing when I was a working man here in Utah, IF I HAD ENOUGH PROBABLE CAUSE TO LEAD UP TO THE ARREST.
The lone dissenting judge is wrong to compare a DUI driver to a bookie or a drug dealer in stating a warrant should be required. In those two cases, the time element is not a critical factor. The bookie will probably be violating the law tomorrow, same with the drug dealer. We should have the same evidence, essentially, tomorrow as we do today, so we have time to get a warrant. Not so with a DUI driver. There is a critical time element in obtaining valid evidence- the blood alcohol level.
IF ENOUGH FACTORS WERE PRESENT, such as witness statements about erratic driving, tossing a vodka bottle from the car, staggering out of the car & into the house, a good physical description that matched the registered driver & the guy who chanced to walk by at the door, physical signs of intoxication visible on him, and so on, there's probable cause to believe that a crime was committed, he was the one who committed it, and the opportunity to lose critical evidence (BA levels naturally fluctuate over time, and the driver could claim he'd had 11 beers while the officers were trying for a warrant, which further taints the evidence) creates exigent circumstances that justify a warrantless arrest.
This is not a major "California" fruitloop legal decision, well-known as the state is for producing those.
Under VERY NARROW CIRCUMSTANCES, it's actually based on pretty well established principles, and it does not open a wide door to warrantless arrest abuse.
Denis
 
Who was the victim here?

The guy was home.

Where is the victim?

A neighbor says this guy was drunk, and driving. On that, lets throw this guy to the wolves!

So now, if you are seen violating the law in CA, your neighbors can turn on you, and expect a visit from the man.
"no harm, no foul", be damned.

You broke the law, Pay up!
 
The victim is considered to be society at large. If it's against the law to drive while intoxicated, it does not require that somebody actually be harmed in the process (traffic accident, pedestrian, property damage, etc.) for the law to be prosecutable. The "harm" lies in the potential for all of the above. The fact that the guy was home at the time of the arrest is irrelevant in deciding to prosecute or not. He drove while legally intoxicated (which is a misnomer), if he did it once there's a high probability he may do it again, and one of the major premises behind our legal system is prevention. If he does it once & gets away with it, how many more times will he repeat the behavior? Several? Until somebody does get killed?
Just because somebody makes it home without being caught should not grant immunity from arrest, and it doesn't, IF OTHER FACTORS ARE IN PLACE.
This guy was not thrown to the wolves based entirely on a neighbor saying he was drunk, that's grossly oversimplifying the situation.
You may expect a "visit from the man" under a wide range of circumstances that originate with a statement of suspected illegal activity by anybody- neighbor, mailman, church member, doctor, and so on. You're ignoring the "rest of the story", the fact that a police officer does not arrest based solely on such a statement, but has to develop supporting evidence and facts that he or she feels corroborate the initial statement and will most likely stand up in court. Every arrest ever made had to start with a beginning, and that can be a statement from a neighbor saying "I saw him lighting a bong on his back porch" to "I saw him shoot his wife", or may spring from a number of other points of origin including visual observations by an officer. The original statement may be determined to be either founded or unfounded during investigation. If your neighbor tells the police she saw you beat your wife, you will not be "thrown to the wolves" based entirely on that statement. You may get a visit and a little chat with some uniforms, and if they see you have bloody knuckles, the part of the house visible from the front door shows broken furniture or glass, and your wife happens to wander by in full view with a bloody broken nose and a swollen eye, you may very easily find yourself arrested on the spot. That would NOT be entirely based on the original statement by the neighbor. It would be based on the officers' investigation.
I can't count the number of times I was told- "You can't arrest me, I'm in my home!" Your home should not, cannot, and does not, provide you from being subject to arrest, UNDER CERTAIN NARROWLY DEFINED LIMITS.
I capitalize here not to yell, but to draw emphasis.
Again, this ruling breaks no new ground, does not promote a "police state", does not violate your constitutional rights, and does not guarrantee abuse of authority. :)
Denis
 
This puts the police at risk: a vindictive neighbor calls the police they kick in the door and get shot by the homeowner, jury acquits him as he was only protecting his own home and had no idea who was kicking in his door.
 
