Opinion ID: 533
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Manufacturing Exigent Circumstances

Text: Gerardo also argues that the police impermissibly manufactured the exigent circumstances. Although it is true that the situations of urgency protected by this exception cannot be created by police officers, United States v. Duchi, 906 F.2d 1278, 1284 (8th Cir.1990), Gerardo's argument fails under our cases that address police-created exigencies. We have explained that in some sense the police always create the exigent circumstances that justify warrantless entries and arrests. Id. But the police do not necessarily act impermissibly any time they create an exigency in a strict causal sense. See Ball, 90 F.3d at 264 (rejecting a claim that officers manufactured an exigency when they approached a porch and an individual fled into the residence). We must determine the reasonableness and propriety of the investigative tactics that generated the exigency. Duchi, 906 F.2d at 1284. In Duchi, police were alerted to an undeliverable package that contained two bricks of cocaine. Id. at 1279. The police replaced one of the bricks with a book and allowed the package to be picked up from the shipping company. Id. at 1280. After the suspect returned home with the parcel, the police entered the residence without a warrant because of a fear that the evidence would be destroyed. Id. We held that the police impermissibly manufactured the exigency, because [t]he heightened danger of destruction upon discovery was ... reasonably foreseeable; it was in fact, the replacement strategy's probable result. Id. at 1285. Similarly, in United States v. Johnson, a postal inspector intercepted a package containing drugs, altered its contents, made a controlled delivery, and then entered the residence without a warrant because of fear that the evidence would be destroyed once the recipient realized the package had been intercepted. 12 F.3d 760, 762 (8th Cir.1993). We held that by substituting another substance for a portion of the drugs, the officials created, or at least greatly increased, the risk that evidence would be destroyed. Id. at 765. Had they not altered the package's contents, there would have been little or no danger of evidence being destroyed before they obtained the search warrant. Id. Conversely, in a situation in which the police used an investigative technique that did not foreseeably increase the likelihood of an exigency, we rejected the proposition that the police impermissibly manufactured the exigency. See United States v. Williams, 521 F.3d 902, 908 (8th Cir.2008) (holding that the police did not manufacture the exigency that led to the warrantless entry of the motel room when the officer knocked on the door, and heard what he thought was the slide of a handgun and the rustling of blinds). Police officers regularly rely on a knock-and-talk as an investigative strategy when they do not have enough evidence to obtain a search warrant. The knock-and-talk that was conducted in this case was a reasonable and proper investigative strategy that did not foreseeably increase the likelihood of the destruction of evidence. While the destruction of evidence is a possible result of a knock-and-talk, other likely results include the grant of consent to a search, the demand for a warrant for police entry, or a consensual conversation with the resident outside the home. Accordingly, we conclude that the police did not impermissibly manufacture the exigency in this case.