Opinion ID: 520588
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Warrantless Entry, Arrest, and Search and Seizure

Text: 28 The Supreme Court has repeatedly instructed that it is a 'basic principle of Fourth Amendment law' that searches and seizures inside a home without a warrant are presumptively unreasonable, Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 586, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 1380, 63 L.Ed.2d 639 (1980), and that in cases involving warrantless searches and seizures, the government bears the heavy burden of proving that entry into a defendant's home was justified. Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 474-75, 91 S.Ct. 2022, 2042-43, 29 L.Ed.2d 564 (1971). These same basic principles of Fourth Amendment law apply with equal force in the context of warrantless entries in the home made for purposes of arrest, even where there is independent probable cause for such an arrest. Payton, 445 U.S. 573, 100 S.Ct. 1371. As the Supreme Court stated in Welch v. Wisconsin, 466 U.S. 740, 104 S.Ct. 2091, 80 L.Ed.2d 732 (1984), 29 Before agents of the government may invade the sanctity of the home, the burden is on the government to demonstrate exigent circumstances that overcome the presumption of unreasonableness that attaches to all warrantless home entries. 30 Id. at 750, 104 S.Ct. at 2098. 31 Although the Supreme Court has declined to define the scope of the exigent circumstances doctrine, id., two basic instances in which warrantless entry is justified are hot pursuit situations and when the destruction of evidence is imminent. See United States v. Santana, 427 U.S. 38, 42-43, 96 S.Ct. 2406, 2409, 49 L.Ed.2d 300 (1976) (hot pursuit of fleeing felon); Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757, 770-71, 86 S.Ct. 1826, 1835-36, 16 L.Ed.2d 908 (1966) (destruction of evidence). Also, entry may be justified if the life or person of a law-enforcement officer or other person is in imminent danger. See United States v. Dowell, 724 F.2d 599, 602-03 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 466 U.S. 906, 104 S.Ct. 1683, 80 L.Ed.2d 157 (1984); United States v. Williams, 633 F.2d 742, 744 (8th Cir.1980); United States v. Agapito, 620 F.2d 324, 335-36 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 834, 101 S.Ct. 107, 66 L.Ed.2d 40 (1980). 32 At the hearing on appellant's motion to suppress, the government argued that the arresting agents were required to act swiftly and without a warrant in order to avoid the substantial risks that would have resulted if Zabare were not arrested before he opened the packages of tickets he had just purchased and discovered void markings on them. According to the government, exigent circumstances existed in this case because the agents could reasonably have believed that as soon as Zabare discovered the void markings, he would telephone other members of the conspiracy to warn them about the phony tickets and thereby endanger the lives of the confidential informant and the undercover agent. Alternatively, the government also argued that the government agents could reasonably have believed that Zabare would destroy the blank Ticketron tickets as soon as he discovered that some of them had been marked void, although none of the arresting agents who testified at the hearing proffered this rationale as a justification for the warrantless entry. 33 After concluding that there was insufficient opportunity to obtain a warrant until the events immediately preceding the arrest had taken place, the district court accepted the government's claim of exigent circumstances. While the court stated that the possible destruction of evidence was not as strong an exigent circumstance as the other proffered reason for the warrantless entry, the court was persuaded that the entire operation, as well as the safety of the undercover agents, might be compromised if Zabare attempted for whatever reason to spread the alarm ... among the grapevine, somewhat in the nature of some less than honorable Paul Revere. Accordingly, the district court upheld the warrantless entry and denied Zabare's motion to suppress. 34 On appeal, Zabare raises two challenges to the district court's finding of exigent circumstances. Appellant first argues that the government's two claimed exigencies were based on pure speculation, and that there was no evidence in this case that Zabare would either attempt to contact other co-conspirators or destroy the marked tickets. Alternatively, appellant contends that the government agents created the exigent circumstances herein by using Ticketron tickets that were stamped void, and that the government is therefore not entitled to rely on these circumstances as justification for the warrantless entry. We are not persuaded by these contentions. 