I kicked in my fair share of doors, but it was never based solely on anything a neighbor said. Any cop who does without strong justification would be a fool.
Again, this ignores the need AND PRACTICE of developing more corroboration than merely the word of a neighbor.
Denis
 
This is nothing new. Many states allow police to enter private property/homes without warrants under certain circumstances including legitimate emergencies or the potential destruction of evidence of a crime, where there is probable cause that a crime occured.

I don't have an issue with this, necessarily. I DO have an issue with what we label "crimes" in this country, so as to give exceptions to the rule for these types of home invasions and erosion of our personal liberties. People are currently upset about wiretapping, but it goes much deeper than this.

Think about the types of crimes we're talking about: I would venture that NO ONE other activity has given the government more control over people that making drugs illegal. It is because of illegalization of drugs that erroded personal freedoms under the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th and 14th Amendments. Because of prohibition, certain guns were illegalized in the 30s. Because of illegalization of the sale and use of narcotics, gang shootings were frequent in the 80's and 90's. This led to the 10 year AWB - Brady Bill. Our rights against unlawful searches and seizures have eroded due to drug laws, including your expectation of privacy on the street, riding in a vehicle, and in your own home. Police can literally use infrared equipment to "see through" walls to spot home growers, can hover at hundreds of feet above your home at night and use infrared equipment to watch your activities, and have MANY expections for warrentless searches under the guise of emergencies and effervescent evidence, consent and plain sight, detaining you and impounding your possessions for an "inventory." And our rights against cruel and unusual punishment have eroded due to drug laws (you can go to FEDERAL PRISON for the better part of your life for the possession of a few grams of an arbitrary drug with the government has decided isn't good for you).

We just have to ask ourselves "Are the current laws working effectively and efficiently? Are the current laws and their ramifications at destroying peoples lives (through imprisonment, shootings, beatings, etc.)? I don't think they are.

As an example of something very afoul, in my small hometown just a few years ago two police officers (who I know personally) chased a DUI suspect to his parents home (where he was staying). The suspect went inside and the police followed with guns drawn. It was very late at night. The father of the suspect, a Vietnam war veteran, was sleeping and was awoken and startled at the loud noises. He walked into the dark hallway carrying a 1911. The police shot him dead. There was a large controversy over the incident (the police said they warned him, the family said they shot without warning) but ultimately the police were cleared. Now, the question is: Is it worth it to go busting into homes in the middle of the night where it's predictable that somebody might be armed and startled inside the home, over a DUI suspect?
 
Um, here in TN, I cannot pull someone over for suspicion of DUI. DUI is an "after the stop" kind of determination. What I mean is, I must pull someone over for an actual violation and THEN AND ONLY THEN can I make a determination about DUI. You cannot tell if someone is actually DUI until after the stop, so the stop must be legitimate.

Now, apply that to this entering for a DUI suspect without a warrant. In TN, in order for me to have determined that a suspect was in fact DUI, they would have been stopped first for a traffic violation. Then, I would have observed in some sense their impairment. THEN they would have had to leave without my consent (evading, failure to stop, etc). So, in that case, I'd be okay to follow them to their house and arrest them under exigent circumstances. Or, if I thought they were driving strangely, AND saw they violate a traffic law, AND they refused to stop, AND they went home, I could pursue them into their home without a warrant. But none of this pursuit into their home is because of DUI. It is because of evading, or some similar charge.

I don't understand this ruling at all. Perhaps suspcion of DUI is grounds for a stop in CA? If so, the officer should be attempting to make a stop and the suspected DUI driver should be failing to stop. I don't understand a ruling that says that police can enter a house for suspected DUI. How did the police ascertain this person could be DUI? You'd have to see them driving. And, if you see them driving, you'd try and stop them right? If you didn't see them driving, there's absolutely no grounds for DUI. Am I missing something here?

