Court Opinion

ID: 9430837
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:30:42.900711+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:21.401865
License: Public Domain

Justice Blackmun,
with whom Justice Brennan and Justice Marshall join, dissenting.
Under this Court’s precedents, the search of respondent Garrison’s apartment violated the Fourth Amendment. While executing a warrant specifically limited to McWebb’s residence, the officers expanded their search to include re*90spondent’s adjacent apartment, an expansion made without a warrant and in the absence of exigent circumstances. In my view, Maryland’s highest court correctly concluded that the trial judge should have granted respondent’s motion to suppress the evidence seized as a result of this warrantless search of his apartment. Moreover, even if I were to accept the majority’s analysis of this case as one involving a mistake on the part of the police officers, I would find that the officers’ error, either in obtaining or in executing the warrant, was not reasonable under the circumstances.
H-t
The home always has received special protection m analysis under the Fourth Amendment, which protects the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures” (emphasis added). See Silverman v. United States, 365 U. S. 505, 511 (1961) (“At the very core [of the Fourth Amendment] stands the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion”). The Fourth Amendment, in fact, was a direct response to the colonists’ objection to searches of homes under general warrants or without warrants. See Chimel v. California, 395 U. S. 752, 761 (1969); Harris v. United States, 331 U. S. 145, 157-163 (1947) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting). In today’s society, the protection of the Amendment of course is extended to the equivalent of the traditional single-family house, such as an apartment. See, e. g., Ker v. California, 374 U. S. 23, 42 (1963).
The Court has observed that, in determining whether one has an interest protected by the Fourth Amendment, it is appropriate not to limit the analysis to the place in question, for “the Fourth Amendment protects people — and not simply ‘areas.’” Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347, 353 (1967). As articulated by Justice Harlan in his Katz concurrence, the proper test under the Amendment is whether “a person [has] *91exhibited an actual (subjective) expectation of privacy . . . that society is prepared to recognize as ‘reasonable.’” Id., at 361. Justice Harlan noted, however, that an answer to the question concerning what protection the Fourth Amendment gave to a particular person always “requires reference to a ‘place.’” Ibid. In his view, the home would meet this test in virtually all situations. “[A] man’s home,” he stated, “is, for most purposes, a place where he expects privacy.” Ibid. The home thus has continued to occupy its special role in Fourth Amendment analysis in the post-Aate era. See Payton v. New York, 446 U. S. 573, 585 (1980) (“[T]he ‘physical entry of the home is the chief evil against which the wording of the Fourth Amendment is directed,’” quoting United States v. United States District Court, 407 U. S. 297, 313 (1972)); United States v. Karo, 468 U. S. 705, 714-715 (1984) (“Searches and seizures inside a home without a warrant are presumptively unreasonable absent exigent circumstances”); California v. Carney, 471 U. S. 386, 407-408 (1985) (Stevens, J., dissenting) (“These places [mobile homes] may be as spartan as a humble cottage when compared to the most majestic mansion . . . but the highest and most legitimate expectations of privacy associated with these temporary abodes should command the respect of this Court”); see also Steagald v. United States, 451 U. S. 204, 211 (1981); Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U. S. 443, 477-478 (1971).
The Fourth Amendment also states that “no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized” (emphasis added). The particularity-of-description requirement is satisfied where “the description is such that the officer with a search warrant can with reasonable effort ascertain and identify the place intended.” Steele v. United States, 267 U. S. 498, 503 (1925). In applying this requirement to searches, aimed at residences within multiunit buildings, such as the search in the present case, courts have declared invalid those *92warrants that fail to describe the targeted unit with enough specificity to prevent a search of all the units. See, e. g., United States v. Higgins, 428 F. 2d 232 (CA7 1970); United States v. Votteller, 544 F. 2d 1355, 1362-1363 (CA6 1976). Courts have used different criteria to determine whether a warrant has identified a unit with sufficient particularity. See, e. g., United States v. Bedford, 519 F. 2d 650, 655 (CA3 1975) (by name of occupant of apartment), cert. denied, 424 U. S. 917 (1976); Haynes v. State, 475 S. W. 2d 739, 741 (Tex. Crim. App. 1971) (by directions on how to reach a particular room); see generally 2 W. LaFave, Search and Seizure §4.5, p. 79 (1978); Crais, Sufficiency of Description of Apartment or Room to be Searched in Multiple-Occupancy Structure, 11 A. L. R. 3d 1330, 1340-1341, §5 (1967 and Supp. 1986).
Applying the above principles to this case, I conclude that the search of respondent’s apartment was improper. The words of the warrant were plain and distinctive: the warrant directed the officers to seize marijuana and drug paraphernalia on the person of McWebb and in McWebb’s apartment, i. e., “on the premises known as 2036 Park Avenue third floor apartment.” App. 9. As the Court of Appeals observed, this warrant specifically authorized a search only of Mc-Webb’s — not respondent’s — residence. 303 Md. 385, 392, 494 A. 2d 193, 196 (1985).1 In its interpretation of the war*93rant, the majority suggests that the language of this document, as well as that in the supporting affidavit, permitted a search of the entire third floor. Ante, at 82, and n. 4. It escapes me why the language in question, “third floor apartment,” when used "with reference to a single unit in a multiple-occupancy building and in the context of one person’s residence, plainly has the meaning the majority discerns, rather than its apparent and, indeed, obvious signification — one apartment located on the third floor.2 Accordingly, if, as appears to be the case, the warrant was limited in its description to the third-floor apartment of McWebb, then the search of an additional apartment — respondent’s—was war-rantless and is presumed unreasonable “in the absence of some one of a number of well defined ‘exigent circumstances.’” Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U. S., at 478. Because the State has not advanced any such exception to the warrant requirement, the evidence obtained as a result of this search should have been excluded.3
