Opinion ID: 389313
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Search of the Barbershop

Text: 10 Defendant contended before the trial court and argues again here that the search of the barbershop violated 18 U.S.C. § 3109 and therefore that the items seized there should have been suppressed. § 3109 provides that 11 (An) 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 a warrant. (Emphasis added) 12 The Government, conceding noncompliance with § 3109, argues that it applies only to dwellings, and is thus inapplicable. Alternatively, it claims that exigent circumstances justified noncompliance, as the agents had word that the occupants knew of their presence and the agents had a reasonable belief that the occupants would destroy evidence. The Government also claims that because defendant, the owner of the shop, was informed that the agents had a search warrant and was present when they attempted to enter it notice of their authority and purpose would have been a useless gesture. Finally, the Government claims that because defendant was present while the agents were entering and the District Court found that he did not aid their entry, he has waived any protection that § 3109 offers. 13 The District Court held that § 3109 does not apply to the search of a business. However, it ruled that because § 3109 codifies the common law of the fourth amendment as to unannounced and forcible entry of a building, the legality of the search was governed by the standard set out in § 3109. It concluded that the circumstances confronting the agents in their effort to execute the search warrant justified noncompliance with the knock and announce requirement under both § 3109 and the fourth amendment. 14 By its terms § 3109 applies only to houses. However, the courts of appeal are divided on whether it protects only dwellings. The Seventh and the Ninth Circuits have applied it to nondwellings. United States v. Phillips, 497 F.2d 1131, 1133-1134 (9th Cir. 1974); United States v. Case, 435 F.2d 766, 770 n.1 (7th Cir. 1970). Other circuits have come to the opposite conclusion. United States v. Agrusa, 541 F.2d 690, 700 (8th Cir. 1976), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 1045, 97 S.Ct. 751, 50 L.Ed.2d 759 (1977); United States v. Johns, 466 F.2d 1364, 1365 (5th Cir. 1972); Fields v. United States, 355 F.2d 543 (5th Cir.), cert. dismissed, 384 U.S. 935, 86 S.Ct. 1452, 16 L.Ed.2d 536 (1966); United States v. Hassell, 336 F.2d 684, 686 (6th Cir. 1964), cert. denied, 380 U.S. 965, 85 S.Ct. 1111, 14 L.Ed.2d 155 (1965). Hassell was decided without discussion of the § 3109 issue and on alternative grounds. In view of this and the split in the circuits which has arisen since Hassell, we feel compelled to reexamine the issue. 15 The Supreme Court recognized in Sabbath v. United States, 391 U.S. 585, 589, 88 S.Ct. 1755, 1757, 20 L.Ed.2d 828 (1968), that § 3109 is a codification of the common law of unannounced entry. Section 3109 was passed relatively recently, in 1958, but it was based on a provision in the Espionage Acts of 1917, 40 Stat. 229; that provision was in turn based on a New York statute which derived from the common law rule. Blakey, The Rule of Announcement and Unlawful Entry: Miller v. United States and Ker v. California, 112 U.Pa.L.Rev. 499, 513 (1964). Thus, § 3109 is subject to the exceptions and limitations that existed at common law. 16 The rule against unannounced forcible entry into a dwelling has existed at common law at least since Semayne's Case, 5 Coke Co.Rep. 91a, in 1603. 112 U.Pa. at 500. The original rule applied only to dwellings. Id. at 501. Unannounced forcible entry into other structures was uniformly upheld at common law (e. g., an unannounced entry into a barn was held lawful in Penton v. Brown in 1664), a rule that is still established beyond question in England. Id. Early American law permitted forcible and unannounced entry into stores, warehouses, and nondwellings so long as they were not located within the area immediately surrounding a dwelling. Burton v. Wilkinson, 18 Vt. 186 (1846); 112 U.Pa. at 505. Thus the history of unannounced entry at common law makes it clear that § 3109 does not prohibit the unannounced and forcible search of defendant's barbershop. 