Court Opinion

ID: 9477659
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:28:14.648767+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:58.984468
License: Public Domain

ALARCON, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent.
Officer Errol Bowser of the Los Angeles Police Department observed Dennis Winsor run out of a bank which had just been robbed. Officer Bowser pursued Dennis Winsor to the Chesterfield Hotel. Other law enforcement units were called upon to assist in capturing the bank robber, and they arrived within minutes. A police helicopter circled overhead during the manhunt.
The officers determined that an immediate search of the hotel for the bank robber was necessary. The officers were aware that at the time of the bank robbery Dennis Winsor claimed that he was armed and appeared to be carrying a firearm in his pocket. The officers knocked on a number of doors before arriving at Winsor’s room. They knocked and said, “Police, open the door.” The door was partially opened by Dennis Winsor. The police immediately recognized him as the person who had run from the scene of the bank robbery to the hotel, notwithstanding the fact that Winsor had attempted to alter his appearance by shaving his moustache. After making this identification, the police pushed open the door to the hotel room, at which time they saw Steven Winsor.
The district court concluded from these facts that the request that the door be opened was reasonable and that the officers’ conduct fell within the “hot pursuit” exception to the Fourth Amendment’s requirement that law enforcement officers obtain a warrant based on probable cause *1582prior to intruding into the privacy of a dwelling house. I would affirm the denial of the motion to suppress Steven Winsor’s incriminating statements and the physical evidence found within the room after the entry. What the majority characterizes as a “visual entry” into the partially opened doorway was lawful under the “hot pursuit” exception to the Fourth Amendment, as defined by the Supreme Court in Warden v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294, 87 S.Ct. 1642, 18 L.Ed.2d 782 (1967).
The majority has reversed the denial of the motion to suppress without citing, discussing or attempting to distinguish the decisions of the United States Supreme Court that have recognized that where law enforcement officers have probable cause to believe that a suspect has committed a felony, they may enter a residential building without a warrant if they have pursued the suspect from the scene of the crime. Instead, the majority has devoted its energies to an exhaustive analysis of inapposite cases involving the cursory search of a physical object within a private residence where the officers had a lawful right to be (Arizona v. Hicks, — U.S. -, 107 S.Ct. 1149, 94 L.Ed.2d 347 (1987)), consent to search by a hotel manager (Stoner v. California, 376 U.S. 483, 84 S.Ct. 889, 11 L.Ed.2d 856 (1964)), the “stop and frisk” exception to the probable cause requirement of the Fourth Amendment (Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968)), the transportation of a person to a police station in the absence of probable cause that he has committed a crime (Dunaway v. New York, 442 U.S. 200, 99 S.Ct. 2248, 60 L.Ed.2d 824 (1979)), the search of a pervasively regulated industry (United States v. Biswell, 406 U.S. 311, 92 S.Ct. 1593, 32 L.Ed.2d 87 (1972)), the search of a car trunk (Cady v. Dombrowski, 413 U.S. 433, 93 S.Ct. 2523, 37 L.Ed.2d 706 (1973)), the inventory search of a car (South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U.S. 364, 96 S.Ct. 3092, 49 L.Ed.2d 1000 (1976)), customs searches (United States v. Villamonte-Marquez, 462 U.S. 579, 103 S.Ct. 2573, 77 L.Ed.2d 22 (1983)), body cavity searches (Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 558-60, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 1884-85, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979)), and the placement of government observers on fishing vessels to protect sea mammals (Balelo v. Baldridge, 724 F.2d 753 (9th Cir.) (en banc), cert. denied, 476 U.S. 1252, 104 S.Ct. 3536, 82 L.Ed.2d 841 (1984)). None of these cases, however, concern the issue presented by the facts before us, namely, may officers acting in hot pursuit of a bank robber enter a residential building to arrest him. The Supreme Court answered this question affirmatively twenty-two years ago in Warden v. Hayden, on facts less compelling than the emergency that faced the officers in the instant matter.
In Warden, “[t]he police were informed that a robbery had taken place, and that the suspect had entered 2111 Cocoa Lane less than five minutes before they reached it.” 387 U.S. at 298, 87 S.Ct. at 1646. Upon these facts, the Supreme Court held that the officers:
acted reasonably when they entered the house and began to search for a man of the description they had been given.... The Fourth Amendment does not require police officers to delay in the course of an investigation if to do so would gravely endanger their lives or the lives of others.
Id. at 299, 87 S.Ct. at 1646. The Court held further that “neither the entry without warrant to search for the robber, nor the search for him without warrant was invalid.” Id. at 298, 87 S.Ct. at 1645.
