Court Opinion

ID: 9563663
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:44:21.693286+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:59.970052
License: Public Domain

*110McGRAW, Justice,
dissenting:
The majority’s conclusion that because the appellant “was not arrested in her own home, the strictures of the Supreme Court requiring a valid warrant absent exigent circumstances to arrest a person in his own home are inapplicable,” maj. op. at 105, directly conflicts with pertinent authority.
The majority’s reliance on Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 63 L.Ed.2d 639 (1980) is misplaced. In Pay-ton, the United States Supreme Court, exhibiting considerably more restraint than does the majority, was careful to note that, “[Tjhese cases [do not] raise any question concerning the authority of police, without either a search or arrest warrant, to enter a third party’s home to arrest a suspect.” 445 U.S. at 583, 100 S.Ct. at 1378, 63 L.Ed.2d at 649. Further, in rejecting an assertion that only a search warrant based on probable cause to believe a suspect is at home can adequately protect the privacy interests at stake despite the existence of an arrest warrant for that suspect, the Court observed:
If there is sufficient evidence of a citizen’s participation in a felony to persuade a judicial officer that his arrest is justified, it is constitutionally reasonable to require him to open his doors to the officers of the law. Thus, for Fourth Amendment purposes, an arrest warrant founded on probable cause implicitly carries with it the limited authority to enter a dwelling in which the suspect lives when there is reason to believe the suspect is within.
445 U.S. at 602-03, 100 S.Ct. at 1388-89, 63 L.Ed.2d at 660-61 (Emphasis added). It seems that the majority is not satisfied with raising issues it “need not reach,” as with its inexplicable analysis of the “good faith” exception to the exclusionary rule, maj. op. at 104, it further attributes to the United States Supreme Court in Payton the adjudication of issues expressly not addressed.
The majority further runs roughshod over the reasonable expectation of privacy analysis articulated by the United States Supreme Court in Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967). Unquestionably, as the United States Supreme Court stated in Silverman v. United States, 365 U.S. 505, 511, 81 S.Ct. 679, 683, 5 L.Ed.2d 734, 739 (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 majority’s exclusive emphasis, however, on the “home” harkens back to the overly simplistic concept of “a constitutionally protected area” expressly discarded by the Court in Katz, 389 U.S. at 350, 88 S.Ct. at 510, 19 L.Ed.2d at 581. At the core of Katz is the Court’s holding that, “[T]he Fourth Amendment protects people, not places.” 389 U.S. at 351, 88 S.Ct. at 511, 19 L.Ed.2d at 582. Accordingly, following Katz, the key to an analysis of the existence of full fourth amendment protection is “first, that a person have exhibited an actual (subjective) expectation of privacy and, second, that the expectation be one that society is prepared to recognize as ‘reasonable.’ ” 389 U.S. at 361, 88 S.Ct. at 516, 19 L.Ed.2d at 588 (Harlan, J., concurring). The majority’s attempt at misdirecting attention toward the brother’s privacy interests notwithstanding, it is abundantly clear that, under Katz, the appellant had a reasonable expectation of privacy of her own in her brother’s home. For example, this Court, in State v. McNeal, 162 W.Va. 550, 251 S.E.2d 484, 488-89 (1978), expressly extended the exigent circumstances requirement to a relative’s home in a case involving an illegal search and seizure in the home of McNeal’s cousin.
The majority’s cavalier consideration of the United States Supreme Court’s opinion in Steagald v. United States, 451 U.S. 204, 101 S.Ct. 1642, 68 L.Ed.2d 38 (1981) ignores its constitutional underpinnings. Without question, Steagald involved a question of a third party’s constitutional rights. The rationale for the Court’s decision, however, is much broader, indicating that, in the absence of exigent circumstances or consent, a search warrant must be obtained for the subject of an arrest warrant who is reason*111ably believed to be within the home of a third party:
In the absence of exigent circumstances, we have consistently held that such judicial untested determinations are not reliable enough to justify an entry into a person’s home to arrest him without a warrant, or a search of a home for objects in the absence of a search warrant. ... We see no reason to depart from this settled course when the search of a home is for a person rather than an object. A contrary conclusion — that the police, acting alone and in the absence of exigent circumstances, may decide when there is sufficient justification for searching the home of a third party for the subject of an arrest warrant — would create a significant potential for abuse. Armed solely with an arrest warrant for a single person, the police could search all the homes of that individual’s friends and acquaintances. See, e.g., Lankford v. Gelston, 364 F.2d 197 (CA 4 1966) (enjoining police practice under which 300 homes were searched pursuant to arrest warrants for two fugitives). Moreover, an arrest warrant may serve as the pretext for entering a home in which the police have a suspicion, but not probable cause to believe, that illegal activity is taking place. Cf. Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 767, 89 S.Ct. 2034, 2042, 23 L.Ed.2d 685, 696 (1969).
451 U.S. at 213-15, 101 S.Ct. at 1648-49, 68 L.Ed.2d at 46-47. Therefore, under Steag-ald, a separate search warrant should have been obtained for the appellant when the police had reasonable grounds to believe that she was at her brother’s home.
Because I believe that the United States Supreme Court would reverse the appellant’s conviction based upon the admission of her confession obtained pursuant to an illegal arrest, I respectfully dissent.