Court OKs police home entry in emergencies

[johnbt]

"The officers saw four adults restraining one juvenile."

The cops were just evening the odds a little.

Now, if it'd been a fair fight maybe they wouldn't have been suspicious and would have let it go, although it was 3 in the morning and there had been a complaint about noise.

John

 

[Capt. Charlie]

Have we become so PC that a one punch "fight" is now an issue of life and death, allowing police to rush headlong into a private dwelling without even a knock?

But Rich, that's 20/20 hindsight. We know now what it was, but at the time? What were the indicators the officers had that led to the decision to enter? Most importantly, did those indicators suggest a possible serious escalation without intervention? Perhaps a knife lying on a table close to the "combatants"? If the officers witnessed the fight, did nothing to stop it, and one of the parties was stabbed, what are the reprocussions to the officers?

But, as is so often the case, I digress . The crux of the issue here being no-knock entries, I submit that a total disallowance of no-knocks isn't practical. There are times when knock and announce puts officers at greater risk. That may seem obvious, but once you put "shall announce" on paper, there is no more "should announce". I have no objections to a refinement that keeps our 4th Amendment Rights intact, while laying down clear and reasonable expectations for law enforcement, but decisions made by our courts and lawmakers need to be carefully thought out with all possible future consequences considered. Laws are passed far too often that originally had good intent, but were worded so that an elephant gun is mandated to kill mice, and the resulting collateral damage was never considered.

Surely we can agree that the act of Police entering private homes unannounced has got to bear the closest scrutiny and the largest burden of necessity of all possible government action against its citizens.

Absolutely!

But at the same time, give us clear and reasonable guidelines to go by. Don't hand us a huge "gray area", expect us to make a correct, snap judgement on something that's been the subject of decades of judicial bickering, and hold us accountable when we couldn't, in the moments allowed us, interpret the "gray" the same way the courts did.

 

[Rich Lucibella]

Don't hand us a huge "gray area"

Charlie-
Therein lies the problem. As an LEO, you want clear lines of authority. The more the Courts and Legislatures try to provide that, the less ground we have protected by the Bill of Rights.

- Probable Cause becomes Reasonable Suspicion
- The Fourth becomes constricted by Terry
- The Fourth becomes further constricted by Hiibel
- Now the Fourth becomes even more constricted by Stuart

Again, we are not arguing whether the officers should have entered the home. We are debating whether they had an obligation to at least knock first

This issue of us "not having been there" and "not having seen what the officers saw" is a Red Herring of the first order. While it should (and does) protect those officers from liability in a civil action, that should not be equated with complete abrogation of the homeowners rights to suppress. That's all the defendants asked for; that's what they received from the Trial Court, the Appellate Court and the Utah Supreme Court. It's what they were stripped of by SCOTUS.

I've already provided a link to the Utah SC decision in this. They clearly address the issue of potential injury and the need for immediate action:

Among the categories of possible exigent circumstances, only one is relevant here: whether the altercation within the dwelling and the blow struck by the juvenile could give rise to the officers' reasonable belief that their immediate entry was necessary to prevent physical harm to the occupants of the house. With this refinement of our inquiry, we confront the nub of the matter: how grave must the impending harm be to create an exigent circumstance? According to Brigham City, the answer to this question is "not very."

Three Courts found this entry did not require such immediate action as to render a "Knock" too long a delay; in fact, the officers hardly rushed to the aid of the guy with the nose bleed. They entered the home quite carefully. SCOTUS claims the incident constituted a "brawl". While that is hardly the nub of the issue, nobody needs a crystal ball to understand that today's decision in Stuart opens the door to tomorrow's decisions regarding:
- No-Knock entry for audible domestic disturbance
- No-Knock entry where loud music is playing (this was one of the State's arguments for not knocking.)
- No-Knock entry where a child is heard crying
- No-Knock entry where a dog fight is in progress

Doncha get it? I'm not arguing that LEO's shouldn't be allowed to investigate these things; I'm only stating that, under circumstances this relatively commonplace and benign, the requirement should be to (at the very least) Knock First before you invade my home. There is no greater invasion of the Fourth than entering a private home. The defendants were outraged by the action? I'd have been positively ballistic.

