Court Opinion

ID: 9488697
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:53:14.339912+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:53:03.085813
License: Public Domain

HARRY W. WELLFORD, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I would respectfully dissent with respect to the “protective sweep” of defendant’s motel room wherein a police officer found a weapon. The district court concluded that Maryland v. Buie, 494 U.S. 325, 110 S.Ct. 1093, 108 L.Ed.2d 276 (1990), supported the war-rantless entry of Biggs’ motel room as a “protective” matter, suspecting that perhaps some armed or dangerous companion of Biggs might be in the room. The district court observed during the suppression hearing that a Buie search had to be supported by “reasonable suspicion, articulable facts.” J/A 72 (emphasis added). The judge simply denied the motion on the basis of his feeling that “this is a proper protective sweep under Maryland v. Buie.” J/A 79.
In my view, a more specific showing in this case is necessary to reflect that a protective sweep was necessary without consent. The burden is upon the government to justify the warrantless search, whether or not it is deemed to be a “protective sweep.” United States v. Akrawi, 920 F.2d 418 (6th Cir.1990); United States v. Hatcher, 680 F.2d 438, 444 (6th Cir.1982); United States v. Murrie, 534 F.2d 695, 698 (6th Cir.1976).
Detective Hamby testified that at the scene the location of the pickup truck where Riggs was arrested was “50, 75 feet, somewhere around there” from the motel room in question. J/A 63. Others estimated the distance as less than that. The district court found that “[t]he truck was somewhere between 20 and 75 feet ... from the front door of the motel room.” There were a number of officers at the scene, and there had been surveillance for several hours. No one observed anyone going into or out of the room in which Biggs was staying until he emerged, unarmed and unsuspecting. I find nothing in the record to indicate that the officers accompanied Biggs back to the motel room on the occasion of the alleged protective sweep.1 *917Whether the knowledge of the police that Biggs had in the past been involved with others who possessed weapons was sufficient in this case seems doubtful in light of the absence of evidence that anyone was with Biggs. There is no evidence that the officers attempted any other means of investigating this rather than proceeding into the room without consent or warrant.
Buie and the other cases cited by the majority in support of affirmance for the most part involve sweeps of a house or residence in which the suspect has been apprehended. Searching for weapons or accomplices in a home or residence where officers have a reasonable suspicion of danger is one thing — entering an searching a motel room as much as 75 feet away from the scene of arrest of an unarmed suspect is another.2
Accordingly, I DISSENT.

. The majority says that “the officers did not act unreasonably in accompanying a shoeless, shirt*917less man ... back to his motel room." That they may have accompanied him after the search is immaterial.

. See United States v. Calhoun, 49 F.3d 231 (6th Cir.1995), for a recent case dealing with an unauthorized, illegal "sweep” of an apartment where defendant, attired in a T-shirt and shorts, had been apprehended at the door.