Court Opinion

ID: 9537986
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:28:13.670548+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:57:15.252867
License: Public Domain

Justice VOLLACK
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent from the majority’s holding that the officers violated the “knock and announce” requirement articulated by this court in People v. Lujan, 174 Colo. 554, 559, 484 P.2d 1238, 1241 (1971). In this case the knock and announce requirement did not apply because the officers did not make a forced entry. Even if the officers’ conduct amounted to a forced entry of the defendant’s residence, the officers satisfied the knock and announce requirement by announcing their identity and purpose to those on the porch of the house and to the defendant’s wife upon entering through the unlocked front door.
I.
I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that Lujan’s forced entry “announce and identify” rule applies in this case. In Lu-jan, we held that, with some exceptions which are not applicable in this case,1 *801“when police officers attempt a forced entry, they must first identify themselves and make their purpose known.” Id. Our previous decisions demonstrate that the officers in this case did not make a forced entry into the defendant’s residence.
In People v. Malone, 175 Colo. 31, 33, 485 P.2d 499, 500 (1971), we held that a police officer did not violate the fourth amendment when he entered an outer door, knocked for the first time on an inner door, and identified himself as a police officer after one of the defendants voluntarily admitted him to the premises. In People v. Towery, 194 Colo. 486, 488, 573 P.2d 104, 105 (1978), we held that officers did not engage in a forced entry when they knocked on the front screen door without identifying themselves and entered the defendant’s house at the invitation of the defendant’s sister. In People v. Campbell, 185 Colo. 312, 314, 524 P.2d 73, 74 (1974), the officer executing a valid search warrant rang the doorbell to the defendants’ residence and stepped inside. After entry into the residence the officer announced his presence and purpose to one of the defendants. Id. We noted that the officer “merely stepped across the threshold in a nonviolent and nonforceful manner before announcing his identity and his purpose,” and held that such actions do “no violence to the fourth amendment when such an officer is clothed with the authority of a valid search warrant.” 2 Id. at 315, 524 P.2d at 75.
In this case Detectives Andrew and Sa-mek arranged for informant Willden to sell video cassette recorders to the defendant at his home. Willden was equipped with an electronic listening device monitored by Detective Samek. Willden represented to the defendant that the items were stolen. After the sale was completed, Detective Andrew prepared affidavits for a search warrant and left Detective Samek near the residence while he obtained the search war- ■ rant. When the search warrant issued Detective Andrew notified Detective Samek, who was waiting near the defendant’s residence. Detective Samek and two other police officers, one of whom was in uniform, approached the front door of the defendant’s residence, identified themselves as police officers to three unidentified people on the front porch, and told them that a search warrant had been issued authorizing a search of the house. Detective Sa-mek’s uncontradicted testimony was that the front door may have been open but, if not, it was unlocked. Upon entering the front door with the uniformed officer, Detective Samek met the defendant’s wife and advised her that he was a police officer, and that a search warrant had been issued and would be delivered soon.
The officers in this case were clothed with the authority of a valid search warrant. Detective Andrew testified that he arrived with the warrant no more than fifteen to twenty minutes after Detective Samek and the other officers began searching the defendant’s house. The defendant testified that Detective Andrew did not serve him with a search warrant when he first arrived, but that Detective Andrew served him with the search warrant about twenty-five to thirty minutes after the other officers began the search. The defendant also testified that he did not remember when Detective Andrew arrived because several policemen were already in the house when Detective Andrew arrived. “[L]aw enforcement officials are not constitutionally required to present a copy of the search warrant prior to commencing a search, so long as the previously issued warrant is presented before the officials vacate the premises.” United States v. Hepperle, 810 F.2d 836, 839 (8th Cir.) (“[wjhile it may be foolhardy to proceed in the absence of the physical presence of the warrant, it is not unconstitutional”), cert. denied, 483 U.S. 1025, 107 S.Ct. 3274, 97 L.Ed.2d 772 (1987).
The fact that the officers in this case did not knock on the front door of the defendant’s house does not support the conclusion that they made a forced entry. The *802officers had already identified themselves and their purpose to three people at the porch of the house.3 Detective Samek testified that he could not remember whether the front door of the house was open or closed, but that if it was closed it was unlocked. Upon entering the house Detective Samek identified himself to the defendant’s wife and stated that a search warrant for the house had been issued. I would hold that under the unrebutted facts of this case the knock and announce requirement was inapplicable because the officers did not make a forced entry into the defendant’s house.
The majority concludes that a forced entry need not be accomplished by actual physical violence, since an unannounced entry through an unlocked door may be forcible. Maj. op. at 798 (citing Sabbath v. United States, 391 U.S. 585, 590, 88 S.Ct. 1755, 1758, 20 L.Ed.2d 828 (1968); People v. Godinas, 176 Colo. 391, 394-95, 490 P.2d 945, 947 (1971)). I disagree that the reasoning of Sabbath is applicable to this case. The Supreme Court decided Sabbath solely on the basis of federal statute 18 U.S.C. § 3109, and not on the basis of the fourth amendment.4 In my opinion, Ker v. State of California, 374 U.S. 23, 37, 83 S.Ct. 1623, 1631-32, 10 L.Ed.2d 726 (1963), sets the standard for determining whether arrests by state officers for state offenses are unlawful. The Supreme Court held in Ker that the lawfulness of such arrests is to be determined by state law insofar as it is not violative of the federal constitution.5 Id. I cannot conclude that in Sabbath the Court intended to make the fourth amendment synonymous with 18 U.S.C. § 3109. Therefore, Sabbath does not apply to the issue of whether the officers made a forced entry.
Lujan is consistent with Ker and establishes the standard to be applied if we conclude the officers made a forced entry. In my opinion the majority’s conclusion that the officers’ entry was unlawful because they failed to knock and announce their purpose is based on a narrow reading of Lujan. In Lujan, 174 Colo. at 556, 484 P.2d at 1239-40, the police knocked on the door, waited a minute, knocked again, and, when no one answered, used a sledge hammer to break the door down and gain entry. In Lujan, we required officers making forced entries to “identify themselves and make their purpose known.” Id. at 559, 484 P.2d at 1241. I believe the officers' entry in this case conformed to the requirements of Lujan and was not an unreasonable search under fourth amendment standards. The officers’ action in the present case also served the purposes of the rules of announcement. Federal courts have recognized that the “rule of announcement” protects an individual’s right to privacy in the home to the extent possible and, consistent with the execution of the warrant, provides the occupant and the entering officers with protection from violence, and protects against the needless destruction of property. See United States v. Little, 753 F.2d 1420, 1435 (9th Cir.1984); United States v. McConney, 728 F.2d 1195, 1206 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 824, 105 S.Ct. 101, 83 L.Ed.2d 46 (1984); United States v. Bustamante-Gamez, 488 F.2d 4, 9 (9th Cir.1973), cert. denied, 416 U.S. 970, 94 S.Ct. 1993, 40 L.Ed.2d 559 (1974).
The holding in United States v. Salter, 815 F.2d 1150 (7th Cir.1987), is also instructive in this case. In Salter, a police officer *803pretending to be a hotel clerk asked the defendant, a hotel guest, to come to the front desk. When the defendant opened the door to her room, another officer blocked the door with his foot. The defendant was then escorted back into her room and the officers conducted a search pursuant to a warrant. The court held that this behavior was not an intrusion within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. § 3109. Id. at 1152.
Given that the federal knock and announce statute is more strict than the knock and announce requirements we set forth in Lujan,6 the officers’ action of announcing their entry to those on the porch, entering through an unlocked door, and announcing themselves again to the defendant’s wife, violated neither the Lujan knock and announce rule nor the fourth amendment.
I am authorized to say that Justice MULLARKEY joins in this dissent.

