Opinion ID: 2386467
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Validity of the Procedure: Was There A Seizure?

Text: As we indicated, the so-called knock and talk procedure has become a popular one with police agencies, especially in drug enforcement activities, and dozens of cases have surfaced regarding it. As occurred here, it is a procedure in which police officers, lacking a warrant or other legal justification for entering or searching a dwelling place, approach the dwelling, knock on the door, identify themselves as law enforcement officers, request entry in order to ask questions concerning unlawful activity in the area, and, upon entry, eventually ask permission to search the premises. Permission is often given, and, if the police then find contraband or other evidence of illegal activity, the issue is raised of whether the procedure has in some way contravened the occupant's Fourth Amendment rights. See United States v. Miller, 933 F.Supp. 501, 505 (M.D.N.C. 1996); United States v. Cabrera, 117 F.Supp.2d 1152, 1157 (D.Kan.2000); United States v. Hardeman, 36 F.Supp.2d 770, 777 (E.D.Mich.1999); State v. Kriley, 976 S.W.2d 16, 22 (Mo.App.1998). Absent some relevant State statute imposing greater restrictions on the police, the validity of both the procedure itself and of any consent given by the occupant is determined in accordance with general Fourth Amendment (or comparable State Constitutional) jurisprudence. Scott does not challenge the officers' right to be at the motel or in or on any of the common areas of the motel, and, indeed, he would have no standing to do so in any event. See United States v. Roby, 122 F.3d 1120, 1125 (8th Cir.1997) (hotel guest has reasonable expectation of privacy in hotel room but not in corridor outside the room); United States v. Holland, 755 F.2d 253, 255-56 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 471 U.S. 1125, 105 S.Ct. 2657, 86 L.Ed.2d 274 (1985) (tenant in multi-tenant building had no expectation of privacy in common halls and lobbies). The Constitutional analysis begins with the knock on the door. The prevailing rule, applicable both to and beyond a pure knock and talk situation, is that, absent a clear expression by the owner to the contrary, police officers, in the course of their official business, are permitted to approach one's dwelling and seek permission to question an occupant. In Davis v. United States, 327 F.2d 301, 303 (9th Cir.1964), the court, in sustaining a mid-day knock and talk encounter, concluded: Absent express orders from the person in possession against any possible trespass, there is no rule of private or public conduct which makes it illegal per se, or a condemned invasion of the person's right of privacy, for anyone openly and peaceably, at high noon, to walk up the steps and knock on the front door of any man's `castle' with the honest intent of asking questions of the occupant thereofwhether the questioner be a pollster, a salesman, or an officer of the law. That principle is well-established, and, indeed, that statement from Davis is often quoted in both knock and talk and other situations that cause officers to approach people's homes. See United States v. Hersh, 464 F.2d 228, 230 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 409 U.S. 1008, 93 S.Ct. 442, 34 L.Ed.2d 301 (1972); United States v. Taylor, 90 F.3d 903, 909 (4th Cir.1996); Jerez, supra, 108 F.3d at 691; United States v. Cormier, 220 F.3d 1103, 1109 (9th Cir. 2000), cert. denied, ___ U.S.____, 121 S.Ct. 1146, 148 L.Ed.2d 1009 (2001); United States v. Tobin, 923 F.2d 1506, 1511 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 907, 112 S.Ct. 299, 116 L.Ed.2d 243 (1991). Scott sees two distinctions between Davis and the case at hand. First, he notes that, in Davis, the police did not go to Davis's home on a mere hunch, but had, in the words of the Davis court, an abundance of information ... that [Davis] was trafficking in marijuana, particularly on the very weekend in question. Davis, supra, 327 F.2d at 303. Second, he points out that the approach in Davis was around 12:30 in the afternoon, a fact that was of some significance to the Davis court. The court observed that [t]he time of day, coupled with the openness of the officers' approach to defendant's doorway, rules out the possible dangers to their persons which might have resulted from a similar unannounced call in the dead of night. Id. at 304. Although some courts have noted those distinctions, none have found either of them individually dispositive in a Fourth Amendment analysis. In many instances, as in Davis, the police have had some suspicious or incriminating information regarding the premises at issue or an occupant of that premises, though not enough to justify a non-consensual entry, but in other cases, they did not have such particularized information. The requirement in this regard is simply that they be on some legitimate official businessnot that they have, in advance, a particular level of incriminating information. As the Maine court declared in State v. Cloutier, 544 A.2d 1277, 1280 (Me.1988), an owner impliedly invites to intrude upon his or her property those with a legitimate social or business purpose, and that, [t]o come within the implied invitation, a police officer must be on some police business. That does not necessarily mean that the