Court Opinion

ID: 9629644
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 09:46:28.642644+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:22.023326
License: Public Domain

SHEPARD, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
In my judgment, the majority opinion today escalates a simple statutory problem of law enforcement into constitutional dimensions. That result, I suggest, is not required by the decisions of the United States Supreme Court, is unnecessary, unwarranted, improvident and will have a long and lasting adverse effect on the ability of law enforcement officials in Idaho to adequately enforce our criminal laws and protect our society.
I believe it is desirable to flesh out the otherwise bland and cursory treatment of the facts by the majority opinion. On August 2, 1976, at 7:15 p. m. an undercover police officer allegedly purchased a quantity of marijuana from one Vicki Laird. That marijuana had been carried in a black bag and the purchase was made with marked money. Immediately after the sale, Laird joined defendant-respondent Rauch and others in a vehicle and returned to Rauch’s residence. During that trip the vehicle was kept under surveillance. Rauch was observed carrying that black bag into his residence, which was thereafter kept under surveillance from approximately 6:45 p. m. until 7:30 p. m. During that time, a large number of officers in law enforcement vehicles maintained a communications network and a number of people were observed entering and departing the Rauch residence. During that time it was believed that seven or eight drug transactions took place and a number of persons leaving the residence were believed by the officers to be carrying controlled substances. Two of those persons left the residence and circled the neighborhood in a vehicle for a period of eight or nine minutes and it was believed that they observed the law enforcement personnel and vehicles engaged in the surveillance. Thereafter they returned to the Rauch residence. The surveillance, the communications network and the law enforcement actions were described by the trial judge as “excellent police work.” The officer in charge of the law enforcement operation issued orders to detain and arrest those persons leaving the house and many were detained and arrested, although two or three escaped.
Officers participating in the operation testified that they believed those persons leaving the house, both those who escaped and those who were apprehended, possessed controlled substances. They also testified that on the basis of information received from a reliable informant the officers believed there was in excess of eight pounds of marijuana in the house, together with an undetermined amount of cocaine and the marked “buy” money. They testified that in their opinion there was a substantial risk of destruction of that evidence. The trial court, in its memorandum decision, found:
In this case at the time of the questioned entry into the house, through excellent police work the officers had developed probable cause to arrest the defendants and to believe that controlled substances were in the house. This was done through a controlled buy, following suspects to the house and continued surveillance thereafter. In addition the officers had initiated steps to obtain a search warrant, which was obtained after the questioned entry and which I find to have been validly issued. The evidence further demonstrated that at the time of the entry, exigent circumstances existed *595which gave probable cause for believing that entry was needed to secure the house and monitor the residents before the search warrant arrived to prevent removal of contraband from the house. (Citations omitted.)
One officer involved in the raid testified that he was located two blocks distant from the Rauch residence. From that point he testified that he could hear the activities taking place in front of the Rauch residence. Police vehicles at high speed were arriving on the scene and sliding to a stop in front of the house to block the exit of vehicles. Shouting of orders to those persons arrested and other commotion could be heard at a distance of two blocks. It was testified that the officers feared that the individuals in the house may have possessed weapons and thus it would be to the detriment of the officers involved to enter the residence in other than hasty fashion. The officers arriving on the scene did so with drawn weapons.
The learned trial judge held that the above facts demonstrated the existence of “exigent circumstances” which justified the entry into the residence and the arrest of the individuals therein without the necessity of a warrant. The majority opinion today does not overturn those rulings of the trial judge. Hence, the constitutional protections afforded against warrantless arrests and search and seizure are not at issue here. Rather obviously, the trial judge felt that the warrantless entry and subsequent arrests were not “unreasonable” in a constitutional dimension. Hence, in my opinion, the discussions of the majority relating to constitutional protections and the authorities cited therein, both state and federal, are irrelevant to the case at hand and constitute dicta.
Following the arrest of those persons who had left the Rauch residence, the officer in charge of the operation testified that he immediately entered the house. No force or violence accompanied his entry. However, it is clear that he did not knock, ring a doorbell, or otherwise indicate his presence. Neither did he identify himself or state the purpose for requesting admittance into the house prior to his actual entry. Immediately after entry he identified himself as a state narcotics agent and stated he had probable cause to believe that controlled substances were in the house. Rauch and nine other persons were in the house at that time and were immediately placed under arrest. In plain view was the previously observed black bag, which was on the floor, opened, and which contained in plain view “one or two kilos, bricks, of what appeared to be marijuana.” It is uncontroverted that no search of the house as such took place at that time. A search warrant arrived approximately one and one-half hours later and thereafter a search of the premises took place.
The narrow and only question presented in this case is whether Idaho’s “knock and announce” statutes, I.C. §§ 19-611,19-4409, require the suppression of the evidence when, under the uncontroverted facts and circumstances presented here, the officers failed to knock or otherwise indicate their presence at the door and identify themselves and state the purpose of their demand for admittance.
The trial judge held that “the time involved in compliance with the knock and announce statutes is a few minutes at most.” He held that the beliefs of the officers regarding the possible destruction of evidence or their fears for their own safety “which would preclude taking the few minutes required to comply with the knock and announce statute had to be based on sheer speculation.” ■ I find it difficult, indeed impossible, to find that the then existent facts constituted “exigent circumstances” which justified the warrantless entry and the warrantless arrests otherwise prohibited by both the state and federal constitutions, but did not constitute “exigent circumstances” excusing non-compliance with statutory requirements.
