Opinion ID: 2262031
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the legality of the forced entry

Text: Section 33-565(g) provides as follows: The officer may break open any outer or inner door or window of a house, or any part of a house, or anything therein, to execute the warrant, if, after notice of his authority and purpose, he is refused admittance. The language of the statute is identical to that of its federal counterpart, 18 U.S.C. § 3109, and we therefore accord respectful consideration to authorities interpreting § 3109. From earliest days, the common law drastically limited the authority of law officers to break the door of a house to effect an arrest. Miller, supra, 357 U.S. at 306-07, 78 S.Ct. at 1194. Like the federal statute, § 33-565(g) thus codifies a tradition embedded in Anglo-American law and declares the reverence which the law attaches to an individual's right of privacy in his house. McConney, supra, 728 F.2d at 1198, quoting Miller, supra, 357 U.S. at 313, 78 S.Ct. at 1198. Accordingly, § 33-565(g) should be accorded a generous construction rather than a grudging one. Miller, supra, 357 U.S. at 313, 78 S.Ct. at 1197-98. [10] In the present case, the police broke down the door to the apartment with a battering ram. This is no trivial invasion of the privacy of those inside. Aside from the terror that such police action is likely to instill, especially where, as here, it is taken in the middle of the night, the effect of destroying the door may be to deprive the occupants of the apartment of their personal security. For at least some period of time, the potential access of thieves and marauders to the premises is necessarily enhanced. So drastic a forced entry affects everyone who uses the dwelling, and not just the suspected drug dealer. In the present case, the apartment was leased to Griffin's mother, [11] who has not been charged with anything. It was occupied by at least three other presumptively innocent individuals  Griffin's brother and sister and the sister's infant child; none of Griffin's relatives was arrested. Use of a battering ram to break down the door of a dwelling will almost inevitably harm the innocent as well as those suspected of breaking the law. Whether or not so intended, its practical effect is to inflict de facto collective inconvenience which, to innocent persons so inconvenienced, will seem a lot like collective punishment. [12] The liberty interests which § 33-565(g) was designed to protect, and which require a generous construction of the statute, are significant even when an officer simply turns a handle and walks through an unlocked door. See Sabbath v. United States, 391 U.S. 585, 589-90, 88 S.Ct. 1755, 1757-59, 20 L.Ed.2d 828 (1968); United States v. Pratter, 465 F.2d 227, 230 (7th Cir.1972) (Stevens, J.); cf. United States v. Wood, 279 U.S.App.D.C. 81, 86-87, 879 F.2d 927, 932-33 (1989). They are at their zenith when the ram team does its work. The particular words of § 33-565(g) which we must construe in this case are the final two: refused admittance. Refusal is commonly defined as a rejection, a denial of what is asked. Board of Public Instr. v. Cohen, 413 F.2d 1201, 1203 (5th Cir. 1969). It is a volitional act. Spradling v. Deimeke, 528 S.W.2d 759, 766 (Mo.1975). Refusal to admit the police is to be distinguished from failure to do so; the legislature could have used the latter word, but selected the former. In the words of Chief Justice Marshall, to refuse to do something is an act of the will, while to fail to do it may be an act of inevitable necessity. Taylor v. Mason, 22 U.S. (9 Wheat.) 325, 344, 6 L.Ed. 101 (1824). Nevertheless, the government is not obliged to prove that the occupants explicitly said keep out! We recently stated in Williams, supra, that the police need not wait for the occupants affirmatively to refuse them admittance if the police can reasonably infer from the actions or inactions of the occupants that they have been constructively refused admittance; under these circumstances, the police may force their entry without delay. 576 A.2d at 703 (citations omitted). A deliberate [13] failure to respond within a reasonable period of time is tantamount to a refusal to admit. United States v. James, 528 F.2d 999, 1017 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 959, 97 S.Ct. 382, 50 L.Ed.2d 326 (1976); see also United States v. Bonner, 277 U.S.App.D.C. 271, 273, 874 F.2d 822, 824 (1989). A reasonable period is not defined in the statute, however, and in determining whether a refusal of admittance occurred, courts employ a highly contextual analysis, examining all of the circumstances of the case. Bonner, supra, 277 U.S.App.D.C. at 273, 874 F.2d at 824. [14] A forced entry is not to be made legal by what it turns up; it is good or bad when it starts and does not change character from its success ... or from evidence discovered subsequent to [the entry]. Brown v. United States, 590 A.2d 1008, 1013 (D.C.1991) (citations omitted); see also Miller, supra, 357 U.S. at 312, 78 S.Ct. at 1197. It goes without saying that in determining the lawfulness of entry and the existence of probable cause, we may concern ourselves only with what the officers had reason to believe at the time of their entry. Ker, supra, 374 U.S. at 40 n. 12, 83 S.Ct. at 1633 n. 12 (emphasis in original); see also Commonwealth v. Newman, 429 Pa. 441, 448-50, 240 A.2d 795, 799 (1968) (applying Ker rule in knock and announce case). The question whether the officers had been refused admittance thus turns on what they could reasonably have believed at the time they used the battering ram, [15] and not on what they discovered once they had entered the apartment. [16]