*941 — I
Because the Court cannot justify the officers search under the “exceptional circumstances” rubric, it analyzes the police conduct here in terms of “mistake.” According to the Court, hindsight makes it clear that the officers were mistaken, first, in not describing McWebb’s apartment with greater specificity in the warrant, ante, at 85, and, second, in including respondent’s apartment within the scope of the execution of the warrant, ante, at 86-87. The Court’s inquiry focuses on what the officers knew or should have known at these particular junctures. The Court reasons that if, in light of the officers’ actual or imputed knowledge, their behavior was reasonable, then their mistakes did not constitute an infringement on respondent’s Fourth Amendment rights. In this case, the Court finds no Fourth Amendment violation because the officers could not reasonably have drawn the warrant with any greater particularity and because, until the moment when the officers realized that they were in fact searching two different apartments, they had no reason to believe that McWebb’s residence did not cover the entire third floor.
The majority relies upon Hill v. California, 401 U. S. 797 (1971), for its conclusion that “honest mistakes” in arrests or searches may obviate Fourth Amendment problems. Ante, at 87-88. It is doubtful whether Hill carries the preceden-tial weight that the majority would ascribe to it. Decided after Chimel v. California, 395 U. S. 752 (1969), but involving a pre-Chimel incident, Hill presented a situation where officers, who had probable cause but no warrant to arrest *95Hill, went to Hill’s apartment and found Miller instead. 401 U. S., at 799. They mistook Miller for Hill, despite the former’s protestations to the contrary, and conducted a search of Hill’s apartment, which produced the only substantial evidence later used to convict Hill for robbery. Id., at 801. In deciding that neither the arrest nor the ensuing search constituted a Fourth Amendment violation, the Court was entertaining a challenge made by Hill. The Court here, however, is faced with a Fourth Amendment claim brought by respondent, whose position is comparable to that of Miller. It may make some sense to excuse a reasonable mistake by police that produces evidence against the intended target of an investigation or warrant if the officers had probable cause for arresting that individual or searching his residence. Similar reasoning does not apply with respect to one whom probable cause has not singled out and who is the victim of the officers’ error. See Brinegar v. United States, 338 U. S. 160, 176 (1949) (“These long-prevailing standards [of probable cause] seek to safeguard citizens from rash and unreasonable interferences with privacy and from unfounded charges of crime”); cf. Ybarra v. Illinois, 444 U. S. 85, 91 (1979) (“But, a person’s mere propinquity to others independently suspected of criminal activity does not, without more, give rise to probable cause to search that person. . . . This requirement [of probable cause] cannot be undercut or avoided by simply pointing to the fact that coincidentally there exists probable cause to search or seize another or to search the premises where the person may happen to be”).
Even if one accepts the majority’s view that there is no Fourth Amendment violation where the officers’ mistake is reasonable,4 it is questionable whether that standard was *96met in this case. To repeat Justice Harlan’s observation, although the proper question in Fourth Amendment analysis is “what protection it affords to . . . people,. . . that question requires reference to a ‘place.’” Katz v. United States, 389 U. S., at 361 (concurring opinion). The “place” at issue here is a small multiple-occupancy building. Such forms of habitation are now common in this country, particularly in neighborhoods with changing populations and of declining affluence.5 Accordingly, any analysis of the “reasonableness” of *97the officers’ behavior here must be done with this context in mind.
The efforts of Detective Marcus, the officer who procured the search warrant, do not meet a standard of reasonableness, particularly considering that the detective knew the search concerned a unit in a multiple-occupancy building. See App. 34. Upon learning from his informant that Mc-Webb was selling marijuana in his third-floor apartment, Marcus inspected the outside of the building. Id., at 35. He did not approach it, however, to gather information about the configuration of the apartments. Ibid. Had he done so, he would have discovered, as did another officer on the day of executing the warrant, id., at 13, that there were seven separate mailboxes and bells on the porch outside the main entrance to the house. Although there is some dispute over whether names were affixed near these boxes and bells, id., at 13-14; Suppression Hearing Tr. M2-96 to M2-97, their existence alone puts a reasonable observer on notice that the three-story structure (with, possibly, a basement) had seven individual units. The detective, therefore, should have been aware that further investigation was necessary to eliminate the possibility of more than one unit’s being located on the third floor. Moreover, when Detective Marcus’ informant told him that he had purchased drugs in McWebb’s apartment, App. 6, it appears that the detective never thought to ask the informant whether McWebb’s apartment was the only one on the third floor. These efforts, which would have placed a slight burden upon the detective, are necessary in order to render reasonable the officer’s behavior in seeking the warrant.6