Here the officers “through excellent police work” had ascertained that the occupants of the Rauch residence were dealing in narcotics and indeed that the residence was probably the center of a large scale *596illegal narcotic activity. The officers testified that their experience in police work led them to believe that the “buy” money and other evidence would be destroyed if there was any delay in entering the Rauch residence. The officers further testified that all of the commotion and activity in front of the Rauch residence was probably being observed by anyone inside the residence. Rauch himself testified that prior to the entry of the officers he observed the arrest at gunpoint of two persons who had just exited the Rauch residence.
In my judgment, the ruling of the trial judge that the action of the officers was based on “sheer speculation” was erroneous and constituted the substitution of his judgment for those of the officers. As was said by the United States Supreme Court in an almost identical case, “[wjithout the benefit of hindsight and ordinarily on the spur of the moment, the officer must decide these questions in the first instance.” Ker v. California, 374 U.S. 23, 40, 83 S.Ct. 1623, 1633, 10 L.Ed.2d 726 (1963), quoting from People v. Maddox, 46 Cal.2d 301, 294 P.2d 6 (1956). I would hold that as exigent circumstances existed which validated the warrantless entry and warrantless arrest, so those same exigent circumstances and the reasonable beliefs of the police officers based on their experience in conducting drug raids and their knowledge of the facts and circumstances constituted exigent circumstances which validated their entry of the residence without compliance with the knock and announce statutes.
As above noted, the United States Supreme Court in Ker had for consideration circumstances remarkably similar to those presented in the case at bar. There the Court noted the narrow question presented as being in the context of a violation of California’s knock and announce statute. In Ker, the Court distinguished between the constitutional guarantees against unreasonable searches and seizures and arrests without the benefit of a warrant and the exceptions thereto as contrasted with the alleged violation of either a federal or a state statute requiring a knock and announce prior to entry. The Court stated, “nor has the Court rejected the proposition that noncompliance may be reasonable in exigent circumstances subsequent to Miller. In Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963), the Court held that federal officers had not complied with § 3109 in executing an arrest. There the Court noted that in Miller it had reserved the question of an exception in exigent circumstances and stated that ‘[hjere, as in Miller, the Government claims no extraordinary circumstances — such as the imminent destruction of vital evidence, or the need to rescue a victim in peril — . . . which •excused the officer’s failure truthfully to state his mission before he broke in.’ ”
In Ker, the U. S. Supreme Court cited with approval the decision of the California court in People v. Maddox, 46 Cal.2d 301, 294 P.2d 6 (1956), and quoted extensively from the opinion of Justice Traynor. Justice Traynor, in Maddox, stated:
It must be borne in mind that the primary purpose of the constitutional guarantees is to prevent unreasonable invasions of the security of the people in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, and when an officer has reasonable cause to enter a dwelling to make an arrest and as an incident to that arrest is authorized to make a reasonable search, his entry and his search are not unreasonable. Suspects have no constitutional right to destroy or dispose of evidence, and no basic constitutional guarantees are violated because an officer succeeds in getting to a place where he is entitled to be more quickly than he would, had he complied with section 844. Moreover, since the demand and explanation requirements of section 844 are a codification of the common law, they may reasonably be interpreted as limited by the common law rules that compliance is not required if the officer’s peril would have been increased or the arrest frustrated had he demanded entrance and stated his purpose. [Citations omitted.] Without the benefit of hindsight and ordinarily on the spur of the moment, the officer must decide these questions in the first in*597stance. * * * We conclude therefore that when there is reasonable cause to make an arrest and search and the facts known to him before his entry are not inconsistent with a good faith belief on the part of the officer that compliance with section 844 is excused, his failure to comply with the formal requirements of that section does not justify the exclusion of the evidence he obtains.
Id., 294 P.2d at 9.
See also State v. Wilson, 9 Wash.App. 909, 515 P.2d 832 (1973), State v. Vance, 7 Or.App. 566, 492 P.2d 493 (1972).
I see no reason and, in my judgment, no valid rationale is furnished in the majority opinion to require the operation of the exclusionary rule to evidence obtained under the instant circumstances. As stated in Maddox, “in this proceeding we are not concerned with whether or not the officer’s failure to do so would have justified defendant in using force to protect his person or property, or whether or not a jury in a trespass action might conclude that reasonable cause for the officer’s failure to comply with the demand that explanation requirement did not exist. Moreover, since the officer’s right to invade defendant’s privacy clearly appears, there is no compelling need for strict compliance with the requirements of section 844 [knock and announce] to protect basic constitutional guarantees.”
The exclusionary rule requiring the quashing of evidence procured in violation of constitutional guarantees relating to arrests or search and seizure is based on the alleged need to discipline and reform the actions of law enforcement personnel. The confusion and controversy arising from such exclusionary rule continues to rage and I doubt that such has as yet been finally resolved. Nevertheless, even as to constitutional guarantees, there have been careful exceptions carved out of the rule relating to exigent circumstances and probable cause to validate otherwise non-compliance with the literal constitutional language. I find no valid basis for failing to carve like exceptions relating to exigent circumstances and probable cause in situations involving actions not in compliance with the literal language of our knock and announce statutes. In my opinion, there is substantial and uncontroverted evidence in the record indicating the existence of exigent circumstances excusing the otherwise non-conformance of the officers here with our knock and announce statutes. Conversely, I find no evidence substantiating the trial judge’s ruling that the officer’s action here was based on sheer speculation and, therefore, would reverse his order suppressing the evidence.
McFADDEN, J., concurs.