Court Opinion

ID: 9466459
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:16:25.434924+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:44.759595
License: Public Domain

MERRITT, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Government agents entered the residence of Appellant Korman in suburban Huntington Woods, Michigan, to “secure” it pending issuance of a search warrant for cocaine they already had probable cause to believe *548was there. Once inside, they conducted a “protective sweep” of the premises and acquired information that, along with what they already knew, led to the issuance of a search warrant. The principal question on appeal is whether there were “exigent circumstances” justifying a warrantless entry. I would hold that the agents’ entry violated the Fourth Amendment and that the evidence ultimately seized under the warrant should have been suppressed at Korman’s trial.
I.
After a jury trial, Korman was convicted of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute approximately 1,000 grams of cocaine (count one), 21 U.S.C. § 846 (1976); possession with intent to distribute 29.6 grams of cocaine (count two), 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) (1976); and possession with intent to distribute approximately 3.1 grams of cocaine (count three), id. He was sentenced to concurrent four-year prison terms on each count.
At the hearing on Korman’s motion to suppress, the testimony showed that on March 25, 1978, Jack Blanchard was arrested upon his arrival at the Miami airport from Bolivia as he attempted to smuggle 982 grams of cocaine hidden in a false-bottom suitcase past U.S. Customs Inspectors. He told the arresting agents that Keith DeSmyter had sent him to Bolivia to pick up the cocaine and had directed him to take it to Detroit where he should contact Donald Turner, an attorney, for further instructions in the event DeSmyter himself was unavailable. Blanchard agreed to cooperate with the agents by continuing his journey to Michigan under surveillance.
After checking into a hotel in Southfield, Michigan, Blanchard had several telephone conversations with Turner that were tape-recorded with Blanchard’s consent. During the last conversation, Turner told Blanchard that he was sending a friend over to the hotel to pick up the cocaine. Appellant Korman soon arrived at Blanchard’s hotel room, and Blanchard gave him a suitcase containing 29.6 grams of cocaine and a hidden electronic beeper.
The agents tracked Korman and the suitcase to Korman’s residence. A few minutes after the agents arrived, at about 1:00 A.M. on the morning of March 28, 1978, they observed Korman leave the house in a hurry and drive away at a high rate of speed. He was intercepted and arrested as he turned the corner at the end of the block, approximately 400 yards down the street from his house. The suitcase was not in the car.
The agents asked Korman’s permission to enter and search his house but were refused. He told them that only his wife and children were at home. The agents then went to the Korman residence. When Mrs. Korman answered their knock at the front door, they told her that Mr. Korman had just been arrested on drug charges and that they were “securing” the residence pending the issuance and execution of a search warrant. Mrs. Korman did not resist their entry, told them that only she and her children were at home, and led them to the bedroom where the children were sleeping. The agents conducted what the government terms a “protective sweep of the residence for any other armed suspects or persons involved in the crime, and to ascertain whether the controlled substance or any of the evidence was being destroyed.” Government brief at 13. The agents saw in plain view a set of scales commonly used to weigh and measure narcotics, some powdery residue on a night stand, and the green and yellow ski jacket Korman had worn to Blanchard’s hotel room in which they found a large wad of cash.
The information gathered during the “protective sweep” was incorporated into an affidavit, along with a chronicle of the events leading up to Korman’s arrest. One drug enforcement agent remained at the Korman house to maintain security. The rest left with the affidavit to obtain a warrant.
At approximately 4:00 A.M., the other agents returned with a warrant authorizing a search of the premises. The search turned up the bugged suitcase containing 29.6 grams of cocaine; another 3.1 grams of *549cocaine found elsewhere in the house; Korman’s green and yellow ski jacket; narcotics records; assorted other narcotics paraphernalia; and more than $4,000 in cash. Among Korman’s records, the agents found an address book containing the names “John Keith DeSmyter” and “Donald A. Turner” with corresponding telephone numbers and addresses. All of these items were introduced at trial over Korman’s objection that they were fruits of an unlawful search and seizure.
II.
The warrantless entry of Korman’s home “to secure the premises,” and the “protective sweep” which followed, constituted a “search” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. Hester v. United States, 265 U.S. 57, 58-59, 44 S.Ct. 445, 446, 68 L.Ed. 898 (1924). It is axiomatic that “searches conducted outside the judicial process, without prior approval by judge or magistrate, are per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment — subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions.” (footnotes omitted) Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 357, 88 S.Ct. 507, 514, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967). The question, therefore, is whether the entry fell within any of the exceptions to the warrant requirement.