As to that "Gray Area" you live in, Charlie- That is, unfortunately, as it should be. Because, when you demand that your job be colored in Black and White, the rest of us become subject to the gray vagaries of decisions like Stuart....we no longer know what rights we have. In a "Free" society, that is simply unacceptable. In your own home, it is unconscionable.

Just how low do we wish to lower the bar of Search and Seizure Rights in order to protect Americans from a run-of-the-mill, common, everyday, domestic, one-punch "fist fight"?
Rich

 

[mvpel]

I thought the legal principle of "exigent circumstances" was a well-established standard of reasonableness. Isn't that what they claimed when they went in to OJ's curtilege?

 

[Scott Conklin]

Don't peek in my windows.

Bring a warrant, always.

Then there's no fear you'll get shot, SCOTUS decision be damned.

This was yet another (agenda-driven) screw-up on our way to hell.

 

[Al Norris]

Affirming, the State Supreme Court held that the injury caused by the juvenile’s punch was insufficient to trigger the “emergency aid doctrine” because it did not give rise to an objectively reasonable belief that an unconscious, semiconscious, or missing person feared injured or deadwas in the home. Furthermore, the court suggested the doctrine was inapplicable because the officers had not sought to assist the injured adult but had acted exclusively in a law enforcement capacity. The court also held that the entry did not fall within the exigent circumstances exception to the warrant requirement.

Read the above very carefully. Then read Stevens separate concurring opinion, which I have provided in its entirety:

This is an odd flyspeck of a case. The charges that have been pending against respondents for the past six years are minor offenses — intoxication, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and disorderly conduct — two of which could have been proved by evidence that was gathered by the responding officers before they entered the home. The maximum punishment for these crimes ranges between 90 days and 6 months in jail. And the Court’s unanimous opinion restating well-settled rules of federal law is so clearly persuasive that it is hard to imagine the outcome was ever in doubt.

Under these circumstances, the only difficult question is which of the following is the most peculiar: (1) that the Utah trial judge, the intermediate state appellate court, and the Utah Supreme Court all found a Fourth Amendment violation on these facts; (2) that the prosecution chose to pursue this matter all the way to the United States Supreme Court; or (3) that this Court voted to grant the petition for a writ of certiorari.

A possible explanation for the first is that the suppression ruling was correct as a matter of Utah law, and neither trial counsel nor the trial judge bothered to identify the Utah Constitution as an independent basis for the decision because they did not expect the prosecution to appeal.* The most plausible explanation for the latter two decisions is that they were made so police officers in Utah may enter a home without a warrant when they see ongoing violence — we are, of course, reversing the Utah Supreme Court’s conclusion to the contrary. But that purpose, laudable though it may be, cannot be achieved in this case. Our holding today addresses only the limitations placed by the Federal Constitution on the search at issue; we have no authority to decide whether the police in this case violated the Utah Constitution.

The Utah Supreme Court, however, has made clear that the Utah Constitution provides greater protection to the privacy of the home than does the Fourth Amendment. See State v. Debooy, 2000 UT 32, ¶12, 996 P. 2d 546, 549. And it complained in this case of respondents’ failure to raise or adequately brief a state constitutional challenge, thus preventing the state courts from deciding the case on anything other than Fourth Amendment grounds. See 2005 UT 13, ¶12, 122 P. 3d 506, 510. “urpris[ed]” by“[t]he reluctance of litigants to take up and develop a state constitutional analysis,” ibid., the court expressly invited future litigants to bring challenges under the Utah Constitution to enable it to fulfill its “responsibility as guardians of the individual liberty of our citizens” and “undertak[e] a principled exploration of the interplay between federal and state protections of individual rights,” id., at 511. The fact that this admonishment and request came from the Utah Supreme Court in this very case not only demonstrates that the prosecution selected the wrong case for establishing the rule it wants, but indicates that the Utah Supreme Court would probably adopt the same rule as a matter of state constitutional law that we reject today under the Federal Constitution.