. As the majority notes, the prosecution does not contend that any of the exceptions identified in Lujan are applicable. Maj. op. at 797-798.

. In Campbell, 185 Colo. at 315, 524 P.2d at 75, we stated that People v. Godinas, 176 Colo. 391, 490 P.2d 945 (1971), relied upon by the majority, maj. op. at 798, was “inapposite as the officers in that case did not have a valid search warrant.”

. Detective Samek testified that at the front of the house he "first met with three people at the front porch of the address.”

. Sabbath, 391 U.S. at 589, 88 S.Ct. at 1758, as the majority notes, interpreted 18 U.S.C. § 3109, and held that "the use of 'force' [is not) an indispensable element of the statute.” Section 3109 of 18 U.S.C. identifies the conditions under which an officer may "break open” any outer or inner door or window of a house to execute a search warrant. Id. Sabbath does not control the present case because Lujan, 174 Colo. at 559, 484 P.2d at 1241, only imposes an announce and identify requirement where "officers attempt a forced entry.” (Emphasis added.)

.Cf. United States v. Valenzuela, 596 F.2d 824, 830 (9th Cir.), cert. denied sub nom. Lizarraga v. United States, 441 U.S. 965, 99 S.Ct. 2415, 60 L.Ed.2d 1071 (1979) ("to some extent, the knock-notice requirements of 18 U.S.C. § 3109 have been incorporated into the fourth amendment” (brackets omitted)).

. Compare Sabbath, 391 U.S. at 589, 88 S.Ct. at 1758 (use of force not indispensable to a "breaking" within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. § 3109), with Lujan, 174 Colo. at 559, 484 P.2d at 1241 (officers must identify themselves and make their purpose known before attempting a "forced entry” (emphasis added)).