As Justice Harlan observed for the Court in Jones v. United States, 357 U.S. 493, 498, 78 S.Ct. 1253, 1257, 2 L.Ed.2d 1514 (1958), it is difficult to imagine a more severe invasion of privacy than the night-time intrusion into a private home. The ram team's forced entry in this case took place at 1:40 a.m. The law does not require us to close our minds to facts which are known to all reasonably intelligent people. Poulnot v. District of Columbia, 608 A.2d at 134, 141-42 (D.C.1992). We may thus take judicial notice that, at that time of night, most people are in bed, and many are asleep. If a person is awakened by banging on the door, an immediate and appropriate response may not be feasible. [17] For at least a brief period, the erstwhile sleeper is likely to be too bewildered to react. He or she must then focus on the possibility that those demanding entry may have no legitimate business on the premises. This is especially true where, as here, the bedroom is a considerable distance from the door, so that a suddenly awakened individual may not hear the officer's oral announcements identifying the apparent disturbers of a peaceful night as police officers armed with a search warrant. [18] Indeed, the occupant's first instinct  a reasonable one  may be to call 911. Moreover, most citizens are not clad at 1:40 a.m. in manner suitable for opening the door to strangers. If someone is not dressed, sufficiently or at all, dressing takes time. Finally, for most people awakened or startled by loud banging at twenty to two in the morning, the circumstances are not likely to be conducive to rational analysis or to swift or provident decision-making. Moreover, in the present case, the officers observed nothing suggesting that anyone in the apartment was awake. Although Christopher testified that he had the television on, Officer Sloan did not hear it. There were no other lights on. [19] There were no footsteps. Beyond the events that had led to the issuance of the search warrant a week and a half to two weeks earlier, [20] there was no suspicious activity at all.
Since, in determining whether the officers were constructively refused admittance, we engage in a highly contextual analysis, see discussion at page 120, supra, a comparison of the delay of approximately thirty seconds in this case with shorter and longer periods in other cases can take us only so far. Although prior decisions may of course provide some useful guideposts, precise case matching may be no more feasible in knock and announce cases than it is in Fourth Amendment litigation. See Gomez v. United States, 597 A.2d 884, 889 (D.C.1991). Nevertheless, we note that no authority has been cited to us in which a delay of only thirty seconds has been held sufficient in the absence of some suspicious activity following the arrival of the police, or some other circumstance which the court viewed as equivalent thereto. In those cases in which forced entry was upheld without such a circumstance, the police waited considerably longer than here. For example, in United States v. Leichtnam, 948 F.2d 370 (7th Cir.1991), in which the police use of a battering ram to break down a door at 6 a.m. was upheld by the court, the ramming occurred approximately a minute and a half after the officers first announced themselves and began the far less destructive activity of attempting to pry open a screen door. Id. at 374. In United States v. Woodring, 444 F.2d 749 (9th Cir.1971), in which the execution of a search warrant in the daytime or early evening [21] was upheld by the court, the officers, who had reason to believe that someone was in the house, announced their authority and purpose and waited approximately one minute before breaking in. Id. at 751. See also United States v. Viale, 312 F.2d 595, 602 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 373 U.S. 903, 83 S.Ct. 1291, 10 L.Ed.2d 199 (1963) (delay of one to two minutes). None of these cases is comparable to the present one, in which the police waited no more than thirty seconds in the middle of the night. See also Annotation: 21 A.L.R. FED. 820, 834-42 (1974 & Supp.1992). More in point is the decision of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in Newman, supra . In that case, police detectives executed a search warrant in the middle of the day. They banged on the door and announced loudly that they were the police. When there was no response within about twenty seconds, they broke in the door with a sledge hammer. In holding on several grounds that the forced entry was unlawful, the court stated: Surely a mere twenty second delay in answering the door cannot constitute support for a belief that evidence was being destroyed (or in terms of 18 U.S.C. § 3109, a refusal of admittance). In Ametrane, [22] supra, the delay was a full minute, yet the district court did not find any exigent circumstances justifying a forceful entry made without proper notice. The court pointed out that Ametrane was on the second floor and might have had countless legitimate reasons for taking a minute to answer the door. 276 F.Supp. at 559. Although it is doubtful that a different result would obtain even if Newman had been on the first floor, Newman, too, was on the second floor.... The fact that some lottery paraphernalia [are] easily destroyed does not justify the suspension of the Fourth Amendment in all lottery prosecutions. 