Whether or not that forecast is accurate, I can see no reason for this Court to cause the Utah courts to redecide the question as a matter of state law. Federal interests are not offended when a single State elects to provide greater protection for its citizens than the Federal Constitution requires. Indeed, I continue to believe “that a policy of judicial restraint — one that allows other decisional bodies to have the last word in legal interpretation until it is truly necessary for this Court to intervene — enables this Court to make its most effective contribution to our federal system of government.” Michigan v. Long, 463 U. S. 1032, 1067 (1983) (STEVENS, J., dissenting). Thus, while I join the Court’s opinion, I remain persuaded that my vote to deny the State’s petition for certiorari was correct.

Stevens concurrance is nothing more than a scathing rebuttal to the rest of the Court. Because, up until now, the controlling law on rights was that law which gave greater protection to the citizens. This has now been severely undermined, if not outright overturned!

Sorry to say, but all of you are arguing the wrong thing here. What this decision does is to place the the limited protections of the Federal Bill of Rights supreme over a States Constitution and its own possibly greater civil rights protections.

Think of the horrendous implications for a moment.

Several States protect the RKBA much more than does the 2nd amendment. In the future, if the SCOTUS takes an actual 2A case and rules for greater restrictions, then this ruling will affect every State that has greater protections... By lessening those protections!

 

[Glock 31]

Gee, guess I'll feel better now that if I'm being murdered at least the cop will knock so as to let the perpetrator know to run for it.

 

[Rich Lucibella]

Anti-
Great insights there. You're right. We're arguing over further erosion of the 4th, while you're looking beyond that to decimation of the 10th. In any case, it was a really bad call.

Gee, guess I'll feel better now that if I'm being murdered at least the cop will knock so as to let the perpetrator know to run for it.

Sometimes I wonder when they stopped teaching and testing Basic Reading Comprehension in public schools.
Rich

 

[Glock 31]

Sometimes I wonder when they stopped teaching and testing Basic Reading Comprehension in public schools.

I comprehended the report just fine. I don't see a problem with a cop entering a house if he sees a crime being committed within said house. A punch is assault. Assault is a crime. Very simple. A knock or no knock doesn't really compare to stopping a fight. And how can you trivialize a simple juveneille punching an adult in the nose drawing blood. The situation has obviously degenerated into violence. Hence the blood. How many fights have you seen where blood was drawn that just calmed down on their own and the participants then decided to talk it out. The report doesn't differentiate as to whether the fight was four parents trying to control an unruly child, or if it was four gangbangers physically abusing a minor. At least nothing I read did, if I missed it, I hope someone will bring it to my attention.

Furthermore, since everyone is discussing whether a knock or no knock makes a friggin difference in a violent situation, I don't see anyone bringing up the subject of what would have happened to the police in this situation, if they stood around waiting for a warrant, and the simple single punch, escalated into homicide. The officers would have been arrested for not excercising their duties to protect the public, would they not? With a fight going on does anyone really think anyone is going to be paying attention to who is knocking at the door?

The cops in this case did not violate the rights against illegal search and seizure IMHO. They witnessed a crime, no matter how trivial, and stopped it. They did their job! And if the supreme court doesn't see it that way, or Utah Court, or whoever, then I think they are wrong. Judges are just people with opinions. Some are more popular than others. I don't think a simple knock should hold any significance in comparison to stopping an altercation. If I read the report correctly, and the officers verbally announced their presence, then that is enough for me. It doesn't make sense to side with the defendants, they allowed the neighborhood to become aware of a problem through noise, which is a crime. And they allowed a situation to escalate to violence in their home, which is also a crime.

And please don't question my reading skills. If I couldn't read or comprehend sentences, I wouldn't be a member of this forum. I read the posts, and formed my opinion. Admittedly, maybe my first post was a bit sarcastic. But that's who I am, sometimes, I'm a sarcastic guy. It still stated my view without so many words as I used above. If I'm being murdered, or assaulted, or robbed, or whatever, I personally don't care if the cops knock or not when they enter my house to save my butt. The way I see it, if the cops weren't there at all, that juveneille would be in a lot more pain than he wound up in.