17 Phillips, supra, and Case, supra, do not persuade us to reach the opposite result. In Phillips, the Ninth Circuit found that the same policies underlying the application of § 3109 to dwellings reducing the potential for violence, preventing physical destruction of property, and protecting the right of privacy apply with only slightly diminished force to unannounced entries of occupied businesses. Thus, that Court felt compelled to include such businesses within § 3109's definition of a house. Although some of the same concerns exist in both situations, there are significant differences also. As the Eighth Circuit recognized in Agrusa, 541 F.2d at 700, the courts have consistently afforded the home considerably more protection than other premises, based on the precept that a man's home is his castle. Further, it is not the place of the courts to extend a statute's application to all situations where a similar policy might be desirable. 18 In Case the Seventh Circuit relied on two decisions to support its statement that § 3109 applies to nondwellings as well as dwellings: Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States, 251 U.S. 385, 40 S.Ct. 182, 64 L.Ed. 319 (1920) and United States v. Mullin, 329 F.2d 295 (4th Cir. 1964). Silverthorne does not even mention § 3109; it is a fourth amendment case and does not deal with an unannounced or a forcible entry. Mullin applied § 3109 to a nondwelling, but only after finding that the building was a part of the curtilage, so at common law was entitled to the same protection as is a house proper. 19 Thus, we continue to restrict the application of § 3109 to dwellings and buildings within the curtilage, the extent of the rule as it existed at common law. A barbershop is not a house by any definition of which we are aware. 20 Defendant introduced evidence that he kept a bed and television in the barbershop, and that he lived there on occasion. By this evidence he seeks to turn his barbershop into a dwelling so as to come within § 3109. The District Court stated that its conclusion that § 3109 was inapplicable to the search would not be changed if defendant were in fact living there, as a barbershop is still not a house. We agree. It would place an unreasonable burden on officers executing search warrants for the application of § 3109's knock and announce requirements to turn on the actual status of a building as a dwelling or a nondwelling, where to all outward indications it is a nondwelling. 21 In Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 479-484, 83 S.Ct. 407, 412-415, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963) the Supreme Court applied § 3109 to the entry of a laundry in which the owner and his family lived, where there were facts which would put the searching officer on notice that the building was used as a dwelling. Wong Sun indicates that the important privacy interests protected by § 3109 require a searching officer to err on the side of caution where the facts raise a reasonable suspicion that a business is actually a dwelling. There were no such facts in this case. The barbershop was labeled as such and was on a block with other businesses. There is no suggestion that the DEA agents knew or had reason to know prior to entry that defendant was living there. The District Court correctly ruled that § 3109 did not control the legality of the search. 22 We next consider whether applicable fourth amendment principles invalidate the search of the barbershop. The Supreme Court has not ruled whether the fourth amendment requires police officers executing a search warrant to knock, announce their purpose, and be refused admittance before they may break down the door of a building to enter it. The leading case on the constitutionality of an unannounced entry is Ker v. California, 374 U.S. 23, 83 S.Ct. 1623, 10 L.Ed.2d 726 (1963). 1 The four-justice plurality did not reach the question whether the Constitution forbids unannounced entry into a dwelling. It held only that because California law forbade unannounced entry, announcement became a necessary element of a reasonable search. However, the Court held that it was reasonable on the facts before it for the officers to believe that the Kers were expecting them, and because narcotics were involved to believe that knocking would enable the Kers to destroy the evidence. Thus, their compliance with the California knock and announce rule was excused. Id. at 40, 83 S.Ct. at 1633. Justice Brennan authored a strong four-justice dissent in Ker which did reach the constitutional issue, expressing the opinion that our fundamental liberties included protection against unannounced police entry long before the adoption of the fourth amendment. Justice Brennan therefore felt that this protection is a part of the fourth amendment, and the officers' conduct was not excused on these facts. Id. at 47-64 2 , 83 S.Ct. at 1636-1645. Justice Marshall indicated that the constitutional question was still open in Sabbath, 391 U.S. at 591 n.8, 88 S.Ct. at 1759, when he said that (e)xceptions to any possible constitutional rule relating to announcement and entry have been recognized (by the dissent in Ker), and § 3109 embodies those exceptions. (Emphasis added) 23 Although the Supreme Court has not addressed the issue many federal courts have, including this Circuit. 