Court Opinion

ID: 9477595
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:26:57.205841+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:57.403875
License: Public Domain

OAKES, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
I respectfully dissent.
In the past I have warned of the dangers inherent in the continued broadening of the definition of “exigency” as that term is used in marking out the exigent circumstances “exception” (as it has grown to be)1 to the warrant clause of the Fourth Amendment and expressed my fears that in time the exceptions will swallow up the clause entirely. See, e.g., United States v. Martino, 664 F.2d 860, 878 (2d Cir.1981) (Oakes, J., concurring) (“To the individual law enforcement officer, the circumstances for a warrantless search and seizure always appear exigent.”), cert. denied, 458 U.S. 1110, 102 S.Ct. 3493, 73 L.Ed.2d 1373 (1982). Here the majority continues that trend, by overlooking the essence of the exception and finding “exigent circumstances” in a situation manufactured by the law enforcement authorities.
In the first place, the warrantless arrest occurred shortly after what is known in the trade as a “controlled buy” or “buy and bust” operation. Moreover, this was the second such controlled buy made from the same person in the same day.
Second, a principal fact relied on to make the circumstances “exigent” — defined by Webster’s Third New International Dictionary as “requiring immediate aid or action” —was that the neighborhood in which the agents were working was black and the agents white, thereby increasing the likelihood that their surveillance would be detected. The agents persisted in this arrangement even though their informant *149had previously warned that there were “lookouts all over the area.”
Third, the district court found that the agents’ principal concern was not the possibility of violence but the loss of the marked buy money. Judge Haight noted that “any meaningful threat of government involvement could have caused Cattouse to resort to the simple expedient of sending the buy money elsewhere with someone else.”
I had thought that Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 63 L.Ed.2d 639 (1980), had reaffirmed the proposition that warrantless home arrests were generally improper, absent probable cause and exigent circumstances, and had defined the latter as an “emergency or dangerous situation,” id. at 583, 100 S.Ct. at 1378. See Welsh v. Wisconsin, 466 U.S. 740, 749-50, 104 S.Ct. 2091, 2097-98, 80 L.Ed.2d 732 (1984) (Supreme Court emphasized that of “few” exceptions to the warrant requirement, only “hot pursuit” doctrine has been applied to warrantless arrests in the home and, in all cases, police bear a heavy burden in showing urgent need). Here, I note incidentally, the agents probably could have obtained a warrant after the morning buy, since the informant told them that appellant had “touted the quality of the drug in the bathroom after the informant had received it” (Gov’t Br. at 12) (emphasis omitted), and appellant had “agree[d] with the informant to obtain a larger quantity of PCP” (Gov’t Br. at 12). On the Government’s own theory of narcotics conspiracy, upheld, for example, in United States v. Brown, 776 F.2d 397 (2d Cir.1985), cert. denied, 475 U.S. 1141, 106 S.Ct. 1793, 90 L.Ed.2d 339 (1986), there was probable cause to think appellant was a conspirator with the actual seller in the morning transaction. At the very least he might have been treated as an aider and abettor. But as the agents made no attempt to obtain a warrant, we can only speculate.
I had thought as well that this court had held explicitly in United States v. Segura, 663 F.2d 411 (2d Cir.1981), aff'd on other grounds, 468 U.S. 796, 104 S.Ct. 3380, 82 L.Ed.2d 599 (1984), that “[w]e will not expand the exception made for emergency security checks by permitting the agents to ‘create their own exigencies ... and then “secure” the premises on the theory that the occupants would otherwise destroy evidence.’ ” Id. at 415 (quoting United States v. Allard, 634 F.2d 1182, 1187 (9th Cir. 1980), and citing United States v. Rossetti, 506 F.2d 627, 630 (7th Cir.1974) (Stevens, J.)). See also United States v. Webster, 750 F.2d 307, 327-28 (5th Cir.1984) (distinguishing between circumstances arising naturally during a delay and those “deliberately created” by the officers), cert. denied, 471 U.S. 1106, 105 S.Ct. 2340, 85 L.Ed.2d 855 (1985); see generally 2 W. LaFave, Search and Seizure § 6.1(f) at 600-02 (2d ed. 1987). Segura, like this case, involved the failure of law enforcement officers to foresee the likely consequences of their actions and to obtain a warrant in the event those circumstances played themselves out. 663 F.2d at 415; see also United States v. Rossetti, 506 F.2d at 630; United States v. Munoz-Guerra, 788 F.2d 295, 298-99 (5th Cir.1986). As such, Segura and the principle it espouses apply especially to a controlled drug buy. See United States v. Collazo, 732 F.2d 1200, 1204 (4th Cir.1984), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 1105, 105 S.Ct. 777, 83 L.Ed.2d 773 (1985). Cf. United States v. Morgan, 743 F.2d 1158 (6th Cir.1984) (claimed exigencies not compelling when arrest had been planned), cert. denied, 471 U.S. 1061, 105 S.Ct. 2126, 85 L.Ed.2d 490 (1985); United States v. Scheffer, 463 F.2d 567, 570, 575 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 409 U.S. 984, 93 S.Ct. 324, 34 L.Ed.2d 248 (1972).
I am also troubled by the majority’s willingness to find exigent circumstances based largely on generalizations about the habits and practices of drug dealers. Relying on the first four factors enumerated in the expressly nonexhaustive Martinez-Gonzalez listing, the majority correctly notes that the sale of PCP is a most serious offense and that drug dealers are frequently armed (though there were no arms involved in this case). The district judge also credited testimony that “narcotics dealers often use lookouts” to warn of possible police activity, which he then used to support the conclusion that the marked buy money might be taken from the apartment by a runner because, as the agents testified, “narcotics sellers often use ‘runners’ ” *150to transport cash proceeds. So, with the general knowledge that drug dealers often use guns, lookouts, and runners, all that is needed to create exigence is an operation using marked buy money, probable cause, and a strong possibility that the suspect is in the apartment to be entered. Perhaps we should be more forthright and say that the Fourth Amendment's- warrant requirement is simply inapplicable in drug buy cases. See Kamisar, “Comparative Reprehensibility” and the Fourth Amendment Exclusionary Rule, 86 Mich.L.Rev. 1, 11-32 (1987). Such a rule would be a very small step from where the majority has left us.
I could prolong this dissent. I end it with a sense of futility. To my mind the majority’s willingness to expand the exigent circumstances exception is but another sad paragraph in a book that could be entitled The Erosion of the Fourth Amendment. And I fear the chapters that have yet to be written.

. In United States v. Martino, 664 F.2d 860, 878 (2d Cir.1981) (Oakes, J., concurring), cert. denied, 458 U.S. 1110, 102 S.Ct. 3493, 73 L.Ed.2d 1373 (1982), I noted that I did not “read any Supreme Court case as going so far as to hold that there is a categorical exception for ‘exigent circumstances,' although some cases do refer to that phrase." Id. at 878. Rather, I thought then, as I do now, that the Court’s discussions of exigent circumstances are meant to apply to those isolated cases which defy categorization, those "not amenable to pre-conceived rules.” Id. at 879. Although the Court uses the phrase "exigent-circumstances exception” in Welsh, 466 U.S. at 749, 104 S.Ct. at 2097, its treatment of the concept, and in particular its refusal to delineate the scope of such an exception, instructs against a rigid application of pre-estab-lished categories. Unfortunately, I believe the majority’s approach does precisely that, in focusing almost entirely on particular factors, while paying little attention to the overall operation, and even less attention to the interests the Fourth Amendment was designed to protect.