Court Opinion

ID: 9515229
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 22:54:47.59128+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:06:26.451612
License: Public Domain

SABERS, Justice
(concurring in part and dissenting in part).
[¶ 34.] I concur with the majority opinion’s determination that Hess had a reasonable expectation of privacy in his girlfriend’s apartment. I dissent from the majority opinion’s conclusions of good faith and exigent circumstances.
[¶ 35.] The majority opinion characterizes the officers’ initial actions as an “approach and glance” in the window of the home. Majority opinion, ¶ 21. This characterization implies that the officers’ actions were only minimally intrusive. On the contrary, the officers’ “approach and glance” was an unwarranted intrusion, in the middle of the night, by law enforcement officers, into a woman’s bedroom. Even Deputy Moore described their activity that evening as more than merely approaching or glancing into the window. He testified that he went onto the property, crossed into the carport, and peered through the closed blinds of a bedroom window to see what was going on inside. The deputy saw two men sitting on a bed, but could not see what they were doing. Unsatisfied with this view, the deputy went to yet another covered window on the back side of the home, and looked inside again. It was at the second window that he allegedly saw the two men smoking methamphetamine. After observing the subjects for a moment, the deputy called another deputy over to have a look in the window. The deputy finally proceeded to the front door and knocked. Before the home’s lessee could open the door, the deputy “pushed the door open and Deputy Smith held [the lessee]” while Deputy Moore proceeded tu the bedroom where the subjects were first spied upon.
[¶ 36.] Before this Court reaches the question whether exigent circumstances justified the search, it must be determined whether the officers were lawfully allowed to peer into the covered window in the middle of the night. I agree with the Florida District Court of Appeals’ statement in a similar case:
Regardless of [the officer’s] good faith, the implications of sanctioning police surveillance by standing in a yard at one’s window in the middle of the night are too obvious to require elaboration.
Olivera v. Florida, 315 So.2d 487, 491 (Fla.App. 2 Dist.1975). There is significant reason to doubt that the officers’ actions in this case were objectively reasonable.
*328[¶ 37.] First, it is important to note that the officers had an arrest warrant, not a search warrant. This Court has discussed the different interests protected by arrest and search warrants:
An arrest warrant is issued by a magistrate upon a showing that probable cause exists to believe that the subject of the warrant has committed an offense and thus the warrant primarily serves to protect an individual from an unreasonable seizure. A search warrant, in contrast is issued upon a showing of probable cause to believe that the legitimate object of a search is located in a particular place, and therefore safeguards an individuals interest in the privacy of his home and possessions against the unjustified intrusion of the police.
State v. Meyer, 1998 SD 122, 31, 587 N.W.2d 719, 725 (quoting Steagald v. United States, 451 U.S. 204, 213, 101 S.Ct. 1642, 1648, 68 L.Ed.2d 38, 46 (1981) (emphasis supplied)). Even assuming the police had been at the right home when they decided to peer into the bedroom, they exceeded the authority granted by the arrest warrant when they went onto the curtilage of the property and looked into two covered windows, one of which was under a carport and the other on the backside of the house.6 This is so because:
An arrest warrant is not the equivalent of a search warrant with respect to the authority it gives state agents to enter or to search in or around a suspects premises. An arrest warrant authorizes an officers entry into a suspects residence only to the extent necessary to accomplish the purpose of the warrant, which is to effectuate the arrest of the defendant.
State v. Northover, 133 Idaho 655, 661, 991 P.2d 380, 386 (1999) (Lansing, Judge, concurring in result)). Even assuming for the moment that the officers had been at the right home, there was no justification for looking into a covered window prior to announcing their presence and the purpose of the call.
[A]n arrest warrant does not automatically give officers carte blanche authority to search the grounds around the home or to intrude onto the private cur-tilage in order to peer into windows where the officers have not first ascertained whether the suspect will respond to a knock on the door and submit to arrest.
Id. This is particularly so when there is no indication on the record that there was a possibility that the person for whom they had the arrest warrant was violent, had a history of escape, or possessed evidence of the underlying crime that he would attempt to destroy.7 More disturbing is the *329fact that neither of the subjects in the bedroom fit the description of the person described in the arrest warrant.
[¶ 38.] When an officer intrudes into an area protected by the Fourth Amendment, the State has the burden of proving an exception to the warrant requirement. The State made no effort to come forth with evidence to justify this intrusion other than the fact that the officers held an arrest warrant. An arrest warrant does not make every house on the street fair game to a peeping officer. The arrest warrant for Corey protected Corey’s interest in ensuring the police had probable cause to seize his person. That warrant did nothing to protect Hess’ interest in insuring that police had probable cause to search the home he was visiting. An arrest warrant is an insufficient device and inadequate under these circumstances to defeat the reasonable expectation of privacy held by Hess and the lessees of the house; that is, then’ reasonable expectation of privacy in a bedroom, in the middle of the night, behind covered windows.
