Opinion ID: 1241125
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: securing the premises a fallacious and pernicious doctrine

Text: At this point a number of things are clear and need restating before moving on to a discussion of the available case law by which the Court is today persuaded to stamp its imprimatur on the doctrine of Securing the Premises. (1) The Court in its opinion has clearly chosen to disregard and give no mention to the fact that the trial judge did not accept the doctrine, but on the contrary was quite disturbed at the police conduct here in question. The trial judge reasoned that the questionable evidence could be admitted on the basis that the subsequent warrant search of the premises, that is the drawer-by-drawer and closet-by-closet ransacking of it, was separable from the no-warrant earlier search of the premises, where the three officers merely roamed the length and breadth of the house, completely commandeering it and observing that which was to be observed with the naked eye. (2) Totally unlike Rauch, there was no evidence presented to the trial judge that the officers had any reason to engage in surmise that Maria Gomez and the child might busy themselves in flushing contraband down the drains on receiving a telephone call from some unknown person to do so (certainly not the handcuffed and guarded Gomez); nor did the officers testify to entertaining such fears, whether or not sustained by the observed circumstances. (3) Nonetheless, the Court is willing to gloss over the requirement of facts and circumstances showing exigent circumstances of some kind, by the innuendo that there was such evidence  when in fact there was none. This the Court accomplishes by writing that [t]he officers apparently feared that, given the size of Parma and the location of the arrest, their actions would attract attention and that a phone call to the Gomez residence might enable the occupants to quickly dispose of the drugs. There was no such evidence, but the reader of the opinion would more likely than not conclude that there was. For all that the record shows neither Maria Gomez nor the child were involved with drug peddling, and there may not have been a phone. Had any officer so testified, which none did, such would have been the sheer speculation condemned in Rauch as insufficient for unlawful intrusion by police officers. (4) The Court observes that there are lines of authority which distinguish circumstances where a warrant has issued, but is not served with the entry made to secure the premises, as against circumstances where entries are made to secure the premises where no warrant has been issued but officers have gone to pick one up (much as householders stop by the grocery store to pick up a quart of milk or loaf of bread). The majority reasonably withholds its approval of those cases which make no distinction, but unreasonably fails to condemn totally warrantless entries made upon expectation that a magistrate will perform as expected  which is not always the case. The Court quite clearly leaves the impression that it will approve of entries made without a warrant in existence when the time comes. Although this would be consistent with today's holding, I strongly urge the Court to adopt the more constitutionally sound position of disapproving all warrantless entries which are made, regardless of when the warrant may be issued, and regardless of when it may be presented. Securing the Premises, another bit of nomenclature for that which is nothing but a warrantless entry, is a fallacious doctrine. It stretches the imagination beyond the breaking point to be told that the police, in this case three in number, can wander through a residence searching for bodies, as one put it, and yet maintain with a straight face that they are not searching for anything else which their roving and searching eyes may see. Anytime an entry is made into a residence, access to which the police are not entitled, that constitutes a search. If the crime being investigated happened to be theft of pianos, an entry defended as a mere securing of the premises rather than a search for pianos will be thought by some to be beyond the bounds of credulity. Any entry made which gets the police within a residence where they are not otherwise welcome or invited is indeed a search, the extent of which is apparently only as limited as the officers' unbridled discretion allows. The taking apart of a residence board by board is not required to constitute a search made after entry. That which the Court fails to comprehend is the concept that the protections of the Fourth Amendment are not protections of property, but rather the protections of the people in their right to be secure within the confines of their own places of expected privacy  of which peoples' residences  their castles  are foremost. As noted by the United States Supreme Court, physical entry of the home is the chief evil against which the wording of the Fourth Amendment is directed, Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 583, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 1378, 63 L.Ed.2d 639 (1980), for [f]reedom from intrusion into the home or dwelling is the archetype of the privacy protection secured by the Fourth Amendment. Id. at 588, 100 S.Ct. 1381 (quoting Dorman v. United States, 435 F.2d 385, 389 (D.C. Cir.1969)). Thus the Supreme Court in Payton held that the sanctity of the home prohibits a warrantless arrest within the home. The Court reasoned as follows: 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. Id. at 590, 100 S.Ct. 1382. Although that case involved a situation where no warrant had been issued, the principle remains the same  citizens have the right to know that the security and privacy of their homes may not be violated by the