For obvious reasons, the Supreme Court has never recognized a “securing-premises-in-anticipation-of-a-search-warrant” exception to the warrant requirement. See United States v. Griffin, 502 F.2d 959 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, 419 U.S. 1050, 95 S.Ct. 626, 42 L.Ed.2d 645 (1974). Such an exception would swallow the rule. The warrant requirement protects the privacy of the home by “interposing] a magistrate between the citizen and the police ... so that an objective mind might weigh the need to invade that privacy in order to enforce the law.” McDonald v. United States, 335 U.S. 451, 455, 69 S.Ct. 191, 193, 93 L.Ed. 153 (1948). This crucial protection would evaporate if the police, before obtaining a warrant, could search a private home without one to make sure that what they were looking for was really there and would still be there when the warrant arrived. No doubt things would be easier for the police were that option available, “[b]ut the Fourth Amendment reflects the view of those who wrote the Bill of Rights that the privacy of a person’s home and property may not be totally sacrificed in the name of maximum simplicity in enforcement of the criminal law.” Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385, 393, 98 S.Ct. 2408, 2414, 57 L.Ed.2d 290 (1978).
The government contends, however, that a new exception to the warrant requirement need not be fashioned for this case, because the exigent circumstances doctrine is broad enough to justify the agents’ con-duct. The argument is that it was necessary to enter the house without waiting to secure a warrant in order to prevent the possible destruction of the cocaine by Korman’s confederates. The District Court approved the warrantless entry on this theory.
The agents testified that “securing” and “protective sweep” of the residence was necessary because one of Korman’s confederates may have been engaged (again using para-military language) in “counter-surveillance,” meaning, I take it, that the confederate may have been watching Korman’s house to see if Korman was being watched. They testified that, after Korman left Blanchard’s hotel room with the bugged suitcase and drove away in his car, he was followed by an unidentified man driving a 1978 Lincoln. The two cars stopped, a few miles away, parked side-by-side, and Korman conferred briefly with the man before driving home alone. The agents testified that the driver of the Lincoln was probably engaged in “counter-surveillance.” The agents also testified that they noticed three cars parked in the driveway of the Korman home, indicating to them that more than just Korman and his family were there. Given the ease with which cocaine can be destroyed, and in view of Korman’s suspiciously hurried departure from the house just prior to his arrest, the fact that he did not bring the cocaine with him, the earlier-detected “counter-surveillance” by the man in the Lincoln, the presence of other vehi*550cíes in the Korman driveway, and the lateness of the hour, the agents, according to the government, could justifiably have believed that the evidence was in danger of destruction and that they were, therefore, empowered to enter the house without waiting to secure a warrant.
The inherent destructibility of cocaine alone cannot justify the warrantless entry in this case. Most forms of real evidence can be easily removed, hidden, or destroyed. Drugs can be consumed or poured down the drain. Bloodstains can be mopped up; fingerprints, wiped away. Weapons can be concealed or removed from the premises. Incriminating documents and counterfeit can be burned. The possibilities are endless. If we were to hold that the ever-present danger of losing evidence was, by itself, enough to dispense with the warrant requirement, it is difficult to conceive of a case in which a warrant would ever be required to search a private dwelling.
The government’s citation to Ker v. California, 374 U.S. 23, 83 S.Ct. 1623, 10 L.Ed.2d 726 (1963), is inapposite. In that case, the Supreme Court determined that the danger of evidence destruction excused the failure of the police to give notice before they entered a private home to make a lawful arrest. But the entry itself was legal. It was justified as necessary to effectuate the arrest. See Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 355 n. 16, 88 S.Ct. 507, 513 n. 16, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967).
The government’s reliance upon our decisions in United States v. Guidry, 534 F.2d 1220 (6th Cir. 1976), and United States v. Delguyd, 542 F.2d 346 (6th Cir. 1976), is misplaced. In those cases, the Court approved warrantless entries of private homes where the investigating agents were justified in believing that evidence was actually “in the process of destruction.” Vale v. Louisiana, 399 U.S. 30, 35, 90 S.Ct. 1969, 1972, 26 L.Ed.2d 409 (1970). See also Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757, 86 S.Ct. 1826, 16 L.Ed.2d 908 (1966). In neither case did this Court suggest that warrantless searches of private dwellings could be conducted merely upon the possibility that evidence could be lost in the time necessary to obtain a search warrant.
Ethically and historically our society strongly resists warrantless break-ins of private homes. The Founding Fathers adopted the Fourth Amendment to prevent this specific practice, a practice that was a contributing cause of the revolution of the American colonies.
