Opinion ID: 852653
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Suppression of Evidence Under the State and Federal Constitutions

Text: Hardister argues that the officers' accounts of what they observed through the windows of the residence together with the weapons, drugs and other items seized from the residence must be suppressed under both the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 11 of the Indiana Constitution. Despite an exceptionally well-presented appeal, for the reasons explained below, we do not agree. The Court of Appeals found no Fourth Amendment interest implicated when officers Tindall and Lawrence approached the front door of 407 to investigate and observed Hardister and another through a covered window as the two turned and fled. We agree. The Fourth Amendment protects citizens against unreasonable searches and seizures. No unreasonable search occurs when police enter areas of curtilage impliedly open to use by the public to conduct legitimate business. See Wayne R. LaFave, Search and Seizure: A Treatise on the Fourth Amendment § 2.3(c) (4th ed.2004) (summarizing cases). Legitimate business includes a knock and talk where police use normal routes of ingress and egress from a residence to make appropriate inquiries of the occupants. Id. An anonymous tip is not a basis for either reasonable suspicion or probable cause, but it is sufficient to make inquiries which the occupants are free to decline to answer if they so choose. Accordingly, the officers' knock on the front door and observation of flight from a vantage point in front of the door did not implicate the Fourth Amendment. See Sayre v. State, 471 N.E.2d 708, 711-14 (Ind.Ct.App.1984), cert. denied, 475 U.S. 1027, 106 S.Ct. 1226, 89 L.Ed.2d 336 (1986). Notwithstanding the propriety of the initial knock and talk, Hardister argues that the residents' flight amounted to a refusal to admit the officers and therefore the officers' legitimate business was at an end and they were required to leave the premises. The State responds that the residents' flight created an exigent circumstance that justified even warrantless entry and pursuit of the residents through the house. We disagree with both Hardister and the State. In response to a knock and talk residents have the right to deny officers admission and to refuse to answer questions. See, e.g., Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119, 125, 120 S.Ct. 673, 145 L.Ed.2d 570 (2000); Cox v. State, 696 N.E.2d 853, 858 (Ind.1998). If residents exercise this right, officers generally must leave and secure a warrant if they want to pursue the matter. We do not agree with Hardister, however, that flight in response to a knock on the front door is the functional equivalent of denying officers admittance. As Wardlow held, unprovoked flight is simply not a mere refusal to cooperate. 528 U.S. at 125, 120 S.Ct. 673. It does not merely refuse entry; it also adds to the information available to the officers. It is the consummate act of evasion: It is not necessarily indicative of wrongdoing, but it is certainly suggestive of such and warrants further investigation by police. Id. at 124, 120 S.Ct. 673. In Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 30, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968) the Supreme Court held that an officer may, consistent with the Fourth Amendment, conduct a brief, investigatory stop when, based on a totality of the circumstances, the officer has a reasonable, articulable suspicion that criminal activity is afoot. A Terry stop is a lesser intrusion on the person than an arrest and may include a request to see identification and inquiry necessary to confirm or dispel the officer's suspicions. Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial Dist. Court, 542 U.S. 177, 185-89, 124 S.Ct. 2451, 159 L.Ed.2d 292 (2004). Reasonable suspicion to make an investigatory stop exists if a suspect, present in a high crime area, engages in unprovoked flight in response to noticing law enforcement officers. Wardlow, 528 U.S. at 125, 120 S.Ct. 673. Reasonable suspicion can also be based on an anonymous informant's tip if other facts establish reliability or the basis of the informant's knowledge. See, e.g., Alabama v. White, 496 U.S. 325, 329-31, 110 S.Ct. 2412, 110 L.Ed.2d 301 (1990); Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143, 147, 92 S.Ct. 1921, 32 L.Ed.2d 612 (1972). Corroboration is ordinarily necessary where nothing the tipster said shows either reliability or the informant's basis of knowledge. LaFave, supra, at § 9.5(h). In the present case, the tip that residents were cooking drugs disclosed neither a basis of knowledge nor evidence of reliability, and was insufficient standing alone to