429 Pa. at 448, 240 A.2d at 798. Given the night-time context of the present case, the reasoning of Newman applies a fortiori. The authorities relied on by the government in which police officers waited for less than thirty seconds are distinguishable upon the common ground that, in each, there were additional suspicious circumstances justifying a reasonable belief on the part of the officers that immediate action was required. In Masiello v. United States, 115 U.S.App.D.C. 57, 58, 317 F.2d 121, 122 (1963), for example, the officers hear[d] sounds which indicat[ed] to them that the evidence sought by the warrant [might] be in [the] process of destruction; the court, speaking through Judge (later Chief Justice) Burger, approved the entry on narrow grounds after an earlier remand, emphasizing that close cases will receive careful scrutiny. Id. at 59, 317 F.2d at 123. In United States v. Davis, 199 U.S.App. D.C. 95, 98, 617 F.2d 677, 695 (1979), officers who were executing a search warrant at 2:20 a.m. observed lights on in the house which indicated that someone inside was awake; when there was no response in a period of fifteen to thirty seconds, they gained entry with a battering ram. In Wood, supra, 279 U.S.App.D.C. at 85-87, 879 F.2d at 931-33, a DEA agent executed a search warrant at 2:55 p.m. and waited for fifteen to thirty seconds after knocking and announcing before entering; entry was accomplished by turning the door knob, and without breaking down the door. In United States v. Ciammitti, 720 F.2d 927, 932-33 (6th Cir.1983), cert. denied, 466 U.S. 970, 104 S.Ct. 2342, 80 L.Ed.2d 816 (1984), in which a search warrant was executed shortly after midnight, the officers observed the light on in a basement room, and knew that odors associated with the production of drugs had been detected coming from the basement on previous nights when the light was on; a majority of the court held, over a powerful dissent by Judge Jones, that the officers were justified in breaking down the door after half a minute. [23] In United States v. DeLutis, 722 F.2d 902 (1st Cir.1983), the officers, knowing that the defendants had entered their house a short time earlier with a police informant, that the house was occupied, and that the residents were awake, [24] id. at 904, forced entry more than twenty seconds after knocking on the door and announcing that they were executing a search warrant. Id. at 908-09. See also United States v. Ruminer, 786 F.2d 381, 383 (10th Cir.1986) (brief wait sufficient where officers saw someone run out of the bedroom). [25] See also note 14, supra, distinguishing this case from James and Bonner.
This court has recognized that [t]he issuance of a warrant ... signifies that a judicial officer has made a determination that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the information underlying the warrant is true and of sufficient reliability and timeliness to justify a search for up to ten days. Williams, supra, 576 A.2d at 704. The warrant requirement guards against searches based on no more than officers' conclusions formed prior to the search. Bonner, supra, 277 U.S.App. D.C. at 274, 874 F.2d at 825. The government argues, based upon these authorities, that in the present case it was likely that drugs were in the apartment, and that the occupants would dispose of them unless the police moved with dispatch. There is no doubt that, in general, possession of a warrant enhances the officers' authority to conduct a search. Section 33-565(g), however, presupposes the existence of a search warrant, but nevertheless requires a showing of refusal of admittance. Accordingly, the government's argument simply proves too much. Whenever there are unlawful drugs (or other contraband) on the premises and the officers delay their entry until after they have been refused admittance, there is a danger that the delay will enable persons on the premises to destroy potential evidence. As the Supreme Court of Arizona explained in State v. Bates, 120 Ariz. 561, 563, 587 P.2d 747, 749 (1978) (en banc), however, [t]he mere fact that this search warrant was executed for the purpose of discovering narcotics does not necessarily create an exigent circumstance justifying immediate entry. In State v. Mendoza, 104 Ariz. 395, 399-400, 454 P.2d 140, 144-45 (1969), this court emphasized that, standing by itself, the easy destructibility of narcotics evidence is insufficient to provide reasonable cause for officers to believe that announcement of the purpose of their entry would frustrate the search, and therefore, relieve them of the necessity of announcing their identity and purpose. There must be substantial evidence to cause the police to believe evidence would be destroyed, irrespective of the evidence sought, otherwise A.R.S. § 13-1446(B) [26] would become a nullity in narcotics cases. Id. Accord, Newman, supra, 429 Pa. at 446-50, 240 A.2d at 798-99; United States v. Rodriguez, 663 F.Supp. 585, 588-89 (D.D.C. 1987); United States v. Doering, 384 F.Supp. 1307, 1311 (W.D.Mich.1974). Relying on Williams, supra, 576 A.2d at 701, the government claims that it is common knowledge that those trafficking in controlled substances often use firearms, and that in the interest of their own safety, the police were justified in effecting their forced entry without further delay. In Williams, however, the police had been informed that, along with unlawful drugs, there were several weapons in the house and that a man armed with an automatic gun was seated in the living room next to the front window. Id. Additionally, a departing visitor who had spotted the police ran back into the house, yelling police officers. Id. at 702. There were no such circumstances in the present case. Although, as we recently reiterated, drugs and weapons go together and their sinister association is a close one, Marshall v. United States, No. 89-CF-800, slip op. at 8, 1992 WL 143753 (D.C. Jun. 26, 1992) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted), the existence of that unfortunate connection, without more, cannot lend any substantial support to the government's position. Were we to hold otherwise, then § 33-565(g) would be undermined to the point of inefficacy in any search warrant case involving alleged distribution of narcotics. See also Gomez, supra, 597 A.2d at 890-91; Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 32, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1885, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968) (Harlan, J., concurring).