3 In some cases the discussion is dictum. In others, the opinion relies on Justice Brennan's dissent in Ker, which the Supreme Court itself has never adopted. Though each case by itself is less than compelling, their conclusion has been unanimous: the fourth amendment forbids the unannounced, forcible entry of a dwelling in the absence of exigent circumstances. 24 However, in this case we are confronted with the unannounced entry of a business, not a dwelling. The fourth amendment has been held to apply to some extent to business establishments, Mancusi v. DeForte, 392 U.S. 364, 367, 88 S.Ct. 2120, 2123, 20 L.Ed.2d 1154 (1968); Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States, supra, although the Supreme Court has not yet delimited its full scope in the commercial context. Of the three interests served by the rule against unannounced entry preventing violence, preventing the destruction of property, and protecting privacy the courts have shown the most concern for protecting individual privacy. See Sabbath, supra; Miller v. United States, 357 U.S. 301, 313, 78 S.Ct. 1190, 1197, 2 L.Ed.2d 1332 (1967). There is much less of a privacy interest in business premises than exists in a private home. As the Court recently reiterated in Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 585, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 1379, 63 L.Ed.2d 639 (1980), physical entry of the home is the chief evil against which the working of the fourth amendment is directed. In United States v. Agrusa, supra, the Eighth Circuit ruled that business premises are not entitled to the same fourth amendment protection afforded a home. In United States v. Clayborne, 584 F.2d 346, 350-351 (10th Cir. 1978), the court held that warrantless use of a beeper to monitor the location of a drum of chemical was permissible where the drum was located in a commercial establishment, though it would not have been had the drum been located in a residence. 4 Further, as noted above the common law in this country gave no protection against the unannounced and forcible entry of a business. Thus, any fourth amendment rule against unannounced entry that exists for private dwellings will have less force when applied to businesses. 25 Assuming some fourth amendment rule of announcement for a business, we do not need to decide the full extent of such a rule here. Even Justice Brennan's dissent in Ker recognized exceptions to the constitutional rule in the case of entry into a dwelling where: (1) the persons within already know of the officers' authority and purpose; (2) the officers have a justified belief that someone within is in imminent peril of bodily harm; or (3) the officers have a justified belief that those within are aware of their presence and are engaged in escape or the destruction of evidence. 374 U.S. at 47, 83 S.Ct. at 1636. The lesser privacy interest in a business implies that the exigencies required to justify an unannounced, forceful entry there are correspondingly less. 26 We come then to the facts of this case. Francis, the owner of the premises searched and thus the person with the greatest privacy and property interest at stake, knew of the DEA agents' authority for the search and intent to carry it out before the agents came to the barbershop. Thus, an announcement could not have told him much. He accompanied the agents to the entrance, but the District Court found that he did not materially aid their entry, so to a significant extent he waived his property interest. Because evidence of heroin distribution is easily destroyed it was necessary for the agents to move quickly, but because of the iron gate they consumed several minutes attempting to gain access to the shop. While they were attempting to open the iron gate the agents rang the doorbell, but received no response. They feared that evidence was being destroyed. These are extenuating circumstances. To the extent the fourth amendment protects the occupants of business premises from the potential violence of an unannounced forcible entry, no rights of defendant were implicated since he was not inside. Therefore he may not assert the occupants' interest in support of his motion to suppress. Rawlings v. Kentucky, 448 U.S. 98, 100 S.Ct. 2556, 65 L.Ed.2d 633 (1980); Rakas v. Illinois, supra. Thus, the District Court finding that the circumstances justified noncompliance with any fourth amendment knock and announce requirements that exist for a business is not erroneous. See also Agrusa, 541 F.2d at 696-698. The evidence from the barbershop was properly admitted at trial.