Opinion ID: 2636899
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Ability to obtain warrant

Text: Appellant argues that the exigent circumstances exception to the warrant requirement may be invoked only in circumstances in which law enforcement agents have insufficient time to obtain a warrant prior to the entry. He concedes that he did not argue his first theory below. Therefore, the trial court made no findings on the question. Nonetheless, since appellant claims that his trial attorney rendered constitutionally ineffective assistance by failing to make this argument below, we address and reject the claim. Because the claim lacks merit, appellant cannot satisfy either prong of the constitutional test of ineffective assistance. He cannot establish that counsels' performance was deficient for failing to seek exclusion of the evidence on this ground or demonstrate that he was prejudiced by counsels' failure to do so. (See Strickland, v. Washington (1984) 466 U.S. 668, 693-694, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674; People v. Ledesma (1987) 43 Cal.3d 171, 217-218, 233 Cal.Rptr. 404, 729 P.2d 839.) Following argument on the motion to suppress evidence the court ruled that, quite apart from anything appellant said on the telephone, probable cause to believe that the girls were in the mobilehome and exigent circumstances justifying a warrantless entry existed. Appellant had disputed only probable cause to believe the missing persons were in the mobilehome. We agree that probable cause to believe the victims were in the mobile home existed prior to the time two FBI agents went to the door. Evidence offered at the evidentiary hearing on the motion to suppress evidence showed that prior to 9:00 p.m. on Monday, May 18, Knowles, the FBI agent in charge of the combined law enforcement effort to locate the four missing persons, who were believed to have been kidnapped, knew that a person resembling appellant had interviewed several young girls at various modeling agencies in the Reno area and had arranged to meet two of those girls and their chaperones in the South Lake Tahoe area on the day the four disappeared. The chaperone's car had been found abandoned not far from the location of the mobilehome. The FBI had learned the identity of appellant as the person who occupied the trailer, knew that witness Tveten had identified appellant as owning a car which used a TVETEN auto dealership license. Another witness had placed a car with what she recalled as a TVTEEN license at a modeling studio where the suspect had interviewed teenage models. Tveten told the investigating officers that appellant possessed firearms and said that a composite sketch of the suspect based on descriptions given by other teenage models and model agency employees resembled appellant. The officers also knew that appellant had said he was building a soundproof room in the mobilehome. FBI and local law enforcement personnel who had the mobilehome under surveillance saw appellant drive away from the trailer and attempt to avoid surveillance on his return. During that trip appellant drove in a manner that led them to believe he was attempting to avoid being followed. He appeared either to be wearing a wig or had unnaturally colored hair. Moreover at 9:03 p.m., shortly before the assault on the mobilehome, appellant had called the FBI, stating that a friend told him that the FBI wanted to talk to him about the Reno kidnapping and that appellant's picture was in the post office. The latter was untrue. No photo had been posted in the community. The developments immediately preceding the decision to break into the trailer included the following: When appellant called the FBI to say he heard they wanted to talk to him, Agent Baker told appellant that Baker was not directly involved in the investigation, took appellant's telephone number and address, and told appellant someone would get in touch with him. Agent Knowles, the agent in charge, then detailed an interview team to go to the trailer to talk to appellant. The telephone call afforded the agents an opportunity to speak to appellant without revealing that they considered him a suspect. Depending on appellant's response, the agents might either seek consent to search or, if it was believed necessary, undertake a protective sweep, i.e., a sweep of the premises for the sole purpose of determining whether or not in this case there were any victims in that residence; not for the purpose of obtaining any evidence.... Barcklay testified that as he knocked on the door of the trailer, the lights in the trailer went out. He remained at the door and when he heard a voice asking who it was, identified himself and the other agent as FBI, and said he wanted to speak to appellant. Agent Alexander testified that Barcklay said FBI, open the door. Barcklay testified that the person inside said he did not want to talk to them now and wanted to talk by telephone. Barcklay then heard the telephone ring inside the trailer and when the person inside asked what he wanted, Barcklay responded that the FBI was on the phone and he wanted the person to answer the telephone. He also heard a radio transmission from Agent Knowles directing the agents to hit the trailer, followed by a similar order from Agent Joyce who was at the scene. Within seconds, Agent Joyce was at the trailer breaking the window. Knowles, who was at the South Lake Tahoe command post with Agent Baker, had telephoned the trailer at the request of Agent Joyce when the lights went out and had been advised by Baker that appellant said the girls were alive in the trailer, then instructed the agents to assault the trailer. Special Agent Joyce was the agent in charge at the trailer. It was stipulated that he had the same knowledge of events as Knowles when he went to the site. He mobilized a team of agents to back up the two whom Knowles dispatched to interview appellant, and proceeded to the vicinity of the trailer. As Joyce parked, the two agents assigned to interview the occupant had just been directed by Knowles to do so. Joyce heard the interviewing officers knocking on the door when he saw the lights in the trailer go out. Concerned about the developing situation, he asked the command post to telephone the occupant of the trailer. Agent Baker did so. When advised by radio that the occupant told Agent Baker that the girls were alive in the trailer, Joyce ordered the agents at the scene to hit the trailer. Joyce had not heard Knowles' command. When Agent Joyce