The “exigent circumstances” exception to the warrant requirement depends on the existence of a real emergency. See United States v. Finazzo, 583 F.2d 837, 845-47 (6th Cir. 1978), rev’d on other grounds, 441 U.S. 929, 99 S.Ct. 2047, 60 L.Ed.2d 657 (1979). An emergency in turn depends on the immediacy of the peril and requires á high degree of probability that the risk will become a reality. The facts must demonstrate that the risk is highly probable, that it is more likely to occur than not.
Although the probability of the risk of destruction in the instant case must be measured by the officers and the court before the warrantless entry, the facts in hindsight are relevant. Here there was no proof at all that the evidence would have been destroyed. There was no proof about how the remaining occupants of the house would have known they were under surveillance or that apprehension was likely. In fact, they did not know.
At the time of Korman’s arrest, the officers were faced only with the possibility of destruction, not the high degree of probability required for a warrantless entry. The only thing the agents had reason to believe in these circumstances was that the cocaine remained- inside the house. The facts did not warrant anything more. No evidence was presented at the suppression hearing to indicate that Korman’s arrest could have been detected by anyone inside the house with a motive to destroy the cocaine. Indeed, the only information on that score indicated that Korman’s arrest took place around the corner on another street, approximately 400 yards away from the Korman residence. None of the agents recalled seeing the 1978 Lincoln anywhere in the vicinity or any other evidence of “counter-*551surveillance.” If Korman’s swift departure from his house is taken to indicate that he had learned of the officer’s presence and was leaving others behind to destroy the evidence, the evidence would have already been destroyed by the time the officers returned to the home after the arrest. It is possible, but only one of many possibilities, that avoidance of apprehension and destruction of the cocaine was the purpose of the swift departure.
III.
The government also contends that suppression is not warranted because the information gathered as a result of the unlawful entry and “protective sweep” was not material to the finding of probable cause which led to the issuance of the warrant. The agents already had sufficient evidence to obtain a search warrant. The evidence seized under the warrant, therefore, cannot be said to have been “tainted” by the antecedent illegal conduct. Thé government argues that Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154, 98 S.Ct. 2674, 57 L.Ed.2d 667 (1978), requires that we adopt this analysis.
I disagree. In Franks, the Supreme Court considered the consequences that should follow a determination that law enforcement officers had incorporated intentional or reckless falsehood in a search warrant affidavit. Suppression is required, the Court held, only when the false data is material to the finding of probable cause. Thus, after Franks, the proper approach for a reviewing court is to ascertain whether, setting aside the false material, the remainder of the affidavit establishes probable cause.
Franks involves no more than a rather straightforward application of the familiar principle that the exclusionary rule should be “restricted to those areas where its remedial objectives are . . . most efficaciously served.” United States v. Calandra, 414 U.S. 338, 348, 94 S.Ct. 613, 620, 38 L.Ed.2d 561 (1974). An unscrupulous law enforcement officer is tempted to include false material in a search warrant application because he desires to insure that the magistrate will find probable cause and issue the warrant. The remedy fashioned by the Court in Franks effectively removes that incentive by destroying any advantage the police might hope to gain from lying. The deterrent purposes of the exclusionary rule are served. A rule requiring automatic suppression without regard to the materiality of false information in a search warrant affidavit would be overkill just as would conviction of securities fraud or perjury for irrelevant misrepresentation.
The type of police misconduct involved in this case — illegal entry — is critically different from cases involving misrepresentation. It requires a different response if the deterrent purposes of the exclusionary rule are to be “efficaciously served.” The need to gather more probable cause was not a primary, or even significant, factor in the agents’ decision to make the warrantless entry of the Korman residence. Rather, the agents acted, as they told Mrs. Korman at the time, to “secure” the premises until the search warrant they were confident of obtaining could arrive. The advantage to be gained in most cases from such action exists wholly apart from the need to comply with the Fourth Amendment’s probable cause requirement. Indeed, the more certain the police are of their probable cause, the stronger will be their desire to “secure” the place they aim to search, so that the effort to obtain a warrant will not be in vain.
The only effective means of removing this temptation is to suppress all evidence taken from the place “secured,” whether or not the warrant pursuant to which the evidence is ultimately seized could have been obtained without the illegality. On facts virtually identical to our own, a panel of this Court, consisting of then Chief Judge Phillips, former Chief Judge Weick, and present Chief Judge Edwards, concluded that “[a]ny other view would tend in actual practice to emasculate the search warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment.” United States v. Griffin, supra, 502 F.2d at 961. Unnecessary misrepresentations may be deleted under Franks but we cannot *552permit unnecessary and illegal entry into homes without destroying the protections guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment.