Opinion ID: 1941856
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the legality of the search of 510 ridge road

Text: Several days after the robbery at Nina's Beauty Salon, two of the victims, Ron Oliphant and Marion Davis, saw a man who they thought was the armed robber working on a Volvo parked on Ridge Road. Oliphant contacted the police. An officer who responded to the call found appellant Poole working on a Volvo in the 500 block of Ridge Road and warned him that repairing cars on a public street was unlawful. Poole identified himself and said that he lived at apartment three-something (the officer could not remember the exact number), 510 Ridge Road, although the identification card he gave to the officer may have listed another address. The officer then radioed detectives with the address and the license plate number from Poole's car. In addition, according to the government's proffer at the suppression hearing, the police reviewed telephone records and found that Poole had a telephone listing at 510 Ridge Road. Based on this information, as well as on identifications of Poole from photo arrays, the police obtained warrants to arrest Poole and to search the premises of apartment 304 at 510 Ridge Road, S.E. Detectives from the Robbery Branch, working in conjunction with five officers from the Emergency Response Team (ERT), a tactical group specially trained to deal with high risk situations, attempted to execute the warrants at about 8:15 a.m. on Saturday, [2] February 3, 1990. After entering the building at 510 Ridge Road, Sergeant Scott, the ERT leader, knocked on the door of apartment 304 three times with his blackjack and announced Police, search warrant. Scott waited approximately five seconds, during which he heard nothing from inside the apartment, and then ordered the team to force the door open with a battering ram. Within ten seconds of the time that Scott had first rapped on the door, the team had begun ramming the door open. Once inside the apartment, they found appellant Showell along with a man and three small children, all in their nightclothes, watching television. Poole, however, was not there. After searching the apartment to see whether anyone else was present, the ERT team turned the premises over to detectives from the Robbery Branch. The detectives searched the apartment, finding a loaded.32 caliber Smith and Wesson revolver, five rounds of ammunition, two identification cards in Howard Poole's name and another in the name of Belitta Showell, and a photo of Showell and Poole together, among other items. Following the search, the police arrested Showell but not the male occupant. Before trial, both appellants moved to suppress the evidence recovered from inside apartment 304, arguing that (1) the underlying search warrant was invalid because the affidavit on which it was based was defective and (2) the police violated D.C.Code § 23-524(a) by failing to wait a reasonable time before breaking open the apartment door. [3]
In moving for suppression of evidence obtained from the search of 510 Ridge Road, appellants argued in part that the search warrant was invalid because the affidavit on which it was based was vague and conclusory and contained false information. In particular, appellants questioned whether the police had a good faith basis for the affidavit's assertion that Poole lived at 510 Ridge Road. The only information in the affidavit on this point was that there had been a verification of Poole's address. [4] Appellants claimed that the affiant displayed reckless disregard for the truth in failing to take into account information known and available in public records that Poole actually lived at 612 Ninth Street, N.E. Poole's counsel also asserted at the suppression hearing that Poole had told the police he lived at 612 Ninth Street and that his children lived at 510 Ridge Road. In response, the government proffered the information that Poole had been seen working on his car in front of 510 Ridge Road, that Poole had said that he lived at 510 Ridge Road, and that the affiant had checked telephone records and found that Poole had a phone at 510 Ridge Road. [5] The trial court ruled that there was insufficient evidence to warrant an evidentiary hearing on this claim. The court found that the affidavit was facially adequate for the issuance of the warrant, despite the affidavit's lack of detail, and that the evidence gave no reason to doubt the good faith of the police. Appellants renew their claim on appeal. There is ... a presumption of validity with respect to the affidavit supporting [a] search warrant. Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. at 171, 98 S.Ct. at 2684. In order to merit an evidentiary hearing on the sufficiency of an affidavit, the defendant must (1) allege deliberate deceit or reckless disregard for the truth, ... accompanied by an offer of proof, and (2) show that the affidavit, stripped of the allegedly false material or supplemented with improperly omitted information, does not support probable cause to issue a warrant. Dailey v. United States, 611 A.2d 963, 967 (D.C.1992); see also Franks, 438 U.S. at 171, 98 S.Ct. at 2684. We agree with the trial court that appellants failed to carry their burden. It was undisputed that Poole had been seen at 510 Ridge Road and that he had a phone listing for that address. Given this information, the mere fact that Poole may have had another address, as defense counsel alleged, was insufficient to make out a prima facie showing that the police were acting recklessly in assuming that Poole lived at 510 Ridge Road. Even if the affidavit had specified that Poole also had another address, that would hardly have led to a conclusion that the police lacked probable cause to search 510 Ridge Road.

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 a search warrant, if, after notice of his authority and purpose, he is refused admittance or when necessary to liberate himself or a person aiding him in the execution of the warrant. An analogous provision, applicable to the execution of search warrants for controlled substances, appears in D.C.Code § 33-565(g) (1988 Repl.). [7] Such knock and announce statutes, as they are commonly known, have ancient roots in Anglo-American law. [8] See Miller v. United States, 357 U.S. 301, 308, 313, 78 S.Ct. 1190, 1195, 1197-98, 2 L.Ed.2d 1332 (1958). The requirement that government officers executing a warrant announce themselves and request permission to enter before attempting a forced entry appeared in English common law as early as 1603: In all cases where the King is party, the sheriff (if the doors be not open) may break the party's house, either to arrest him, or to do other execution of the K[ing]'s process, if otherwise he cannot enter. But before he breaks it, he ought to signify the cause of his coming, and to make request to open doors .... Semayne's Case, 77 Eng.Rep. 194, 195 (1603) (emphasis added), quoted in Miller, 357 U.S. at 308, 78 S.Ct. at 1195. Following the lead of four justices in Ker v. California, 374 U.S. 23, 46, 83 S.Ct. 1623, 1646, 10 L.Ed.2d 726 (1963) (Brennan, J., dissenting), many federal courts of appeal have held that the knock and announce requirement is also inherent, at least to some degree, in the Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures. [9] The underlying purpose of the knock and announce requirement is threefold: (1) it reduces the potential for violence to both the police officers and the occupants of the house into which entry is sought; (2) it guards against the needless destruction of private property; and (3) it symbolizes the respect for individual privacy summarized in the adage that a man's [or woman's] house is his [or her] castle. United States v. Bustamante-Gamez, 488 F.2d 4, 9 (9th Cir.1973), cert. denied, 416 U.S. 970, 94 S.Ct. 1993, 40 L.Ed.2d 559 (1974). These interests are not absolute, however, and can be overridden in certain circumstances. Thus, in line with caselaw from other jurisdictions, we have recognized two situations in which the police need not wait for an actual reply before attempting a forced entry: (1) where the police may reasonably infer from the actions or inactions of the occupants that they have been constructively refused admittance; and (2) where the police are confronted with `exigent' circumstances, such as the imminent destruction of evidence, or some danger to the entering officers. [10] ( Craig) Williams v. United States, 576 A.2d 700, 703 (D.C.1990) (citations omitted) (construing D.C.Code § 33-565 on the basis of federal court interpretations of 18 U.S.C. § 3109); see also Culp v. United States, 624 A.2d 460, 462 (D.C. 1993).