observed that the agent at the door of the trailer was having difficulty breaking in, Joyce took his gun, broke a window and went partially into the trailer. He saw appellant running to the back of the trailer, ordered him to halt and lie down, and held appellant at gunpoint until the agents who came through the front door took custody of appellant. Joyce then admitted an agent through the back door and went to a bedroom, where he saw the girls. Two South Lake Tahoe officers discovered the murder victims in another room. At that point those officers took charge, and asked the FBI agents to vacate the trailer, as they were sealing it while a search warrant was obtained. The FBI agents were in the trailer from seven to 10 minutes. [20] The trial court remarked that there was overwhelming justification for the warrantless entry and commented that the FBI acted in what was really a restrained way. We agree. Probable cause to believe the victims were in the mobilehome and were in danger existed even before Agent Barcklay knocked on the door and appellant told Agent Baker on the telephone that the girls were in the trailer. Moreover, the record does not establish any delay, deliberate or otherwise, on the part of the FBI, the lead investigating agency, in obtaining a warrant. To the contrary, it shows that by the afternoon of May 18, the agents were following routine FBI procedures to obtain a warrant. They had discussed their evidence with a special agent in Sacramento whose job it was to advise field agents whether probable cause existed. Having obtained his opinion, they had taken the next step of presenting their information to the United States Attorney for a formal legal opinion and, anticipating approval, had contacted the United States Magistrate in the South Lake Tahoe area to determine if he would be available that evening. FBI and other law enforcement agents had appellant under surveillance, but no attempt to contact him had been made. While the FBI agent in charge was awaiting a response from the United States Attorney to the probable cause inquiry, appellant called and said he had heard that the FBI wanted to talk with him. Appellant was told he would be contacted and agents were dispatched to interview him. No warrant was needed to go to the trailer in an effort to interview appellant in response to his own call. Only the subsequent rapidly developing events, events precipitated by appellant himself, necessitated action prior to obtaining the warrant. This was not a situation in which the officers deliberately waited for exigent circumstances in order to exploit that exception to the warrant requirement. (See United States v. Dowell (7th Cir.1984) 724 F.2d 599, 602.) None of the authorities relied on by appellant, for the proposition that the exigent circumstances exception to the warrant requirement does not apply when law enforcement agents have time to seek a telephonic warrant before entry, support his claim that a warrant was necessary here. None involved entry to rescue kidnap victims whose lives reasonably were believed to be in danger. When there is a compelling need for official action and no time to secure a warrant, exigent circumstances excusing compliance with the warrant requirement exist. ( Mason v. Godinez (7th Cir.1995) 47 F.3d 852, 856; United States v. Arch (7th Cir. 1993) 7 F.3d 1300, 1304.) A reasonable belief of an imminent threat to life or welfare of a person within the home, probable cause to believe that a person reliably reported missing is within, or a reasonable belief that a person within is in need of aid, are well recognized as exigent circumstances that justify a warrantless entry. (See Welsh v. Wisconsin, supra 466 U.S. 740, 747-753, 104 S.Ct. 2091, 80 L.Ed.2d 732; Fletcher v. Town of Clinton (1st Cir.1999) 196 F.3d 41, 48; People v. Wharton (1991) 53 Cal.3d 522, 577-578, 280 Cal.Rptr. 631, 809 P.2d 290; People v. Lucero (1988) 44 Cal.3d 1006, 1017-1018, 245 Cal.Rptr. 185, 750 P.2d 1342; People v. Duncan (1986) 42 Cal.3d 91, 97, 227 Cal.Rptr. 654, 720 P.2d 2; People v. Ramey (1976) 16 Cal.3d 263, 276, 127 Cal.Rptr. 629, 545 P.2d 1333; People v. Wilkins (1993) 14 Cal.App.4th 761, 17 Cal.Rptr.2d 743; see also 4 Witkin & Epstein, Cal.Criminal Law (2d ed.1989) Exclusion of Illegally Obtained Evidence, § 2377, p. 2804, and cases cited.) The warrantless entry in those circumstances is not unreasonable in the contemplation of the Fourth Amendment. In circumstances such as those in this case, immediate action was necessary. The agents were not obliged to delay rescue of the victims until a warrant, telephonic or otherwise, could be obtained. By contrast, in United States v. Patino (7th' Cir.1987) 830 F.2d 1413, on which appellant relies, warrantless entry was made into the home of an armed robbery suspect to arrest her and a companion also suspected of participating in a series of robberies. Several officers were available to ensure the suspects did not escape while a warrant was being obtained, and the suspects were not aware they had been located. Patino is clearly distinguishable, as no victim was being held in the home. In United States v. Duchi (8th Cir.1990) 906 F.2d 1278, warrantless entry was made into the home of a suspect who had earlier picked up and taken to the home a package of cocaine. Again there was no reason to believe that a victim was being held in the home. Therefore, even assuming that probable cause existed at some earlier time, there was no violation of the Fourth Amendment. Not only was there no deliberate delay in obtaining a warrant, but no warrant was needed for the attempt to interview appellant following his call to the FBI. Inasmuch as the agents were in a place where they had a right to be  at defendant's door to seek an interview when subsequent events made them believe that immediate entry without completing the warrant process was necessary, the failure to have obtained a warrant at that time did not violate any of appellant's Fourth Amendment-based rights. No Fourth Amendment privacy interests are invaded when an officer seeks a consensual interview with a suspect. Exigent circumstances arising when the agents did so here justified the entry. This was not a situation in which there was deliberate delay in obtaining a warrant or a warrantless entry that the officers attempted to justify on grounds of convenience. (Cf. Trupiano v. United States (1948) 334 U.S. 699, 68 S.Ct. 1229, 92 L.Ed. 1663; Johnson v. United States (1948) 333 U.S. 10, 68 S.Ct. 367, 92 L.Ed. 436.)