35 As a threshold matter, we note that in United States v. Cattouse, 846 F.2d 144 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 109 S.Ct. 316, 102 L.Ed.2d 335 (1988), we declined to accept the argument that circumstances are not exigent if the method of investigation gives rise to the exigency. In Cattouse, the defendant contended that government agents had intentionally used pre-recorded buy money and an all-white surveillance team during an undercover narcotics operation in a predominantly black community in order to create the exigent circumstances which were ultimately used to justify the warrantless arrest of the defendant in his home. In rejecting that argument, we held that the government's use of white agents and pre-recorded buy money was not improper because the investigative techniques were appropriate and were not adopted for the purpose of creating exigent circumstances. Id. at 148. In this case, Judge Haight found that the government's decision to mark the tickets void was reasonable in light of the concern that something might go wrong with the operation and the tickets might be disseminated to the public. We do not disagree, and therefore we reject appellant's argument that the government herein manufactured the exigent circumstances in bad faith. 36 Appellant further contends on appeal that the government's claim of exigent circumstances was purely speculative, and, hence, that the evidence seized as a result of the agents' warrantless entry into his home should have been suppressed. As we noted in United States v. Martinez-Gonzalez, 686 F.2d 93 (2d Cir.1982), [t]he determination of exigent circumstances vel non necessarily turns upon whether in light of all the facts and circumstances of the particular case there was an 'urgent need' that 'justified' a warrantless entry. Id. at 100. Examining the totality of the circumstances confronting the agents in this case, it is evident they knew that tickets which were clearly marked void on their face had just been delivered to and accepted by a suspected member of an alleged conspiracy. The issue this Court must resolve is whether it was objectively reasonable to conclude on the basis of these few facts that, when and if Zabare unwrapped the tickets and found them marked void, either: (1) the destruction of evidence [was] imminent, see United States v. Socey, 846 F.2d 1439, 1446 (D.C.Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 109 S.Ct. 152, 102 L.Ed.2d 123 (1988), or (2) the undercover operation and the lives of the confidential informant and Agent Hackbart would be endangered. 37 We need not consider all of the government's possible reasons for entering Zabare's home without a warrant because we accept the government's destruction of evidence claim as an objectively reasonable basis for the warrantless entry. See United States v. Warner, 843 F.2d 401, 403 (9th Cir.1988) (court may determine whether the warrantless entry was justified upon some basis other than the one on which the police officer relied). Although the agents who arrested Zabare subjectively believed that they had to enter the apartment in order to protect the undercover operation and possibly the life of Agent Hackbart, the test for determining whether a warrantless entry was justified by the presence of exigent circumstances is an objective one. See id.; United States v. Talkington, 843 F.2d 1041, 1044 (7th Cir.1988) (applying an objective standard of reasonableness in assessing whether exigent circumstances existed); see also United States v. Nersesian, 824 F.2d 1294, 1316 (2d Cir.) (noting that  'the proper standard for judging the constitutionality of a search is a totally objective one '  (emphasis in original), quoting United States v. Smith, 643 F.2d 942, 944 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 875, 102 S.Ct. 350, 70 L.Ed.2d 182 (1981)), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 108 S.Ct. 357, 98 L.Ed.2d 382 (1987). As mentioned earlier, the government maintains that it also would have been objectively reasonable for these agents to assume that Zabare, upon discovering the marked tickets, would have believed himself to be the subject of an undercover investigation and that he then would have moved quickly to destroy the evidence of his participation in the transaction. Although we recognize that there was no extrinsic evidence of urgency of a type which this Court has frequently relied upon in upholding warrantless entries, see, e.g., United States v. Farra, 725 F.2d 197, 198 (2d Cir.1984) (agitated conversation ... augmented by the sounds of much stirring about and the slamming of drawers or doors), we believe that reasonable, experienced agent[s], Talkington, 843 F.2d at 1044, would have been justified in concluding that the destruction of contraband was imminent based on the facts herein. 