Police use doorknob swabs to search for guns, drugs

D

Don H

New member
Summary: Police in Utah are using swabs taken from the doorknobs of homes, using an Ionscan to look for microscopic particles of drugs or gunpowder, and using the subsequent results to apply for search warrants. One person is awaiting trial on a charge of possession of ammunition by a convicted felon after police found a box of ammunition in his home.


http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_2408571
 
I can't tell you how hard I strive to make sure my convicted felon clients understand that they want to make sure that they are never in the same room or car as a gun or ammuntion.

This "doorknob-swab" reminds me of the furor in the late '80s when the police started going through folks' garbage to get evidence. It was held that you have no privacy in your garbage. I'm sure there'll be challenges as to the legitimacy of the warrants (particularly since the presence of gunshot residue on a doorknob does not mean that the owner has possessed a firearm - maybe his gun-nut attorney :D came over to see how he was doing), but I wouldn't hold up a lot of hope for the challenge.
 
In the one case, the police not only swabbed the screendoor but opened it and swabbed the inner door.

If this procedure is upheld, it's not too difficult to envision car door handles being swabbed at inebriation checkpoints or even random swabbing at public parking lots. I believe it only takes a few seconds for the Ionscan to run, so such a concept is certainly feasible.
 
Supreme Court test is asks what the expectation of privacy of the citizen? The higher the expectation, the less the police can do without first getting a court issued warrant. Doorknobs are pretty much public, but if it's behind a gate and inaccessible, the law cannot clamber over said gate just to get at the doorknob. However, if said doorknow is out in the street such that anybody can touch it, the likelihood of the court supporting the sampling is not high. Throw in a house in the mountains with "no trespassing sign" and private road. The expectation may be higher as no one expects anyone to show up.
 
It's certainly not MY expectation that the cops will swab my doorknobs. Or open the screendoor and swab the inner door. I definitely think this procedure steps over the line.
 
Gary, any door (and anything mounted on the doors) on the outside of a residence is going to be located within the curtilage of the residence.

In Oliver v. United States and again in United States v. Dunn the US Supreme Court has asserted that the curtilage of a residence enjoys the same 4th Amendment privileges as the house itself:

Oliver v. United States:
At common law, the curtilage is the area to which extends the intimate activity associated with the "sanctity of a man's home and the privacies of life," Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616, 630 (1886), and therefore has been considered part of the home itself for Fourth Amendment purposes. Thus, courts have extended Fourth Amendment protection to the curtilage;
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United States v. Dunn:
We reaffirmed the holding of Hester in Oliver v. United States, supra. There, we recognized that the Fourth Amendment protects the curtilage of a house and that the extent of the curtilage is determined by factors that bear upon whether an individual reasonably may expect that the area in question should be treated as the home itself. 466 U.S., at 180 . We identified the central component of this inquiry as whether the area harbors the "intimate activity associated with the `sanctity of a man's home and the privacies of life.'"
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Entering the curtilage in order to gather physical evidence -- which is exactly what these Utah cops are doing -- requires the exact same level of protection as entering the house to gather physical evidence.

In other words, it requires a search warrant.

LawDog
 
Lawdog, so you think Utah courts will throw out the evidence? I'm not so sure. I agree it should require a search warrant, based on the 4a and case law, but I'm not sure it does. :(
 
Speaking as an appellate practitioner, I can say for sure that no one here knows how it will come down. It should be interesting. I can think of arguments on both sides.
 
Here's a "food for thought" case scenario . You are at home sleeping in your bed . It's 2:20 A.M.. A junkie is skulking about looking for open doors . He tries yours and finds it locked BUT leaves behind something that could be detected the next day by the police doing a "routine sweep". Just because it's on YOUR door does not mean it came from YOUR body . This entire deal totally sucks .
 
By what or whose stretch of the imagination were the police authoriozed to swab that doorknob, or in ANY WAY AT ALL, even touch it??
 
Consider, however, the apartment building, with a common walkway or hallway. The doorknob juts out into the common area, which would not be curtelidge of the apartment, I don't think.
 
Consider, however, the apartment building, with a common walkway or hallway. The doorknob juts out into the common area, which would not be curtelidge of the apartment, I don't think.
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In an apartment building anybody walking by would be able to touch your doorknob while walking by, leaving who knows what kind of residue behind for the police to swab off.
 
Anyone can touch a doorknob/handle on a house door, too.

Given the number of people who do drugs, I don't think it's at all reasonable to use these swabbings as evidence. If there is indeed other corroborating evidence, that evidence should be good enough to get a search warrant. If it's not, I don't see how an ionscan would push the rest of the evidence through the door of probable cause.
 
In the case of apartments, a tenant enjoys the same rights and privileges as the owner. In other words, whatever legal protection an owner would have, a tenant has in the same dwelling.

But on the subject of being inadvertantly exposed to the fruits of someone else's activities; consider how many cars in the average used car lot for sale would "test positive" (exterior or interior) for traces of dope, propellants or explosives etc.
 
That anybody here would even consider that it is right, meet, and moral for agents of the government to, in secret and without your consent, run laboratory tests on the residues on your front doorknob, regardless of whether you live in slumville or Couer de Lage Estates, without so much as a by-your-leave from you, a judge, or anyone else, is appalling.

"Expectation" of privacy?!?

Yeah, I have a pretty dang good expectation that Joe Blow the Civil Servant is not going to come along with his lab kit and gas chromatograph and play Pointdexter with my front door or any other part of my domicile. I don't care if my doorknob is set behind three belts of concertina wire, or sticks out into the sidewalk, it's my doorknob. Keep your frickin' hands off.

(How come when a lowly citizen peers through my window at night, he's a Peeping Tom, but when the police do it, it's the "Plain View Exception"?)
 
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