[¶ 39.] As apparent additional justification for the police intrusion, the majority opinion makes reference to the plain view doctrine. However, the reference to the plain view doctrine does nothing to bolster the determination that the officers’ actions were permissible in a constitutional sense. The plain view doctrine presupposes that the officer was in a place where he had a right to be and that he had a lawful right of access to the object in plain view. Horton v. California, 496 U.S. 128, 110 S.Ct. 2301, 110 L.Ed.2d 112 (1990). The majority opinion makes no attempt to establish that the officers had a right to bypass the front door of the home, enter the carport, peek in a covered window, walk around the back of the wrong house and peek into yet another covered window. The plain view doctrine is inapplicable in this case because the officers had no right to be within the curtilage of the home peering into the windows of the wrong house with only an arrest warrant.
[¶ 40.] The State spends considerable time discussing the reasonableness of the officers’ activities but fails to justify the failure to ascertain whether they were searching the proper house. Having noticed that the two homes were adjoined by the carport, a reasonable officer would have at least flashed his or her flashlight over the house numbers on the adjoining building to ensure that they were proceeding to the proper address. They did not in this case. The State argues that the officers reasonably believed they were at the proper house because it was dark outside and difficult to see the “1/2” on the end of the house number. Yet it was the officers who chose to execute the arrest warrant at 11:00 at night, chose not to drive by in daylight hours to make certain they had the proper home, and chose to peer into covered bedroom windows rather than simply knocking on the door and announcing their presence. Worse, Deputy Moore testified that he walked across the front lawn of # S9S6 to get to 3936½. He also testified that it was not the actual address of the home that drew his attention, but rather, the fact that there were lights on and a vehicle running in front of # 3936½. It is unfathomable how this can be construed as an objectively reasonable procedure for executing a felony arrest warrant at # 3936.
[¶ 41.] Furthermore, later in the evening, while standing on the front porch, the officers were able to see the “1/2” at the end of the address. This begs the question why they were unable to see the “1/2” when they were standing on the *330porch prior to their forcible entry into the home, or why the deputy standing at the front of the house while the others peeked into the windows did not look at the address and notice the “1/2” sign. Any of these reasonable steps would have prevented this so-called “good faith” mistake.
[¶ 42.] Logic dictates that if there were reasonable steps the officers should have taken to prevent the unwarranted intrusion into the home of a presumptively innocent person, and the officers failed to take those steps, then the search was not objectively reasonable, and the good faith exception to the warrant requirement does not apply.
[¶ 43.] I also dissent from that portion of the majority opinion holding that exigent circumstances justified warrantless forcible nighttime entry into the home. The majority opinion relies on the fact that evidence was being destroyed because the defendant was ingesting the methamphetamine. Defendant was charged with possession of a controlled substance in violation of SDCL 22-42-5, and inhalation of a substance for the purpose of becoming intoxicated in violation of 22-42-15.
[¶ 44.] SDCL 22-42-5 provides in part: No person may knowingly possess a controlled drug or substance unless the substance was obtained directly or pursuant to a valid prescription or order from a practitioner[]. A violation of this section is a Class 4 felony.
SDCL 22-42-15 provides in part:
Any person who intentionally ingests, inhales, or otherwise takes into the body any substance [] for purposes of becoming intoxicated, unless such substance is prescribed by a practitioner of the medical arts [], is guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor. The venue for a violation of this section exists in either the jurisdiction in which the substance was ingested, inhaled, or otherwise taken into the body or the jurisdiction in which the substance was detected in the body of the accused.
This Court has clearly held that a positive urinalysis which reveals the presence of a controlled substance is sufficient to support a conviction under SDCL 22-42-5. See State v. Schroeder, 2004 SD 21, 674 N.W.2d 827. Likewise, by the statute’s plain language, simply detecting the substance in the defendant’s body is sufficient to sustain a conviction under SDCL 22-42-15. Therefore, the fear that evidence was being destroyed in the home was wholly insufficient justification for the officer’s warrantless entry into the home. Assuming for the moment that they were legally on the premises, the officers should have maintained the status quo and obtained a search warrant to enter to house and conduct a urinalysis on the defendants.
[¶ 45.] The majority opinion’s concern with the seriousness of the crime of possession of methamphetamine becomes irrelevant in light of the fact that whether the evidence was lying on the floor of the bedroom or ingested into the body of the defendant, it remained accessible to the officers. The State bears a heavy burden to prove an exception to the warrant requirement, particularly when it has engaged in a nighttime intrusion into a home. The State has not met that burden. We should reverse the trial court’s decision denying the defendants motion to suppress this illegally obtained evidence.
[¶ 46.] MEIERHENRY, Justice joins this special writing.

. The common law definition of curtilage is: [T]he area to which extends the intimate activity associated with the "sanctity of a man's home and the privacies of life,” □ ■ and has therefore been considered part of the home itself for Fourth Amendment purposes. Thus, courts have extended the Fourth Amendment protection to the curti-lage; and they have defined the curtilage, as did the common law, by reference to the factors that determine whether an individual reasonably may expect that an area immediately adjacent to the home will remain private.
State v. Vogel, 428 N.W.2d 272, 275-76 (S.D.1988) (additional and internal citations and quotations omitted). Certainly, if a police officer draws close enough to a home to peek into two bedroom windows, one can safely assume he has entered the curtilage of the home.

. The arrest warrant was based on a vehicular homicide occurring weeks before the warrant was issued. The arrestee was accused of reckless driving in that he ran a stop light at a high rate of speed and caused a collision, resulting in a fatality. Both vehicles involved *329in the accident were already in police custody-