 

[Rich Lucibella]

Yup, you read it real well.

You just missed the part where the Court noted that the Officers had enough evidence for the charges without having entered the domicile. You also must have skipped over the part where it was clearly noted that the officers took no action to aid this severely injured man....he required no aid.

Therefore, you seem to have missed the point that the "exigent circumstances" can well be argued to have been drawn up, not as a reason for the No-Knock entry, but as a defense after the fact.

The "If I'm being murdered" dramatics is similarly lacking in substance and logic. It argues that "Crime is Crime" and demands equal abridgment of Civil Rights for everything from a teen throwing a punch while being restrained by four adults to home invasion murder. By the same logic, why not extend the No-Knock doctrine to traffic warrant service, spanking a child, truancy and child support?

Good read.
Rich

 

[Glock 31]

On a side note in response to Antipitas' last post. I am not a lawyer, and will admit I don't quite understand everything stated in the Supreme Court's ruling. What I do believe I understand is the gist of it, and what it implies. Which is what has this thing so riled up. Your afraid that if the ruling was based on the federal level, (i.e. the constitution) rather than state law, then it will hamper the fight for basic 2nd amendment rights. This is because it creates a precedent to go to the federal level for RKBA decisions, rather than the state level which is more specifically protective of individuals. Did I get that right?

If so then it seems to me that it will be impossible to enforce the laws if all we think about is how other laws, unrelated to the base issue, will be affected. Is there no legal boundary seperating 2nd amendment issues from 4th amendment issues. Like I said I'm not a lawyer so I want to know.

 

[Glock 31]

I must apologize to Capt. Charlie. I missed his post about repercussions to the officers involved had there been a knife involved or not.

 

[Rich Lucibella]

Is there no legal boundary seperating 2nd amendment issues from 4th amendment issues.

Short answer: Nope

It's called Legal Precedent. And it's been set in Stuart. Besides, why would the ruling suddenly make you uncomfortable simply because Anti points up that the same logic may be applied to the Second? You either believe in the Bill of Rights or you don't.

In the instant case, your argument is that the ruling is fine, because it may someday save you from being murdered....and it really only undermines the 4th. Others will feel just as you do if this precedent is applied to the Second. And you know what? They'd be right. You provided them the logic for their position. After all, "If they can just save one child".

I missed his post about repercussions to the officers involved had there been a knife involved or not.

Yup. Same can be said for every traffic stop; every argument between husband and wife or mother and son...in fact, every interaction between an LEO and citizen. I mean, what if that citizen has a knife or a gun? What if there's a dead body in his closet? What if he's headed over to Glock 31's house to murder him? These Citizens can really be pesky, you know?
Rich

 

[Glock 31]

Thanks for setting me straight on the abscence of a seperation of amendments. The Supreme Court ruling doesn't really upset me though. I just said I didn't quite understand all the legal jargin in it. And I agree in Antipitas' assessment that it was more of a chastisement to all those involved. Wasn't Antipitas' point though, that the pursuit of decisions on the federal level for on amendment, rather than settled on the state level, could be used against another amendment? I believe in the bill of rights just fine, I don't see how you infered I didn't. I was simply asking if I understood the point Antipitas was trying to make. Not that I thought it would provide fuel for the anti-gun movement. (i.e. "If we can save just one child"). Although I do think that if a precedent is made to take everything to the supreme court rather than settle things locally, then the law system will grind to a halt.

The report stated the officer's announced their presence verbally. How is this any more or less sufficient than a knock. They both make noise. They both indicate the presence of a person. And as for the negative way your putting the what if's in, isn't that what they teach law enforcement officers, "What if" thinking? So as far as these citizens are concerned, no I don't know. Having never had to confront one thankfully. But I do know that I wouldn't want the LEO's who help protect me from people like that to have their hands tied or have to second guess everything they do based on whether to knock, ring the bell, yell, or dance around waving sparklers in the air.