Edit:Just read the entire OP. That's the most ridiculous thing I've read in a while. A neighbor calls in? On what grounds did she determine that her neighbor was drunk? Is she an expert. I can't believe this made it past the lowest court. Absolutely asinine. Police didn't even see the person driving. This is ridiculous.
 
JCO,
Here in Utah suspicion of DUI, based on observable factors, is primary grounds in itself for making a traffic stop, and has been for many years.
That may consist of a driving pattern, a "walking" pattern (driver staggering to the car, if observed by an officer or witness), a beer can tossed out the window, AND/OR a number of other factors. It's generally not based on any single thing, and need not include an actual separate traffic violation. I've made literally dozens of DUI arrests based on an erratic, but not otherwise illegal, driving pattern as a basis for making the initial stop, and then gone on from there to develop further probable cause to make the actual arrest.
State laws vary.
If I'd had probable cause to believe a DUI may have been committed outside my presence, and the time frame was very close, I could have investigated, built my probable cause, and made the arrest (and did, more than once). There are other legal doctrines that also apply, such as cases where an officer may encounter a suspect driver inside an unmoving vehicle with the engine off (actual physical control), or outside the vehicle and not actually either driving it or in physical control. I would have to, again, put enough evidence together (witness statements of seeing the driving, signs of obvious intoxication, suspect's own statements, etc.) to establish probable cause, but DUI in Utah is a crime in & of itself, is investigated as such, is arrested as such, can be pursued as such, and is prosecuted as such.
We do not have to personally witness the DUI driving, it does not have to be in our presence. Makes it a little harder to put the case together, but it's done.
The neighbor does not have to "determine" the driver is drunk. The neighbor does not have to be an expert. If a normal adult sees a guy driving erratically (in any form, including the way he parks in his driveway), sees him toss out a vodka bottle, sees him stagger out of the car (or into it in the first place), that adult can certainly form an opinion and express it to police. The opinion alone is not sufficient grounds for an arrest, but it certainly is a valid beginning for an investigation that leads to an arrest AFTER OTHER FACTORS ARE DEVELOPED.
Your state obviously works its DUI process differently, but mine's been doing it this way for decades, and I never had one thrown out on the basis of a foundational error involving lack of probable cause to make either the traffic stop or the arrest.
My state is pretty aggressive on DUI enforcement, and these methods have held up so far just fine.
Denis
 
Discussed this with my partner, who is much more experienced in legal matters. It seems that some of what I wrote might be irrelevant. Here is how we talked about it and this seems to make sense.

1. Was there a reason to initiate the contact? Sure. A citizen reports a complaint. Officers are dispatched to investigate.

2. Can the officers talk with the person who answers the door? Sure. No problem there. Officers ask questions to corroborate or deny the complaint. The officers at this point are well within legal limits in their interview with the woman who answered the door. They ascertain that the person complained against is the driver of the described car. The officers then see the described driver.

3. Can they arrest the driver? MAYBE. IF the officers OBSERVED the suspect behaving as if he were drunk (plain view doctrine), they would have probable cause to arrest and test the BAC. The arguments about when/how the BAC and drunken behavior occured are for the courtroom.

Now, that being said, I still can't believe this guy could not mount a decent defense. And it would appear that he was in fact DUI, though I do not attempt to use that as an "ends justifies the means" argument.

Anyway, just more fuel I suppose.
 
I could tell you first hand that LE does not need to witness the DWI to take someone in. I install breathalyzers for multiple offenders, and from the stories I've heard(unable to verify of course), a small percentage of my client base have been arrested long after they got home based on eye-witness accounts. One exmple I remember, is a guy who was apparently rude to a Whataburger employee at the drive-through. She phoned the police with his license plate number, and they showed up at his house as he was eating his burger, giving him his 3rd DWI.
 
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