38 The facts that were before the arresting officers in this case are very similar to those in United States v. Gallo-Roman, 816 F.2d 76 (2d Cir.1987). In Gallo-Roman, a United States Customs mail technician in Florida intercepted two pieces of mail addressed for delivery in New York, and found that they contained cocaine secreted between photographs and false backs. The envelopes and their contents were forwarded to the Drug Enforcement Administration in New York, where DEA agents replaced the cocaine with a mixture of trace amounts of cocaine and dextrose. After repackaging the five photographs, an agent resealed the original envelope and placed it in the numbered post office box to which it had been addressed. A woman retrieved the envelope, and DEA agents followed her to a different address than the one listed on the face of the envelope. After waiting approximately twenty minutes, DEA agents went to the door of the apartment, rang the bell, identified themselves to the woman who opened the door, and then entered the apartment, whereupon the agents seized the evidence and arrested the defendant Gallo-Roman--all without a warrant. 39 On appeal, Gallo-Roman argued that (1) the police officers should have obtained a warrant prior to entering the searched premises, and that (2) no exigent circumstances existed which justified the warrantless search of his apartment and the seizure of the cocaine found therein, because any belief on the agents' part that evidence might be destroyed was 'mere speculation.'  816 F.2d at 79. Apropos appellant's first contention, we found that there was insufficient information available to the government agents to enable them to obtain a warrant prior to the events which took place just before the arrest and search, and insufficient time to obtain a warrant once the agents were in possession of sufficient information. Id. at 80-81. As for appellant's second claim, we stated: 40 In our view ..., exigent circumstances did in fact exist, and the DEA case agents reasonably could have expected the evidence seized to be destroyed before they could obtain a warrant. It was certainly reasonable for the agents to conclude that, once the envelope was opened, the false backs removed from the photographs, and the discovery made that the photographs had been tampered with, it would become apparent that the scheme had been uncovered and that the authorities were near. Under these circumstances, the agents reasonably could have anticipated that the perpetrator would act quickly to destroy the evidence of unlawful conduct. 41 Id. at 79 (emphasis added). We see no principled distinction between the Gallo-Roman case and this case. 42 Prior to their arrival at Zabare's residence on the date of arrest, the agents knew only that Folch intended to sell some of the tickets to a man called the Rabbi, and that the Rabbi's first name was Isaac. Apart from the foregoing, the confidential informant had given Agent Hackbart what he claimed was the Rabbi's telephone number. At the suppression hearing, however, Agent Hackbart testified that when he checked the telephone listings to see what name corresponded to the phone number, he found that the number belonged to one Joseph Zabare, who resided at 99 Wilson Street in Brooklyn. Although, prior to arriving at 99 Wilson Street on the day of appellant's arrest, Agent Hackbart suspected that Joseph Zabare might be the Rabbi, he did not know with any degree of reasonable certainty that Joseph Zabare, Isaac, and the Rabbi were one and the same person. Just as in Gallo-Roman, there was insufficient information available to the agents to enable them to obtain a warrant prior to the events leading up to the arrest of the defendant. 43 Also, as in Gallo-Roman, the undercover agents herein knew the tickets had been tampered with, 816 F.2d at 79, and had reason to fear that when appellant discovered the markings he would surmise that the authorities were near and act quickly to destroy the evidence of his unlawful conduct. Id. We cannot say that such conclusions would have been objectively unreasonable, even though these or even other beliefs by the agents turned out to be unfounded. As the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia stated in Socey, 44 If an experienced officer reasonably believes that those inside a home are likely to be alarmed and destroy evidence, the warrantless intrusion will be justified, even if it eventually develops that the home was unoccupied or those inside were careless or sloppy in their security, saw nothing at all, and had no intention of destroying any contraband. 45 846 F.2d at 1446 (emphasis added); see also United States v. Rivera, 825 F.2d 152, 156 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 108 S.Ct. 494, 98 L.Ed.2d 492 (1987). Accordingly, we conclude that the district court did not err in admitting the evidence that was seized as a result of the agents' warrantless entry, arrest of appellant, and search of his apartment.