officer has to have probable cause or even an objectively reasonable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot. The police business may be administrative as well as investigative, and it may be action based on a suspicion that turns out to be without substantial basis, provided the suspicion is held in good faith rather than as a pretext for an arbitrary search. Cloutier involved an officer who, while patrolling a neighborhood at night in response to a report of a barking dog, observed a light coming from Cloutier's basement window. Because of recent burglaries in the area, but without any particularized suspicion that a burglary was in progress at Cloutier's home, he approached the otherwise darkened home and knocked on the door. Receiving no response, he glanced into the basement window, which was at ground level, and observed marijuana plants growing under a fluorescent light. The officer used that information to obtain a warrant which, because the officer was at the window on legitimate police business, the court sustained. In United States v. Cormier, supra, 220 F.3d at 1109, the court, relying on Florida v. Bostick, supra, 501 U.S. at 434, 111 S.Ct. at 2386, 115 L.Ed.2d at 398, concluded that no suspicion needed to be shown in order to justify the `knock and talk.' See also State v. Frazier, 142 N.C.App. 361, 542 S.E.2d 682, 688 (2001) (knock and talk sustained based on anonymous letter sent to motel owner indicating drugs were being sold from defendant's room). We believe that to be a correct analysis. The Supreme Court made clear in Florida v. Bostick, supra, 501 U.S. at 434, 111 S.Ct. at 2386, 115 L.Ed.2d at 398, that a seizure does not occur simply because a police officer approaches an individual and asks a few questions, and we concluded in Ferris v. State, 355 Md. 356, 374-75, 735 A.2d 491, 500-01 (1999), that [t]his is so even if the police lack any suspicion, reasonable or otherwise, that an individual has committed a crime or is involved in criminal activity. A seizure occurs when a person is restrained by the police, and that must be judged from the interaction between the individual and the police, not by the level of suspicion, if any, in the officer's mind. The level of suspicion prior to the restraint is relevant, of course, to the validity of the seizure, but not to whether a seizure has occurred. See Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 19 n. 16, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1879 n. 16, 20 L.Ed.2d 889, 905 n. 16 (1968): Obviously, not all personal intercourse between policemen and citizens involves `seizures' of persons. Only when the officer, by means of physical force or show of authority, has in some way restrained the liberty of a citizen may we conclude that a `seizure' has occurred. Here, it is clear that Detective Schwanke and his fellow officers were on official police business. It is certainly part of a police officer's duties to pay close attention to the prospect of criminal activity and, consistent with the legitimate rights of the citizens whom they encounter, to seek information regarding it. What some courts have found troubling are encounters of this kind that occur at a person's residence, temporary or permanent, late at nightthe second ground of distinction raised by Scott. None have found a seizure based solely on that circumstance, but a number of courts have given weight to it, in conjunction with other factors, in determining that a seizure has occurred or that a resulting consent was not voluntary. The analysis proceeds from the Supreme Court's pronouncements in Florida v. Bostick . In earlier cases, the Court had defined the line between a permissible encounter and a seizure as being whether a reasonable person would have believed that he was not free to leave, United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 554, 100 S.Ct. 1870, 1877, 64 L.Ed.2d 497, 509 (1980), Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 502, 103 S.Ct. 1319, 1326, 75 L.Ed.2d 229, 239 (1983), or whether a reasonable person would feel free to disregard the police and go about his business. California v. Hodari D., 499 U.S. 621, 628, 111 S.Ct. 1547, 1552, 113 L.Ed.2d 690, 698 (1991); Michigan v. Chesternut, 486 U.S. 567, 576, 108 S.Ct. 1975, 1981, 100 L.Ed.2d 565, 573 (1988). See Ferris, supra, 355 Md. at 374-76, 735 A.2d at 500-01. Bostick involved an encounter on a bus. As a routine investigatory procedure, police officers in Florida boarded inter-city buses at scheduled stops and asked permission of certain passengers to search their luggage. In the particular case, after being informed that he had the right to refuse consent, Bostick, a passenger on a bus about to depart, agreed to the search of his suitcase, in which the police found cocaine, and the issue presented was whether the encounter leading to the consent constituted a seizure under the Fourth Amendment. Bostick contended that the traditional test, of whether he would feel free simply to leave, was not applicable, first because of the cramped confines of the busthere was nowhere else to go on the busand second because the bus was about to depart and if he disembarked, he would be stranded. The Court found that argument unavailing, noting that the fact that he did not feel free to leave the bus did not mean that the police seized him and that the