Opinion ID: 1240852
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Warrant Requirement

Text: Both the trial court and the court of appeals decided the suppression issue prior to the United States Supreme Court's decision in Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 63 L.Ed.2d 639 (1980). In Payton the Supreme Court held that notwithstanding a New York statute authorizing a warrantless arrest inside the home, the Fourth Amendment prohibits warrantless and non-consensual entries into a suspect's home for the purpose of making an arrest unless exigent circumstances are present. The court remarked that the physical entry of the home is the chief evil against which the wording of the Fourth Amendment is directed, United States v. United States District Court, 407 U.S. 297, 313, 92 S.Ct. 2125, 2134, 32 L.Ed.2d 752, 764 (1972), and found persuasive the reasoning articulated by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in addressing this issue: [6] To be arrested in the home involves not only the invasion attendant to all arrests but also an invasion of the sanctity of the home. This is simply too substantial an invasion to allow without a warrant, at least in the absence of exigent circumstances, even when it is accomplished under statutory authority and when probable cause is clearly present. 445 U.S. at 589, 100 S.Ct. at 1381, 63 L.Ed.2d at 652. For purposes of the Fourth Amendment any difference in intrusiveness between an entry to search and an entry to arrest is merely a difference of degree rather than one of kind. Payton v. New York, supra . Both entries involve the abridgement of house privacy. Since the Fourth Amendment protects against warrantless and nonconsensual searches of a home in the absence of exigent circumstances, the same logic applies to entries to effectuate an arrest. In terms that apply equally to seizures of property and to seizures of persons, the Fourth Amendment has drawn a firm line at the entrance to the house. Absent exigent circumstances, that threshold may not reasonably be crossed without a warrant. Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. at 590, 100 S.Ct. at 1382, 63 L.Ed.2d at 653. This rule is no stranger to Colorado jurisprudence. In 1971 this court held that although police officers have probable cause to believe a suspect committed a crime, nevertheless they may not enter a private residence to effect an arrest in the absence of exigent circumstances. People v. Moreno, 176 Colo. 488, 497, 491 P.2d 575, 580 (1971); see also People v. Williams, Colo., 613 P.2d 879 (1980); People v. Coto, Colo., 611 P.2d 969 (1980). In the instant case the district court's finding, based on the evidence elicited at the suppression hearing, was that the Arapahoe County law enforcement officers at their meeting on October 30, 1977, determined to arrest the defendant without a warrant at his home even though he was at that time a prime suspect in the homicide. The people and the defendant do not dispute this determination. Nor do they contest the court's conclusion that probable cause existed for the defendant's arrest and the further conclusion that the defendant's arrest took place inside his residence. The only bases that conceivably could furnish a constitutional justification for the defendant's warrantless arrest in his home are exigent circumstances or consent.