*98Moreover, even if one believed that Marcus’ efforts in providing information for issuance of the warrant were reasonable, I doubt whether the officers’ execution of the warrant could meet such a standard. In the Court’s view, the “objective facts” did not put the officers on notice that they were dealing with two separate apartments on the third floor until the moment, considerably into the search after they had rummaged through a dresser and a closet in respondent’s apartment and had discovered evidence incriminating him, when they realized their “mistake.” Ante, at 80, 88-89. The Court appears to base its conclusion that the officers’ error here was reasonable on the fact that neither McWebb nor re*99spondent ever told the officers during the search that they lived in separate apartments. See ante, at 88, n. 12.
In my view, however, the “objective facts” should have made the officers aware that there were two different apartments on the third floor well before they discovered the incriminating evidence in respondent’s apartment. Before McWebb happened to drive up while the search party was preparing to execute the warrant, one of the officers, Detective Shea, somewhat disguised as a construction worker, was already on the porch of the row house and was seeking to gain access to the locked first-floor door that permitted entrance into the building. App. 13.7 From this vantage point he had time to observe the seven mailboxes and bells; indeed, he rang all seven bells, apparently in an effort to summon some resident to open the front door to the search party. Id., at 13, 15. A reasonable officer in Detective Shea’s position, already aware that this was a multiunit building and now armed with further knowledge of the number of units in the structure, would have conducted at that time more investigation to specify the exact location of Mc-Webb’s apartment before proceeding further. For example, he might have questioned another resident of the building.
It is surprising, moreover, that the Court places so much emphasis on the failure of McWebb to volunteer information about the exact location of his apartment. When McWebb drove up, one of the police vehicles blocked his car and the officers surrounded him and his passenger as they got out. Suppression Hearing Tr. M2-15, M2-56, M2-130 to M2-131. Although the officers had no arrest warrant for McWebb, but only a search warrant for his person and apartment,8 and al*100though they testified that they did not arrest him at that time, id., at M2-14, M2-60,9 it was clear that neither Mc-Webb nor his passenger was free to leave. See App. 42, Suppression Hearing Tr. M2-157 to M2-158. In such circumstances, which strongly suggest that McWebb was already in custody, it was proper for the officers to administer to him warnings pursuant to Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436 (1966). It would then have been reasonable for the officers, aware of the problem, from Detective Shea’s discovery, in the specificity of their warrant, to ask McWebb whether his apartment was the only one on the third floor.10 As it is, the officers made several requests of and questioned Mc-Webb, without giving him Miranda warnings, and yet failed to ask him the question, obvious in the circumstances, concerning the exact location of his apartment. Suppression Hearing Tr. M2-60, M2-131, M2-157.
Moreover, a reasonable officer would have realized the mistake in the warrant during the moments following the officers’ entrance to the third floor. The officers gained access to the vestibule separating McWebb’s and respondent’s apartments through a locked door for which McWebb supplied the key. App. 17. There, in the open doorway to his apartment, they encountered respondent, clad in pajamas and wearing a half-body cast as a result of a recent spinal operation. Id., at 16; Suppression Hearing Tr. M2-104 to M2-105. Although the facts concerning what next occurred are somewhat in dispute, see id., at M2-108, M2-167, it appears that respondent, together with McWebb and the passenger from McWebb’s car, were shepherded into McWebb’s *101apartment across the vestibule from his own. Once again, the officers were curiously silent. The informant had not led the officers to believe that anyone other than McWebb lived in the third-floor apartment; the search party had McWebb, the person targeted by the search warrant, in custody when it gained access to the vestibule; yet when they met respondent on the third floor, they simply asked him who he was but never where he lived. Id., at M2-165. Had they done so, it is likely that they would have discovered the mistake in the warrant before they began their search.
Finally and most importantly, even if the officers had learned nothing from respondent, they should have realized the error in the warrant from their initial security sweep. Once on the third floor, the officers first fanned out through the rooms to conduct a preliminary check for other occupants who might pose a danger to them. Id., at M2-63, M2-74, M2-87, M2-167. As the map of the third floor demonstrates, see 303 Md., at 396, 494 A. 2d, at 199, the two apartments were almost a mirror image of each other — each had a bathroom, a kitchen, a living room, and a bedroom. Given the somewhat symmetrical layout of the apartments, it is difficult to imagine that, in the initial security sweep, a reasonable officer would not have discerned that two apartments were on the third floor, realized his mistake, and then confined the ensuing search to McWebb’s residence.11
Accordingly, even if a reasonable error on the part of police officers prevents a Fourth Amendment violation, the mistakes here, both with respect to obtaining and executing the warrant, are not reasonable and could easily have been avoided.
I respectfully dissent.

