Court Opinion

ID: 9498427
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:17:08.520393+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:58:49.516397
License: Public Domain

MURPHY, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the judgment.
The court appropriately decides this case on the factual record made in the district court, which did not establish that the safety of the two officers was threatened given their locations in the basement and the ambiguity in their testimony about whether Waldner was headed into the basement office. This does not mean that Buie would always foreclose a protective sweep when officers are serving a protective order, however. There is a good deal of evidence that serving domestic protection orders can be as dangerous for law enforcement officers as making arrests.
As the court pointed out in United States v. Miller, 306 F.Supp.2d 414, 417 (S.D.N.Y.2004), such situations are “fraught with the potential for ambush and violence.” Here, Deputy McQuisten had reviewed Karen Waldner’s petition which averred that Waldner had choked her and “threatened to kill [her] with his guns,” and the officers had reason to suspect when they went to the house that they could experience a dangerous encounter. Nevertheless, Waldner was apparently under their control when Officer Starr decided to enter the basement office, where he discovered the weapon, and Starr himself testified at the suppression hearing that he could not recall whether or not Waldner had shown an intent to go there. In the proper circumstances, law enforcement officers should be able to do a protective sweep of their immediate surroundings incident to processing the service of a protective order in order to ensure their own safety or that of anyone else present.