state, and the police are not to enter those homes without the warrant which is their lawful badge of entrance. Totally monstrous is the proposition, advanced by the Court itself, that the conduct here complained of was a mere Securing the Premises, and hence not interdicted as would be an unlawful searching the premises. Keeping in mind that the Fourth Amendment is all that protects the people against unreasonable searches and seizures, accordingly, Securing the Premises must be recognized for what it in reality is, a securing of the occupants as well as the premises, and thus a seizure of those occupants and premises within the meaning and purpose of the Fourth Amendment. [4] The only discernible difference between the intrusion of a securing from within as against a search is one of purpose; a search is to discover evidence to be taken for later use at trial, whereas in a mere securing the violated premises and occupants are seized and laid captive until the police officers arrive with the warrant which, by the doctrine espoused by the Court in today's opinion, is said to legitimatize the dastardly prior conduct. In today's sanctioning of Securing the Premises the police are given judicial license to at will invade any and all parts of a person's home, while at the same time the occupants (here a woman and child) are custodially restrained in their own living room. In fact and truth, Securing the Premises is by far the worst infringement on the Fourth Amendment which has yet been visited on the people. The police, without being able to show any authority for their intrusion, need only declare to the occupants of a house that they are securing it on the premise that such is sufficient justification for their entry. Such conduct is on a par and readily classified with the much hated General Warrant visited upon the colonists by the British, which abuse played a large part in fomenting the Revolution. Nor is it any defense to suggest that the people ought not to complain because, after all, somewhere, although the warrant proving that fact is not present, there has been a determination of probable cause made by a detached and neutral magistrate. Only the presentation of a warrant at the time of the intrusive entry can be said to meet with constitutional requirements. In a similar context, as to seizing the person, rather than his premises, I.C. § 19-609 requires that [i]f the person making the arrest is acting under the authority of a warrant, he must show the warrant, if required. (Emphasis added.) An officer without a warrant in or at hand is not in a position to respond to a demand that he either display it or make an immediate retreat. The officer might very well be forced to engage in an affray, which in many instances will surely result. In Anderson v. Foster, 73 Idaho 340, 252 P.2d 199 (1953), a more enlightened Court upheld a jury verdict finding a police officer guilty of false arrest where the evidence showed that the officer did not show the warrant or advise of his reason for making the arrest. That the same principle requires a warrant before the police invade the sanctity of the home is also evident in the provisions for no-knock entries. Under these provisions, notwithstanding that a warrant is in hand, the police must still announce their presence, purpose and authority before entering someone's house, except in exigent circumstances. I.C. § 19-4409; State v. Rauch, 99 Idaho 586, 586 P.2d 671 (1978). This rule is based on four purposes or policies: (1) the protection of the privacy of the individual in his home; (2) the protection of innocent persons who may also be present on the premises where an arrest is made; (3) the prevention of situations which are conducive to violent confrontations between the occupant and individuals who enter his home without proper notice; and (4) the protection of police who might be injured by a startled and fearful householder. State v. Rauch, 99 Idaho 586, 588-89, 586 P.2d 671, 673-74 (1978). Securing the Premises is a new judicial doctrine totally destructive of civil and constitutional rights, and is better condemned than condoned. The police, without being able to display a proper warrant, simply cannot be allowed to roam the length and breadth of a private residence, occupying and opening all of its closets and rooms, and justify such action on the basis that a search warrant is on its way. Such conduct is illegal, and the potential for violent confrontation is awesome. It must be remembered that there still are in our country many rugged individualists of Revolutionary War caliber who might not all so calmly yield to a voice asserting authority while making illegal entry on the verbal declaration of the existence of a warrant which may later arrive. In addition to these policy justifications for requiring that the warrant be present before the police enter the premises, under basic Fourth Amendment analysis, which compares the degree and scope of the invasion of defendant's person or property with the objective and imperative of the government action, this particular securing of the premises was unreasonable. Obviously, the scope of the invasion into defendant's property here is substantial. The necessity of the state's action, however, is not so obvious. The only reason now advanced for securing the premises in the present case was the prosecution's argument of bare surmise that someone might have seen Gomez's arrest, and sheer speculation that in turn someone might have called Gomez's wife, who might or might not be involved, and told her to destroy the drugs, assuming that she knew where the drugs were, and might so do. Just as such conjecture cannot support an entry without notice, see, e.g., State v. Doering, 384 F. Supp. 1307 (W.D.Mich. 1974) (mere presence of drugs