 In reaching its conclusion, the Court of Appeals relied upon a statement by the trial judge that, pursuant to the warrant, only “the third floor apartment of the Defendant McWebb” could be searched. App. 46; 303 Md., at 392, 494 A. 2d, at 196. The majority contends that this reliance was unjustified, for, in making his statement, the trial judge was doing nothing more than rejecting respondent’s contention that the warrant was general. Ante, at 82-83, n. 4. I fail to see how the interpretation of the Court of Appeals is inconsistent with the majority’s understanding of this statement. The trial judge could have been rejecting respondent’s argument about a general warrant by observing that the warrant here was limited to a single apartment, MeWebb’s. Such a view of the trial judge’s remark does not contradict his observation that, in procuring and executing *93the warrant, the officers did not know that there were other apartments on the third floor. App. 41, 46. This lack of knowledge by the officers does not necessarily imply that they believed MeWebb’s apartment occupied the entire third floor. It could also suggest that, beyond knowing the location of MeWebb’s apartment, they were unaware of the configuration of the remaining apartments in the building. Ibid.

 The language in the supporting affidavit similarly suggests that the apartment in question was one located on, but not necessarily occupying entirely, the third floor. Id., at 6 (“During the above mentioned meeting with Informant #222, the Informant stated that he/she knew a subject by the name of ‘Red Cross’, who was selling Marihuana out of his apartment located at 2036 Park Ave. third floor”).

 If the officers were confused about the residence of respondent when they encountered him in the third-floor vestibule (see sketch reproduced at 303 Md., at 396, 494 A. 2d, at 199), they might have been justified in detaining him temporarily as an occupant of MeWebb’s apartment. See Michigan v. Summers, 452 U. S. 692, 705 (1981); Tr. of Oral Arg. 42. The officers asserted that, upon entering the vestibule, they observed marijuana lying upon a dresser in respondent’s bedroom, the door to respondent’s apartment being open. App. 24-25. Although it is not entirely clear that the drug could have been seized immediately under the “plain *94view” exception to the warrant requirement, for this would depend upon whether the officers’ “access to the object has some prior Fourth Amendment justification,” Illinois v. Andreas, 463 U. S. 765, 771 (1983), the officers probably would have had probable cause to obtain a search warrant and conceivably could have impounded respondent’s apartment while seeking the warrant. See Segura v. United States, 468 U. S. 796, 810 (1984). Nothing, however, justified the full-scale search of respondent’s apartment in which the officers engaged.