establish reasonable suspicion. However, the residents' headlong flight toward the rear of the house coupled with the anonymous tip and 407's location in an area known for narcotics traffic furnished reasonable suspicion justifying an investigatory stop of the fleeing occupants. The officers' efforts to intercept the fleeing pair were therefore justified as necessary to pursue the investigation. We do not agree with the State, however, that the flight created an exigent circumstance that justified warrantless entry and pursuit of the fleeing residents through the house. When there is probable cause to believe a person has just committed a crime and is in a particular dwelling, police may make a warrantless arrest in the home. Warden v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294, 298-99, 87 S.Ct. 1642, 18 L.Ed.2d 782 (1967). Similarly, when there is probable cause to believe evidence is in a particular dwelling and police reasonably believe the evidence will be destroyed or removed before they can secure a search warrant, warrantless entry is justified. See, e.g., United States v. Rubin, 474 F.2d 262, 268 (3d Cir.1973). There is, however, no general emergency exception to the warrant requirement. See Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385, 393-94, 98 S.Ct. 2408, 57 L.Ed.2d 290 (1978). In the present case, the anonymous tip and corroborating circumstance of flight in an area known for narcotics traffic provided reasonable suspicion to believe some kind of criminal activity was afoot but did not furnish probable cause to believe the residents of 407 had just committed a crime or probable cause to believe drugs were about to be destroyed. See United States v. Chambers, 395 F.3d 563, 568-69 (6th Cir.2005) (no exigency justifying warrantless entry into a house where police conducting knock and talk heard occupants call out police and heard footsteps as occupants ran into another room). Therefore, the officers would not have been justified if they had made a warrantless entry into the house to pursue the occupants of 407. Id. at 569. We do not agree with Hardister, however, that police pursuit to the rear of 407 through the curtilage was unlawful. In the typical Terry case police acting upon reasonable suspicion detain a suspect in a public place. This case is unusual in that police pursuit involved an invasion of the curtilage of a residence. Hardister argues that police may not invade curtilage without probable cause and a warrant. Therefore, he reasons, the officers' observation of Hardister disposing of drugs through the side and rear windows of the house was an unlawful search. We disagree. The mere fact that officers enter curtilage to conduct an otherwise lawful Terry stop does not ipso facto render the physical invasion of the curtilage an unlawful search. See United States v. Fiasche, 2006 WL 695395, at , 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 10529, -24 (N.D.Ill. Mar. 10, 2006); State v. Davenport, 801 So.2d 380, 384-85 (La.Ct.App.1999); State v. Kelly, 119 S.W.3d 587, 593-94 (Mo.Ct.App. 2003); Davis v. State, 905 S.W.2d 655, 661-62 (Tex.App.1995); State v. Ryea, 153 Vt. 451, 571 A.2d 674, 675 (1990). Similarly, we recently held that the mere fact that an area subjected to police observation is within the curtilage [does not] transform[] a warrantless observation or inspection into an unconstitutional search. See Trimble v. State, 842 N.E.2d 798, 801 (Ind.2006), aff'd on reh'g, 848 N.E.2d 278 (Ind., 2006). Hardister argues this authority is distinguishable because the police observations in these cases were made from areas impliedly open to use by the public. He claims the backyard of 407 offered no implied invitation to the general public to enter and that he had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the backyard. Whether an individual has a cognizable privacy interest in a particular area surrounding his home depends upon the totality of the circumstances, including the proximity of the area to the home, whether the area is included within an enclosure surrounding the home, the nature of the uses to which the area is put, and the steps taken by the resident to protect the area from observation by people passing by. United States v. Dunn, 480 U.S. 294, 301, 107 S.Ct. 1134, 94 L.Ed.2d 326 (1987). Hardister claims he had an expectation of privacy because the side and rear windows were covered [1] and because the sidewalk from which the observations were made was in close proximity to the house. The State responds that Hardister had no cognizable expectation of privacy because the backyard and sidewalk were shared with the residents of 405 and were not enclosed by a fence. We agree with the State that the sidewalk running