Opinion ID: 3201827
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Robbery, Investigation, and Search

Text: On the morning of December 23, 2013, Melissa Baldus arrived at her job as general manager of Flannery’s Pub in Milwaukee. She had a bank bag containing cash for the register. She entered Flannery’s through an alleyway door and walked No. 14-3785 3 downstairs to her office. A man then entered through the same door, came upon Baldus, drew a gun, and demanded the money. Baldus turned over the bank bag. The robber fled, and Baldus called the police. She offered a confident identification of the robber as Eugene Sweeney: Sweeney had previously worked a few short stints at Flannery’s, and Baldus said she recognized him from his gestures, body movements, voice, and sunglasses. She also described the gun as black and silver with a red dot on the side. After obtaining Sweeney’s address from Flannery’s personnel records, three officers— Detective Delgado, Officer Gasser, and Officer Wilcox—went to Sweeney’s apartment. Details of the apartment building layout are relevant to the Fourth Amendment analysis. The building contains six apartments, two on each of three floors. Sweeney’s apartment was on the second floor. The building has exterior doors at the front and rear that are usually closed and locked. In the back of the building is a common rear staircase that can be entered from the back of each apartment. Those stairs lead down to the first floor and on down to the basement. At the bottom of the basement stairs to the left is an opening to a common area. Water heaters are lined up against the wall that runs along the staircase. Past those is a small crawl space underneath the stairs. To the right of the stairs is a shared laundry facility for the building tenants. They make frequent use of the laundry and often allow friends and neighbors to use the laundry as well. When the police arrived looking for Sweeney, Officer Wilcox covered the rear door of the building. Detective Delgado and Officer Gasser entered through the front door, which had been propped open, and found Sweeney’s apartment. After 4 No. 14-3785 they knocked, the door was eventually opened by Sweeney’s girlfriend. While talking with her, the officers received a radio call from Officer Wilcox saying he had caught Sweeney trying to leave by the back door and taken him into custody. At that point, with consent from Sweeney’s girlfriend, Detective Delgado entered and searched the apartment. Officer Gasser went through the apartment, out its rear door, and down the common rear staircase. Our focus is Officer Gasser’s search of the basement. He went down the stairs to the basement and turned left. He went past the water heaters to the crawl space under the stairs. There he found a black plastic bag containing a handgun, magazine, and ammunition. Ms. Baldus, the manager of Flannery’s, later testified at trial that the handgun looked like the one used in the robbery. In searches of the apartment, Sweeney’s car, and Sweeney himself, none of which are challenged here, the officers also found money and a pair of sunglasses matching the description of the robber’s.