Opinion ID: 791389
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Deprivation of a constitutionally protected right

Text: 27 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, 63 L.Ed.2d 639 (1980) (quoting Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 477, 91 S.Ct. 2022, 29 L.Ed.2d 564 (1971)); cf. Welsh v. Wisconsin, 466 U.S. 740, 748, 104 S.Ct. 2091, 80 L.Ed.2d 732 (It is axiomatic that the physical entry of the home is the chief evil against which the wording of the Fourth Amendment is directed.) (quotation and citation omitted). Without a warrant or consent, searches or seizures inside the home are upheld only under extraordinary circumstances, because [t]he freedom from armed intrusions of the home outside the judicial process, without prior approval by a judge or magistrate . . . is one of our most basic civil liberties. United States v. Chambers, 395 F.3d 563, 565, 569 (6th Cir.2005). 28 Sherman and Vaughn had no warrant to arrest Cummings or to search his residence, and Cummings did not consent to the officers' entry into, or presence in, his home. Cummings manifested his intent to keep the inside of his home private, first by attempting to talk to the officers through the window, and later by only partially opening the front door during his conversation with the officers and refusing their request to enter the house. Cummings also demonstrated that he wished to end his conversation with the officers when he attempted to close the door, but he was prevented from doing so by the presence of Sherman's foot in the doorway. For these reasons, it is clear, as the Ohio Court of Appeals found, that Cummings' attempt to close the door constituted a termination of the consensual encounter, and communicated his lack of consent to any further intrusion by the officers. Cummings, supra, 2002 WL 57979 at . 29 Defendants contend, as did the State in response to Cummings' motion to suppress, that when Cummings shut the door on Sherman's foot, the officers had probable cause to believe that Cummings had committed the crime of assault, and any entry into his home to seize him was justified by exigent circumstances under the hot pursuit of a fleeing felon exception to the warrant requirement. See, e.g., United States v. Williams, 354 F.3d 497, 503 (6th Cir.2003) (recognizing hot pursuit of a fleeing felon as an exigency exception to the warrant requirement). We agree with the Ohio Court of Appeals that this argument is without merit. As that court recognized, the key to the hot pursuit exception is that a suspect may not defeat an arrest which has been set in motion in a public place . . . by the expedient of escaping to a private place. United States v. Santana, 427 U.S. 38, 43, 96 S.Ct. 2406, 49 L.Ed.2d 300 (1976). Typically, hot pursuit involves a situation where a suspect commits a crime, flees and thereby exposes himself to the public, attempts to evade capture by entering a dwelling, and the emergency nature of the situation necessitates immediate police action to apprehend the suspect. See, e.g., Warden v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294, 298-9, 87 S.Ct. 1642, 18 L.Ed.2d 782 (1967); United States v. Bass, 315 F.3d 561, 564 (6th Cir.2002); see also United States v. Saari, 272 F.3d 804, 812 (6th Cir.2001) (describing hot pursuit as immediate or continuous pursuit of the Defendant from the scene of a crime.) In Santana, the Supreme Court upheld the effectuation of a warrantless arrest of the defendant inside her home, because the police initiated the arrest while she was standing in the open doorway of her house, and she retreated inside before the police could apprehend her. Integral to the Court's analysis was a finding that Santana was not merely visible to the public but was as exposed to public view, speech, hearing, and touch as if she had been standing completely outside her house, and thus she had no legitimate expectation of privacy at the time the police initiated the arrest. Santana, 427 U.S. at 42, 96 S.Ct. 2406. 30 In contrast to Warden and its progeny, Cummings did not commit a crime in a public place and attempt to flee into his house; in contrast to Santana, Cummings never fully exposed himself to the public view, given that he only opened the door very slightly, and only at the request of the police. Additionally, unlike the situation in Santana, Sherman and Vaughn did not attempt to arrest Cummings until after he tried to shut the door, at which point he clearly indicated that he did not wish to be exposed to the public. Furthermore, it is highly questionable whether Cummings' act of closing the door on Sherman's foot actually constituted an assault; if there is no underlying felony, the `hot pursuit of a fleeing felon' exception to the warrant requirement is untenable. Ohio's assault statute states that [n]o person shall knowingly cause or attempt to cause physical harm to another, and [n]o person shall recklessly cause serious physical harm to another. Ohio Rev.Code § 2903.13(A), (B) (emphasis added). There is no evidence on the record before us to suggest that Cummings knew Sherman's foot was in the doorway when he attempted to shut door, and the Ohio Court of Appeals found it undisputed that, whatever amount of force was applied, Officer Sherman's foot sustained no injuries as a result of Cummings' attempt to close the door. Cummings, 2002 WL 57979 at , n. 1. Given Cummings' lack of exposure to the public view, as well as the very questionable nature of the felony that Defendants allege he committed, the hot pursuit of a fleeing felon exception to the warrant requirement is inapplicable. 4 31 Because Sherman's and Vaughn's seizure of Cummings' person and entry into his home were unsupported by a warrant, consent or exigent circumstances based upon the hot pursuit of a fleeing felon, the officers deprived Cummings of his constitutionally protected right to refuse entry into his home, and to be free from an unreasonable seizure of his person. 32