Opinion ID: 774533
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Government Created Exigency

Text: 29 Campbell contends that by altering the package prior to the controlled delivery, the police officers in this case created the exigent circumstances upon which they relied to justify their warrantless entry into Campbell's residence. 30 It is well established that police officers are not free to create exigent circumstances to justify their warrantless searches.United States v. Morgan, 743 F.2d 1158, 1163 (6th Cir. 1984). This Court has struck down warrantless entries by the police in situations where deliberate conduct on the part of police officers has created the claimed exigent circumstances. SeeUnited States v. Buchanan, 904 F.2d 349 (6th Cir. 1990). However, this Circuit has not addressed the narrow issue of whether police officers making a controlled delivery are deemed to have created the danger of imminent destruction of evidence by altering the contents of the package, and thus are prohibited from a warrantless entry in situations where they lack a sufficient opportunity to obtain a warrant. 31 Campbell urges this Court to consider the reasoning from several Eighth Circuit cases where the court found that exigent circumstances did not exist because the police created the danger of the destruction of evidence. Indeed, in United States v. Duchi, 906 F.2d 1278 (8th Cir. 1990), United States v. Johnson, 12 F.3d 760 (8th Cir. 1993), and United States v. Templeman, 938 F.2d 122 (8th Cir. 1991), the Eighth Circuit concluded that exigent circumstances did not exist because the police had created or greatly increased the danger that evidence would be destroyed. But see United States v. Johnson, 904 F.2d 443, 447 (8th Cir. 1990) (finding warrantless entry justified in a controlled delivery of an altered package where obtaining a search warrant would very likely have been impossible.) 32 However, the case at bar can easily be distinguished from Duchi, Johnson 2 and Templeman. In all of those cases, in which the police executed a controlled delivery of a package at a dwelling, the police had the opportunity to obtain a search warrant prior to executing the controlled delivery at that dwelling, but chose not to do so. In fact, the Duchi court emphasized this very distinction. 3 See Duchi, 906 F.2d at 1283. In this case, although the officers properly obtained a search warrant for the address to which the package was addressed, Campbell unexpectedly relocated the package to another dwelling and opened the package before the officers had any realistic opportunity to obtain a search warrant. Accordingly, this case is not analogous to the cases Campbell relied upon. 33 Here, the exigent circumstances justifying the warrantless entry to prevent the imminent destruction of evidence included the unexpected relocation of the package and the presence of the marked police vehicle outside Campbell's residence. The police officers in this case did not create the various factors that converged to create the exigent circumstances. Moreover, it is irrelevant that it may have been foreseeable that the alteration of the contents of the package could alert the recipient of the investigation when the package was opened. 4 If the package had been opened inside the dwelling where the package was addressed, the officers could have entered the building under the search warrant they had obtained in order to prevent the destruction of evidence. However, the package was unexpectedly moved to another location where it was opened before the officers could obtain a search warrant. The officers in this case played absolutely no role in Campbell's relocation of the package, the presence of the marked police car in front of Campbell's residence when he arrived there with the package, or the practical impossibility of obtaining a search warrant for Campbell's residence prior to the controlled delivery. 34 Accordingly, we conclude that the police officers did not create the exigent circumstances in this case.