insufficient to justify immediate entry), so it cannot support an entry without a warrant. As stated in Shuey v. Superior Court, 20 Cal. App.3d 535, 106 Cal. Rptr. 452, 455 (1973), such emergencies are strictly of the `do-it-yourself' variety. While it is recognized that exigent circumstances might exist in some cases such that an entry should necessarily be made before the arrival of the warrant, even without a warrant having issued at all, such is not this case. To hold, as the Court does, that entry made without a warrant in hand is permissible, when based on nothing more than the purported purpose of securing the premises, is a judicial outrage. To give judicial sanction to entries such as that made here completely negates the constitutional right of the people to be secure in their homes. It is an intolerable proposition  and coming from this Court is nothing short of chaotic. Where the Court may take the people of this state within the orbiting doctrine of Securing the Premises is best exemplified by that which has taken place in Arizona, the most recent case being State v. Broadfoot, 115 Ariz. 537, 566 P.2d 685 (1977). Therein the Supreme Court of that state said this: Appellant also asserts that police conduct in securing appellant's house while procuring a warrant violated appellant's rights under the Fourth Amendment and requires suppression of items seized pursuant to that warrant. To the contrary, the police in this situation did precisely what we continually exhort them to do. The officers resisted the impulse to search the house immediately  conduct which would have violated appellant's Fourth Amendment rights. Instead they submitted the issue to a detached, impartial magistrate. A search warrant was properly procured. Under the circumstances, police could not be expected to leave the house unattended. So long as there is no unreasonable delay in seeking and procuring a search warrant, securing the premises is not unreasonable police conduct. See State v. Cook, 115 Ariz. 199, 564, P.2d 877 (Filed April 25, 1977); State v. Smith, 112 Ariz. 531, 544 P.2d 213 (1975). 566 P.2d at 687 (emphasis added). The only information in the opinion as to the type of premise-securing is this: The license plate number of the car the suspects left in was taken down by a witness. This led police to appellant's house, where the suspects had driven. Police detained four men outside the house, two of whom were identified by the clerk as the suspects. A warrant to search the house was sought and issued. Appellant's house was secured until the warrant was issued, and no one, including appellant's wife, was permitted access.  566 P.2d at 680 (emphasis added). The court did not presume to suggest what would have been the status of the entry (assuming there was one) if a warrant was not obtainable. In State v. Smith, 112 Ariz. 531, 544 P.2d 213 (1975), the residence in question was a house trailer (this was the Arizona case which the trial court here thought applicable). The Securing of the Premises  according to the opinion of the Arizona Supreme Court  was by posting a police officer on the premises and not allowing any person or material to enter or leave the premises. 544 P.2d at 214 (emphasis added). Thereafter a warrant was obtained, and the officers conducted a search of the premises. 544 P.2d at 215 (emphasis added). I note also that the opinion mentioned that a Mark Seger, who was inside the trailer, objected to the procedure and was placed under arrest... . 544 P.2d at 215 (emphasis again supplied). It is totally unclear whether on the premises referred to the outside realty, or the residence itself, and as the later opinion demonstrates, this was not of particular significance to the Arizona court. The court there did intimate, as did Judge Norris in this case, that the premises were illegally secured,  but the court there seemed satisfied that such did not taint the search which took place thereafter: If the warrant was properly issued the search in response thereto was a proper search and seizure and the fact that the premises may have been illegally secured does not operate to nullify the effect of the search warrant. The fact that defendant or his friends were deprived of the opportunity to destroy the evidence while the officers went to obtain a search warrant does not make the warrant infirm as Justice Cole in his dissent stated: `It is stultifying to suggest that a causal link between illegal detention and seizure under the warrant exists because petitioner    was deprived of the opportunity to destroy the marijuana and amphetamines.' Shuey v. Superior Court for County of Los Angeles, 30 Cal. App.3d 535, 547, 106 Cal. Rptr. 452, 460, n. 1 (1973). Also we do not find the officers' actions herein in securing the premises were such that they should be disapproved by this court. It may well be that had the facts been developed on this point that the officer, on the basis of exigent circumstances, would have had the right to search the premises without first obtaining a warrant. Instead he chose to secure the premises and seek out a magistrate for a warrant. The officers' actions were preferable to searching the premises without a warrant and complied with both the letter and the spirit of the law. 544 P.2d at 216 (emphasis added). As carefully noted by the Arizona court which cited it, the above quote from Shuey is found in the dissenting opinion in that case. The majority in Shuey refused to sanction the securing of the premises by allowing it to provide probable cause for a subsequent warrant. Evidence seized pursuant to the otherwise valid warrant was therefore suppressed. The idea that an illegal securing of the premises is somehow severable from a subsequent search pursuant to warrant is repugnant to the Constitution. The