confinement created by the bus had no bearing on whether the police conduct at issue was coercive. Borrowing from INS v. Delgado, 466 U.S. 210, 216, 104 S.Ct. 1758, 1763, 80 L.Ed.2d 247, 255 (1984), however, the Court concluded that the appropriate inquiry is whether a reasonable person would feel free to decline the officers' requests or otherwise terminate the encounter. Bostick, supra, 501 U.S. at 436, 111 S.Ct. at 2389, 115 L.Ed.2d at 400. That formulation, the Court held, was consistent with its earlier pronouncements; the crucial test remained that articulated in Michigan v. Chesternut  whether, taking into account all of the circumstances surrounding the encounter, the police conduct would `have communicated to a reasonable person that he was not at liberty to ignore the police presence and go about his business.' Bostick, supra, 501 U.S. at 437, 111 S.Ct. at 2387, 115 L.Ed.2d at 400 (quoting Chesternut, supra, 486 U.S. at 569, 108 S.Ct. at 1977, 100 L.Ed.2d at 569). Where the encounter takes place, the Court added, is one factor, but it is not the only one. Bostick, supra, 501 U.S. at 437, 111 S.Ct. at 2387, 115 L.Ed.2d at 400. That approach was used in Jerez, supra, 108 F.3d 684, in finding a late-night knock and talk encounter to be an impermissible seizure. Milwaukee police officers assigned to the drug interdiction unit, while routinely looking for target vehicles from what they regarded as source States, noticed a car parked at a motel near the airport with Florida tags. Investigation revealed that the car was owned by Solis, whose Florida driver's license was reported suspended and who, a month earlier, had been arrested for smuggling contraband of some kind into the Dade County jail. The officers decided to initiate a knock and talk procedure but were unable to do so until just after 11:00 p.m. When they arrived at Solis's room, no sounds were heard coming from the room. Two officers took turns knocking on the door, for several minutes, one of them eventually calling out Police. Open up the door. We'd like to talk to you. Dissatisfied with the lack of a response and believing that they were being voluntarily ignored, one officer went outside and began knocking on the window to the room. The window knocking was loud enough for the officer in the hallway to hear it, notwithstanding that he continued knocking on the door. After about two minutes, the police heard movement inside the room. The officer at the window, while knocking, shined a flashlight into the room through a small opening in the draperies and saw Jerez move under the covers of the bed. Soon thereafter, Solis came to the window, opened the draperies, and observed the officer, who announced, Sheriff's Department. Can we talk to you? Would you open up the door? Solis shook his head yes in response and opened the door, clad only in his underwear. The officers identified themselves, displayed their badges, and asked to speak with Solis. He responded in the affirmative and, as he opened the door further, the officers asked if they could come in and talk. Again, Solis said yes, and allowed the officers to enter. They noticed a half-smoked marijuana cigarette, which Solis said was all they had. After questioning Solis and Jerez about why they were in Milwaukee, the officers asked and received permission to search the room. One officer located a suitcase which Jerez indicated was his and which he gave permission to search. Inside, the officers found cocaine, whereupon the pair was arrested. A further search revealed two other packages of cocaine. Following that discovery, Solis and Jerez confessed that they had brought the drugs from Florida with the intent to sell them in Milwaukee. The trial court found that the encounter did not amount to a Terry stop for which reasonable articulable suspicion was required, but rather treated it as similar to the situation of an officer approaching a citizen in an airport, bus terminal, or on the street. That court found that the officers had adequate justification for knocking on the door and window and that the entry and search were consensual. In a split decision, a panel of the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reversed and held that the officers' conduct amounted to a seizure. The appellate court first determined that the appropriate test was not that applicable to airport, bus terminal, or street encounters, as the trial court assumed, but that set forth in Bostick, dealing with confined placeswhether a reasonable person would feel free to decline the officers' request or otherwise terminate the encounter. Being in a motel late at night clad only in their underwear, the defendants, as a practical matter, could not have expressed their desire to terminate the encounter by leaving the scene. The basis of the reversal was the panel majority's conclusion that the trial court had failed to consider adequately two significant factors: the place and time of the encounter. Id. at 690. The appellate court noted that Fourth Amendment jurisprudence has long recognized that police encounters at a person's dwelling in the middle of the night are especially intrusive, and, [b]ecause our law and legal traditions long have recognized the special vulnerability of those awakened in the night by a police intrusion at their dwelling place, that Fourth Amendment jurisprudence counsels