 

[Rich Lucibella]

But I do know that I wouldn't want the LEO's who help protect me from people like that to have their hands tied or have to second guess everything they do based on whether to knock

You're in good company, then:
- Fidel Castro
- Herman Goering
- Nicolae Ceausescu
- Pol Pot
- Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
- Papa Doc
- Joe Stalin
- Slobodan Milosevic

They all believe(d) very much as you do.
Rich

 

[Glock 31]

You're in good company, then:
- Fidel Castro
- Herman Goering
- Nicolae Ceausescu
- Pol Pot
- Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
- Papa Doc
- Joe Stalin
- Slobodan Milosevic

They all believe(d) very much as you do.

That's taking things completely out of context to what I'm saying and you know it. Under the dictators you listed, the police have all the power and the citizens are little more than slaves. And, oh yeah big difference, they all governed, or created communist states. Not a democratic nation with freedoms already instilled in the founding of said nation. In this instance, the police have to live with the same laws they enforce when they are off or on duty. Nazis held all the power, and made up all the rules, all the time. Plus the citizens were more concerned with being murdered by the police under those dictators, rather than by each other. The police were there to enforce the dictators' wishes, not uphold laws that attempted to protect and be beneficial to every citizen.

Your making it impossible for the police to do their jobs. Especially when a situation gets out of control because of lack of action due to second guessing. The police are always blamed for acting too rashly, or not fast enough. Noone seems to think that the people who caused or allowed the situation to start in the first place have anything to do with the blame.

 

[Eghad]

Im with Antipitas on this one. We are in a fight for all 10 amendments to the BOR. We cant just say thats its okay for the government to violate one amendment in the case of emergencies. As he suggested that means we just opened a backdoor for the loss of other individual rights in emergencies. I would assume that the folks here are staunch 2nd Amendment supporters. If you let the governmant trample over the other 9 amendments in the BOR it will not be long before the 2nd amendment gets trampled in the stampede. The livestock is already out of the barn door on this one. What the goverment gets or takes they do not like to give back.

 

[Rich Lucibella]

Your making it impossible for the police to do their jobs.

You have a point there. Apologies for suggesting something as antithetical to proper policing as:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.

My bad. I bow to your inescapable logic.
Rich

 

[Sarge]

I can't get worked up about any of this, including the responses here that chastise cops who won't let a locked door act as a license to beat, kill or torture a defenseless person on the other side of it.

You know, on those few occasions when I crashed a door to save somebody's bacon, I wasn't thinking about making arrests. I was thinking about what the victim was suffering, and what caused the cries of anguish that make me crash that door in the first place. I never worried about whether or not the Supreme Court was gonna approve of it. I never worried about whether the brass was going to approve of it. The victim approved of it, and that was good enough for me. If that victim were your wife, daughter or small child I doubt that we'd be hearing any complaints from you, either.

We get 'Monday Mornin' Quarterbacked' from the coffee shop to the Supreme Court. Been going on for years. If you don't go in and somebody gets beaten/raped/mangled/killed, you're a fat lazy no-balls donut muncher. If you do go in and administrate a little justice on the other side, you're a jackbooted, Constitution-burning thug. It comes with the territory. It's no biggie- we can take it.

I sure don't have any trouble sleeping nights over the things I have done, and I'm about as strict a constitutionalist as you'll ever find. There are a lot of LE jobs open for the rest of you, if you'd like to take that black & white for a cruise around town. Just don't be surprised if you discover that the only thing black & white in this job, is the squad car.

And with that, I'll sign off of this one.

 

[Glock 31]

My bad. I bow to your inescapable logic.

I'm trying to simply state my position and beliefs on the subject and your being condescending.

They weren't searching. They weren't seizing. They were preventing. Or at least attempting to. Again, as I've stated before, I believe in the bill of rights. ALL the rights. And ALL the amendments. But, in my humble opinion, abiding to the logic you propose, the police will become even more, a response tool, rather than a preventative tool. And I think cops are there to prevent crime whenever possible. Not just show up after all the I's are dotted, and all the T's are crossed, and hope everyone isn't dead by the time they can go in.

However, since I'm getting a nagging feeling that my posting rights might be in jeopardy, I'll acquiesce to your position.