purpose of the exclusionary rule is to give meaning to the Fourth Amendment by deterring illegal police conduct. The conduct complained of here is an example of the worst possible abuse of state powers  armed undercover officers bursting into a private residence and combing the house while a woman and her child sit in stark, ignorant fear of the events that are swirling around them. If ever there was a need to deter the excesses of the use of police power, such a need is here. As stated in Shuey, supra at 457, 106 Cal. Rptr. 452, the police are to be encouraged to obtain warrants whenever possible, but the fact that they do so in a particular case does not retroactively purify preceding misconduct. Several better-reasoned decisions follow Shuey. In State v. Bean, 89 Wash.2d 467, 572 P.2d 1102 (1978), the Washington court stated: In suppressing the evidence seized prior to the securing of a search warrant, the trial court necessarily found by implication that no sufficient exigent circumstances in this case justified the warrantless entry of the residence. We are in complete agreement with the trial court's statements, but we go further to hold that the trial court's failure to suppress evidence which was obtained from the house after the search warrant was served, was error. The initial entry into the house was wrongful and the subsequently obtained search warrant was not curative of the original illegal entry. People v. Shuey, 13 Cal.3d 835, 850, 120 Cal. Rptr. 83, 94, 533 P.2d 211, 222 (1975). In Shuey the California Supreme Court, upon being presented with this very issue, stated as follows: Analytically this case can be regarded simply as involving a de facto, inchoate seizure of the person and property of Paul the moment the police began the illegal occupation. Thereafter the obtaining of the warrant could no more operate `to disinfect this conduct' (30 Cal. App.3d 535, at p. 540, 160 Cal. Rptr. 452) than if the police had actually seized the individual items sought to be suppressed prior to acquisition of the warrant. 572 P.2d at 1105. See also United States v. Griffin, 502 F.2d 959 (6th Cir.1974); State v. Matsen, 287 Or. 581, 601 P.2d 784 (Or. 1979). In State v. Cook, 115 Ariz. 188, 564 P.2d 877 (Ariz. 1977), also cited in the Broadfoot excerpt, Justice Gordon for that court, as did Justice Donaldson for this Court in Rauch, wrote an excellent opinion on application of the Arizona knock-and-announce statute, holding that a warrantless entry made in order to arrest was violated by noncompliance with their statute. In so doing, he repeated an earlier truism: This statute embodies the time-tested mandate of the people of Arizona that the police respect their right to be left alone. In ruling on the announcement required by a similar statute, A.R.S. § 13-1446, we said: `There is no more sacred right than to have the privacy of the home protected against unreasonable searches and seizures. An unexpected breaking into a home by officers might well result in their being killed under the impression that the home owner was protecting his family and his home against intruders.' State v. Mendoza, 104 Ariz. 395 at 399, 454 P.2d 140 at 144 (1969). It is fundamental that `knock and announce' statutes are adopted `to safeguard officers, who might be mistaken, upon an unannounced intrusion into a home, for someone with no right to be there.' Sabbath v. United States, 391 U.S. 585 at 589, 88 S.Ct. 1755 at 1758, 20 L.Ed.2d 828 (1968). We note that there are no exceptions on the face of the statute, nor are we persuaded to create any. 564 P.2d at 881 (emphasis supplied) (footnote omitted). Holding that there were no exigent circumstances, as was equally true in our Rauch case, the Arizona court said this about securing the premises: Our analysis must proceed one step further. Even if the entry into appellant's home could be justified, the physical evidence obtained therefrom would still be suppressed as the officers knew within seconds that the suspect was not there. At that point, the officers' duty was to secure the premises and obtain a search warrant. See State v. Sauve, [112 Ariz. 576, 544 P.2d 1091] supra. If the police had been lawfully within appellant's home for a purpose other than to seize the items seen, the `plain' or `open view' doctrine would permit the seizure and use in prosecution of items which inadvertently came into their view.  564 P.2d at 883 (emphasis added). It would seem that at one point in time, at least, the Arizona court did recognize that Securing the Premises did not include a physical intrusion into the residence  but that somewhere in transition that court forgot what the Fourth Amendment is all about. With reference to the last quoted excerpt, if Securing the Premises  meaning an intrusive and unwelcome entry  is a lawful entry, then that court was entirely correct in observing that it is for certain a search, at least to the extent of items which are in plain or open view. If such open view items can be picked up, in Securing the Premises, as that court agrees, then indeed there is a search. As stated in Shuey, supra, [i]n practical effect, then, the officers `seized' everything in the apartment, and detained [the defendant's] person, hoping that a search warrant would later permit them to particularize the seizure and to arrest [the defendant]. 106 Cal. Rptr. at 454. In concluding this aspect of my views, I submit only the obvious. The Court's opinion exceeds the bounds to which it should have gone. And, as to the trial court's opinion that the warrant search was separable from the warrantless intrusive entry, I disagree, submitting that the only evidentiary reason given by Officer Johnson for breaking into the Gomez residence was his obedience to the order of a superior officer, one not on the scene. IV.