that, when a knock at the door comes in the dead of night, the nature and effect of the intrusion into the privacy of the dwelling place must be examined with the greatest of caution. Id. With that deeply-rooted principle in mind, the court recounted the conduct of the policethe persistent knocking on the door, encirclement of the room by an officer proceeding to the window and engaging in loud knocking there, illuminating Jerez's face as he lay in bed by shining a light into the roomand ultimately concluded that [s]imply stated, this is a case in which the law enforcement officers refused to take `no' for an answer, that [t]heir actions, when objectively assessed, `convey[ed] a message that compliance with their requests [was] required,' and that, when Solis finally opened the door, he was submitting to the show of authority. Id. at 692 (quoting in part from Bostick). The court held that, under the totality of the circumstances surrounding the encounterthe late hour, the three minutes of knocking at the door, commands to open the door, up to two minutes of knocking at the window, shining the flashlight into the rooma seizure took place. The record, it said, did not support a conclusion that a reasonable person in the position of Solis and Jerez would have felt free to ignore the deputies and continue about their business. Having found a seizure, the court further determined that it was not supported by a reasonable articulable suspicion, that it was therefore violative of the Fourth Amendment, that the consent to search was fatally tainted by that improper seizure, and that the evidence found in the room was consequently inadmissible. Judge Coffee dissented. He found nothing unusual in the case and no reason to set aside the factual findings of the trial judge. Indeed, he accused his colleagues of ignoring the Supreme Court's admonition in Ornelas v. United States, 517 U.S. 690, 116 S.Ct. 1657, 134 L.Ed.2d 911 (1996), that reviewing courts in Fourth Amendment cases should give deference to the conclusions of experienced law enforcement officers and resident trial judges and of engaging instead, in appellate fact-finding and set[ting] forth new and uncharted interpretations of Fourth Amendment law.  Jerez, supra, 108 F.3d at 700 (emphasis in original). Jerez is a somewhat unusualperhaps extremecase. Apart from the lateness of the hour, the court was concerned about the persistence of the knocking, at both the door and the window, as well as shining a light into the room, all of which combined, in the panel majority's view, to preclude Solis and Jerez from maintaining the privacy and solitude of their temporary dwelling and ignoring the demands and presence of the police. The late-night intrusion was not the dispositive factor, though it clearly was an important one. Other courts have declined to find a seizure based on a night-time knock and talk in the absence of other coercive circumstances. See, for example, United States v. Taylor, 90 F.3d 903, 905 (4th Cir.1996) (approach made at 9:15 p.m.); United States v. Cormier, supra, 220 F.3d 1103, 1107 (knock and talk at motel commencing just after 8:00 p.m.). It may well be that, as a matter of public policy, non-emergency encounters of this kind should be tightly controlled or limited. Late-night intrusions into people's homes are, and should be, discouraged and should not be permitted unless necessary. Balanced against that, of course, is that, when a hotel or motel is involved, the room is not likely to be occupied until the eveningperhaps the late evening. Legislatures and Executive Branch officials with supervisory power over the police are competent to balance these considerations and instigate such controls or limitations they find appropriate. Not every intrusion that contravenes one's conception of good public policy amounts to a Constitutional violation, however. The test, for a seizure, remains that enunciated in Bostick, which requires taking into consideration all of the circumstances. Judicially created bright-line rules with respect to time alone simply will not workare we to say that a knock at 9:00 is Constitutional but one at 10:00 is not? There was no Fourth Amendment seizure in this case. There was a knock perhaps a loud knock, but not a sustained or persistent one. Scott, though allegedly startled, was not awakened by it; he and his girlfriend were up, the television set was on, and the hot tub was running. The police identified themselves before Scott opened the door, and they merely asked, not demanded, that he open the door and talk with them. We are not prepared, alone among courts and in contravention of the principles announced in Bostick, to find every late-night knock and talk encounter a Fourth Amendment seizure, without regard to all other relevant circumstances. Nor are we prepared to make such a holding based on Article 26 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights. Notwithstanding its lack of textual consistency with the Fourth Amendment, we have consistently construed Article 26 as being in pari materia with the Federal provision and have accepted as persuasive the Supreme Court's construction of the Fourth Amendment. [2] See Gadson v. State, 341 Md. 1, 668 A.2d 22 (1995), cert. denied , 517 U.S. 1203, 116 S.Ct. 1704, 134 L.Ed.2d 803 (1996); Gahan v. State, 290 Md. 310, 430 A.2d 49 (1981).