through the backyard was at most a semi-private place. See United States v. James, 40 F.3d 850, 862 (7th Cir.1994), vacated on other grounds, 516 U.S. 1022, 116 S.Ct. 664, 133 L.Ed.2d 515 (1995) (no search where officer used a paved walkway along side of duplex leading to rear side door, passage to the rear side door was not impeded by a fence, and both the paved walkway and rear side door were accessible to the general public); compare Divello v. State, 782 N.E.2d 433, 439 (Ind.Ct. App.2003), trans. denied (unlawful search where officers left the areas surrounding a house where visitors could be expected to go). We do not regard the public or private status of the sidewalk as controlling. Even if the sidewalk alongside the house and the backyard are deemed private areas, the officers' physical invasion of the area surrounding the house was not a search. A search involves an exploratory investigation, prying into hidden places, or a looking for or seeking out. LaFave, supra, at § 2.1(a) (citing C.J.S. Searches & Seizures § 1 (1952)). Officers Tindall and Lawrence engaged in no exploratory investigation in the backyard of 407. Their invasion of the area surrounding the house involved nothing more than pursuit of fleeing suspects along a sidewalk that leads to the back door. Law enforcement is not baseball and the residence of a fleeing suspect does not constitute a base that is a safe haven from being tagged out. The fact that the residents did not emerge out the back did not negate the officers' reasonable belief that flight out the back door would occur or the reasonableness of the officers' pursuit of the residents to prevent the anticipated flight. Moreover, once officers Tindall and Lawrence were lawfully present in the backyard, their looking into the kitchen through the side and rear windows, was also reasonable as an effort to locate the fleeing suspects. To be sure, they observed evidence of a crime in process dumping white powder down the drainbut their objective to contain the apparently fleeing suspects is sufficient to secure the premises and is a reasonable response to the suspicion created by the suspects' flight. Once the officers observed the cocaine going down the drain, they were presented with exigent circumstances that justified entry into the residence. Hardister challenges the warrantless entry and the search warrant as derivative of the officers' unlawful observations through the side and rear windows. He also argues that the officers created exigency and therefore may not rely on exigency to justify warrantless entry into the residence. As a general matter, officers may not circumvent the warrant requirement by purposefully creating exigent circumstances. See United States v. Rosselli, 506 F.2d 627, 630 (7th Cir.1974); State v. Williams, 615 N.E.2d 487, 488-89 (Ind.Ct.App.1993). Hardister's reliance on Rosselli and Williams is misplaced. In those cases police had probable cause to search a residence and offered no legitimate reason for their failure to seek a warrant. By contrast, in the present case, the uncorroborated anonymous tip was not enough to obtain a search warrant for 407. More importantly, there is no evidence that the police foresaw that residents would attempt to destroy evidence in response to the knock and talk. The officers' subsequent warrantless entry into the home was justified because officer Tindall's observation of Hardister's disposing of a white powder established probable cause to believe drugs were inside and at risk of imminent destruction. See Rubin, 474 F.2d at 268. Indeed, the Supreme Court recently unanimously held that exigent circumstances justify entry into a home, Brigham City v. Stuart, ___ U.S. ___, 126 S.Ct. 1943, 164 L.Ed.2d 650 (U.S., 2006), and specifically identified destruction of evidence as one example of exigent circumstances. Id. at 1947. See also Holder v. State, 847 N.E.2d 930 (Ind.2006), which antedated Brigham City by four days. Hardister also argues that the police action violated the separate protection against unreasonable search and seizure provided by Article I, Section 11 of the Indiana Constitution. The focus of the exclusionary rule under the Indiana Constitution is the reasonableness of police conduct. Mitchell v. State, 745 N.E.2d 775, 786 (Ind.2001). For the reasons discussed above, we conclude that the police pursuit of the fleeing residents into the backyard was reasonable and involved no separate violation of the protections afforded under the Indiana Constitution. We therefore hold that the trial court properly admitted the officers' testimony regarding what they observed through the side and rear windows of the residence plus the weapons, drugs and other items seized pursuant to the warrant.