UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 14-4294

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

ROBERT ANTHONY MARTINEZ,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of 

South Carolina, at Florence. R. Bryan Harwell, District Judge. 

(4:13-cr-00445-RBH-1)

Submitted: September 25, 2014 Decided: October 1, 2014

Before WILKINSON, MOTZ, and THACKER, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

James P. Rogers, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Columbia, 

South Carolina, for Appellant. William N. Nettles, United 

States Attorney, A. Bradley Parham, Assistant United States 

Attorney, Leslie R. Caldwell, Assistant Attorney General, David

A. O’Neil, Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Thomas E. 

Booth, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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PER CURIAM:

Robert Anthony Martinez appeals from his conviction

and 162-month sentence after he entered a conditional guilty 

plea to one count of possession with intent to distribute 

cocaine base, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(C) 

(2012). Martinez asserts that the district court erred when it 

denied his motion to suppress evidence seized by law enforcement 

officers during their execution of an arrest warrant. 

Specifically, Martinez argues that law enforcement violated the 

knock-and-announce rule when they executed the arrest warrant 

and, thus, he asserts that evidence seized by law enforcement 

should have been suppressed. Finding no error, we affirm.

When considering a district court’s ruling on a motion 

to suppress, we review the district court’s legal conclusions de 

novo and its factual findings for clear error. United States v. 

McGee, 736 F.3d 263, 269 (4th Cir. 2013), cert. denied, 134 S. 

Ct. 1572 (2014). Where, as here, the district court denies the 

suppression motion, we construe the evidence in the light most 

favorable to the Government. United States v. Black, 707 F.3d 

531, 534 (4th Cir. 2013). 

The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable 

searches and seizures. See U.S. Const. amend. IV. One element 

of the reasonableness inquiry is the requirement that police 

knock, announce their presence, and wait a reasonable time 
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before entering a house to execute a search or arrest warrant. 

See Wilson v. Arkansas, 514 U.S. 927, 929, 931-32 (1995). The 

knock-and-announce rule serves three interests: (1) protecting 

the safety of the occupants of a dwelling and the police by 

reducing violence; (2) preventing the destruction of property; 

and (3) protecting the privacy of the occupants. See Hudson v. 

Michigan, 547 U.S. 586, 594 (2006). 

 The knock-and-announce requirement is reflected in 18 

U.S.C. § 3109, which provides that an officer “may break open 

any outer or inner door or window of a house . . . to execute a 

search warrant, if, after notice of his authority and purpose, 

he is refused admittance[.]” 18 U.S.C. § 3109 (2012); see

United States v. Kennedy, 32 F.3d 876, 882 (4th Cir. 1994).* If 

there is no breaking to gain entry, § 3109 is not violated. 

Moreover, although an officer may not forcibly enter unless he 

has been refused admittance, such a refusal need not be 

expressly made — “the refusal may be constructive or reasonably 

inferred from the circumstances.” Young, 609 F.3d at 353 

(internal quotation marks and citation omitted).

 * While § 3109 refers only to search warrants, its standards 

also govern the execution of arrest warrants. See Miller v. 

United States, 357 U.S. 301, 308–09 (1958); United States v. 

Young, 609 F.3d 348, 353 n.2 (4th Cir. 2010).
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We have considered the parties’ arguments and have 

reviewed the record and discern no reversible error. First, we 

defer to the district court’s decision to credit the law 

enforcement officer’s testimony that he did not break open 

Martinez’s door, but instead hit the door with his fist and 

forearm and announced police presence before the door swung 

open. We also find no error in the district court’s alternative 

finding that even if law enforcement did not comply with the 

knock-and-announce rule, given the information known to law 

enforcement at the time the arrest warrant was executed, it was 

not unreasonable for law enforcement to enter Martinez’s 

residence before knocking and announcing their presence. 

Because we find no reversible error in the district 

court’s decision to deny Martinez’s suppression motion, we 

affirm the district court’s judgment. We dispense with oral 

argument because the facts and legal contentions are adequately 

presented in the materials before this court and argument would 

not aid the decisional process.

AFFIRMED