 Lower court cases, that deal with an exception to the particularity-of-description requirement in a warrant, may support this standard of a “reasonable mistake.” Some courts have recognized an exception that applies where, to outward appearances, a building appears to be a single-occupancy structure but contains, in reality, several units, and where *96the officers executing the warrant could not have discovered its multiple-occupancy character despite reasonable efforts. See, e. g., United States v. Davis, 557 F. 2d 1239, 1247-1248 (CA8), cert. denied, 434 U. S. 971 (1977); 2 W. LaFave, Search and Seizure §4.5, pp. 79-80 (1978). It appears that, when ruling upon the propriety of the search, the trial judge in this case had such an exception in mind. See App. 45.
It is uncertain, however, whether this exception should apply here, where the officers may not know how many apartments are on a particular floor, but do realize that the building is multiunit. Because the officers are aware that the structure houses other residences besides the target apartment, they should be on notice that they must make an investigation adequate to draw the warrant with sufficient specificity. This means that they must clearly distinguish the target unit from the others in order to avoid infringing upon the Fourth Amendment rights of other occupants of the building. Put another way, if the above exception is to apply, officers drawing a search warrant for a unit of a multiple-occupancy building should be put to a more demanding standard of reasonableness to justify any mistake than is required for those who rely on a reasonable failure to recognize at all the multiunit nature of a structure.

 It is not entirely clear from the record what sort of multiple-occupancy building was at issue here, although respondent suggests that it was a single-family home converted into an apartment house. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 41; Brief for Respondent 10. As has been noted by Senator Proxmire:
“It’s estimated that there are Th million rental units in buildings containing 4 to 50 units. It may be about 15 percent of our population.
“Approximately 4.1 million of those units are in central cities or metropolitan areas. Such units are home to a large number of lower income families and a disproportionate number of minority families.” Hearing on Multifamily Housing Rehabilitation before the Subcommittee on Hous*97ing and Urban Affairs of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, 95th Cong., 2d Sess., 1 (1978).

The majority makes much of the fact that Detective Marcus checked with the Baltimore Gas and Electric Company in order to verify MeWebb’s residence and appeared to be informed that there was only one apartment on the third floor. Ante, at 85-86, n. 10. As would appear in the course *98of the search, when officers discovered separate electric bills for McWebb’s and respondent’s apartments, App. 28, the information Marcus received was erroneous. Given that a multiple-occupancy structure was at issue, the detective’s inquiry of the gas company should not have relieved him of the obligation to pursue other, less burdensome steps to identify accurately the apartment to be searched, or to dispense with further investigation, such as inquiries directed to other utility companies, the building’s owner, or the telephone company. See, e. g., United States v. Davis, 557 F. 2d, at 1247 (efforts in providing affidavit justifying search warrant deemed adequate where officers had checked all utilities). Because respondent had a telephone in his apartment, App. 22 — another fact discovered in the course of the search — a brief check with the telephone company would have informed the detective of the other apartment on the third floor.
It is not entirely clear, moreover, that, when Detective Marcus applied for the warrant, he believed that there was only one apartment on the third floor. In his affidavit to the issuing Magistrate, the detective explained that “no observations of the apartment were conducted due to the fact that it would again be impossible to tell which apartment the individuals would enter. ” Id., at 7. This statement appears to be a reference to long-range, possibly telescopic, observations of McWebb’s apartment while the informant purchased drugs from McWebb. If the detective believed that McWebb occupied the entire third floor of the structure, this remark makes no sense.
The State suggests that further efforts by Detective Marcus may have alerted McWebb to the interest of the investigating officer and thus might have resulted in the destruction of evidence. Reply Brief for Petitioner 6. It is difficult to understand why a discretely conducted investigation would have had this feared adverse effect.

 It is unclear from the record whether by the time of McWebb’s arrival this detective had already managed to break in the front door. App. 15.

 While the warrant permitted the officers to arrest any persons found in McWebb’s apartment who were “then and there engaged in the commission of a crime,” App. 9, it did not specifically direct the officers to arrest McWebb.

 When the officers confronted McWebb in the street, however, he believed that they had a warrant for his arrest. Suppression Hearing Tr. M2-131.

 McWebb, of course, could have refused to answer this question. But, given that the officers had him in custody, they could have pursued other avenues of discovering the exact location of his apartment without any immediate fear of the destruction of evidence.

 Having seen the marijuana located upon respondent’s dresser in their initial security sweep, the officers could have secured his apartment while seeking a search warrant. See n. 3, supra.