Court Opinion

ID: 9650042
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:21:36.284017+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:17.614860
License: Public Domain

McAULIFFE, Judge,
dissenting.
I cannot agree that the limited intrusion by the police into the basement of Buie’s home constituted an unreasonable search in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
The majority acknowledges that a Fourth Amendment determination of reasonableness involves a balancing of the *167nature of the intrusion against the objectively reasonable expectation of privacy that exists under the particular circumstances. Yet, the majority insists on considering the intrusion in this case exactly as if it were a warrantless entry across the threshold of the home. It is not. The officers crossed the threshold of this home in strict compliance with the Fourth Amendment. Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 63 L.Ed.2d 639 (1980). They had a warrant for Buie’s arrest for armed robbery and they had reason to believe Buie was within the home. The question in this case is not the nature of exigent circumstances required to justify the warrantless entry into a home, but rather the exigency that will justify a limited additional intrusion following a prior valid entry.
When the police team entered Buie’s home armed with a valid warrant for his arrest, they fanned out to begin the search. Unquestionably, the police could have gone into the basement at that time. As the Supreme Court said in Payton v. New York, supra:
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. Id., 445 U.S. at 602-03, 100 S.Ct. at 1388.
Being legitimately in the basement area, the police could have seized the red running suit, which was in plain view and which the police had probable cause to believe was evidence of a recent felony. Arizona v. Hicks, 480 U.S. 321, 107 S.Ct. 1149, 94 L.Ed.2d 347 (1987). The distinction in the present case is that Buie came out of the basement and his arrest was completed before the police entered the basement. I do not suggest that this is a distinction without a difference. Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 89 S.Ct. 2034, 23 L.Ed.2d 685 (1969), holds that the police have no automatic right to search an entire home merely because a person is arrested therein. Yet, the consideration of the totality of circumstances, including the extent of the right of the officers to search the entire home which existed until *168Buie changed the situation by surrendering at the top of the stairs, is helpful in understanding the level of expectation of privacy that the law will reasonably afford to Buie concerning items in plain view in the basement.
Moreover, Chimel addresses full-blown searches and I do not suggest that the police would have been entitled to conduct such a search of this basement. The only search that was reasonable under these circumstances was a limited search for a person or persons. This type of search is less intrusive, and may be accomplished fairly quickly. It does not permit the opening of desks or the examination of documents.
The type of search that was conducted in this case was justified under the circumstances. Buie was arrested only after hiding in the basement. Sergeant Dunn had yelled down into the basement when the police arrived, but received no response. Corporal Rozar then twice yelled into the basement for anyone to come out before Buie finally responded. The police had probable cause to believe that the armed robbery which had occurred 48 hours earlier had been committed by two persons — Buie and Lloyd Allen. The police had obtained arrest warrants for, and were looking for, both of them. Contrary to the statement in the majority opinion that “to the best of [the police officers’] knowledge, Buie and an unidentified girl or woman were the only occupants of the dwelling,” the police did not know how many persons were in the home. They knew that Buie and a woman were present — they did not know how many more persons might have been present. For the police to make a quick sweep of the basement from which Buie had emerged was reasonable, whether to check for the presence of the accomplice who had so recently been involved with Buie and an armed robbery, or to protect themselves from others who might have been hiding with Buie. The Court of Special Appeals properly considered the extent of Buie’s privacy interests, the limited nature of the intrusion, and the exigencies of the situation in concluding that the search *169was reasonable. Buie v. State, 72 Md.App. 562, 570-76, 531 A.2d 1290 (1987). I would affirm.
MURPHY, C.J., and RODOWSKY, J., have authorized me to say that they join in this dissenting opinion.