In the matter before this court, a police officer observed Dennis Winsor running from a bank he had just robbed. The officer pursued him to the hotel where the arrest occurred. Thus, unlike in Warden, the police here pursued the fleeing felon, without interruption from the scene of the crime to the residence in which he attempted to hide.
In United States v. Santana, 427 U.S. 38, 96 S.Ct. 2406, 49 L.Ed.2d 300 (1975), the Supreme Court applied the hot pursuit doctrine in a narcotics case wherein the suspect ran into a residential building to avoid arrest. The Court summarized the hot pursuit rule as follows:
*1583In Warden v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294 [87 S.Ct. 1642, 18 L.Ed.2d 782] (1967), we recognized the right of police, who had probable cause to believe an armed robber had entered a house a few minutes before, to make a warrantless entry to arrest the robber and to search for weapons.
Id. at 42, 96 S.Ct. at 2409. In the matter sub judice, it is undisputed that the officers had probable cause to believe that Dennis Winsor entered the hotel with a concealed weapon after robbing a bank.
It should be noted that while the police in Warden had probable cause to believe the bank robber was armed based on information from an informant, in Santana there was no evidence that the defendant was armed at the time she ran into the residence. Thus, in Santana, the Supreme Court extended the hot pursuit doctrine to a felony arrest in a residence where there was no indication that the suspect was armed. Accordingly, whether Dennis Winsor was in fact armed at the time he was pursued to his residence is immaterial to the application of the hot pursuit doctrine.
In 1983, the Supreme Court reaffirmed its adherence to the hot pursuit doctrine with respect to warrantless felony arrests in residences, Welsh v. Wisconsin, 466 U.S. 740, 750, 104 S.Ct. 2091, 2097, 80 L.Ed.2d 732 (1983), but refused to apply this exception to an entry to make an arrest for a minor offense, id. at 754, 104 S.Ct. at 2100. In Welsh, the defendant was arrested for driving while intoxicated, “a noncriminal, civil forfeiture offense for which no imprisonment is possible.” Id.
As noted above, the majority has failed to explain why Warden and Santana do not compel us to uphold the district court’s denial of the motion to suppress. Instead, relying on Hicks, the majority appears to hold that officers who have pursued a robber from the bank to a hotel may not make a “visual entry” into his doorway without probable cause. The majority’s reliance on Hicks is curious. Neither “visual entry” without a warrant nor the “hot pursuit” exception to the Fourth Amendment’s requirements was discussed in Hicks. In fact, in Hicks, the officers had lawfully entered a private residence to investigate the source of gunfire. Id. 107 S.Ct. at 1152. The very narrow question at issue in Hicks was whether the slight movement of a turntable in plain view to permit the reading of its serial number was a search. The majority in Hicks concluded that this “cursory inspection” was a search. Id. The Court declined to create a distinction between a “cursory inspection” and a “full blown search” of a physical object located within a private residence. Id. The majority has failed to explain how this “bright-line test” is applicable to the entry of a residence by law enforcement officers in hot pursuit of a bank robber. Because the lawfulness of the entry was not at issue in Hicks, the Supreme Court had no occasion to discuss or even mention the “hot pursuit” rule set forth in Warden.
The majority in the matter before this court appears to assume that in Hicks, the Supreme Court overruled the “hot pursuit” exception sub silentio. I find no statement in the Hicks opinion that supports such an astonishing interpretation.
I would uphold the district court’s order denying Steven Winsor’s motion to suppress. In 1966, the Supreme Court instructed us in Warden that the police may enter a residential building to make a war-rantless arrest if they are in hot pursuit of an armed robber. In Warden, the police relied on information provided by a third party that an armed robber had entered a residence a few minutes before they arrived. The Supreme Court found that this showing was sufficient to justify a physical entry to search for the suspect. In this matter, the bank robber was pursued from the bank to the hotel by a policeman. Thus, the arresting officers did not rely on hearsay statements as in Warden. Probable cause was established here by the testimony of a percipient police officer. Because Warden authorized a physical entry into Dennis Winsor’s apartment under these circumstances, a fortiori, the officers’ “visual entry” was lawful.
The lawfulness of the entry to arrest a bank robber in a residence, because of the *1584hot pursuit doctrine, makes it unnecessary for us to address the issues discussed by the majority, that is, the distinctions, if any, between visual entry and physical entry, between a cursory inspection and a full-blown search of a physical object, or whether Dennis Winsor consented to the opening of the door. I must dissent because I believe that the restrictions placed on law enforcement officers in this case by the majority are unrealistic, unreasonable and could be life-threatening m future cases where officers pursue felons to residential buildings.