Court Opinion

ID: 9700442
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 21:29:01.410876+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:09.314172
License: Public Domain

TOMLJANOVICH, Justice,
dissenting.
“[I]n Fourth Amendment cases, courts define the scope of protection from unreasonable searches and seizures by asking whether a person has a ‘reasonable expectation of privacy’ in the searched premises.” State by Beaulieu v. City of Mounds View, 518 N.W.2d 567, 577 n. 1 (Minn.1994). If there is any place in the world we should feel secure and have an expectation of privacy, it is in our own homes. Today, the majority has made us less secure in those homes without enhancing public safety.
I believe, as do the majority of thinking people, that drunk driving is a very serious offense. I agree that drunk drivers should be removed from the public highways because their actions are intolerable. But it is more intolerable to allow a police officer, who watches an obviously intoxicated person get into his vehicle and drive off, imperiling the safety of the motoring public, to then imperil the security of that person in his own home in the name of public safety. I respectfully dissent.
I would hold that even with hot pursuit and exigent circumstances a warrantless entry into a home for a misdemeanor offense is unreasonable. We have noted in similar cases that neither our state nor federal courts have ever held that exigent circumstances would “permit a warrantless entry into a home to arrest for an offense of lesser *269magnitude than a felony.” State v. Othoudt, 482 N.W.2d 218 (Minn.1992).
Peter Dean Paul was arrested in his home by Officer Gunderson who witnessed what he believed to be intoxicated behavior on the part of Paul in a local auto parts store. Gunderson testified that Paul’s eyes were glassy, his balance was unstable, his speech was slurred, and he smelled of alcohol. Gun-derson however, did not detain or stop Paul when he climbed into his truck to drive away. Gunderson waited until after Paul left the parking lot of the store before following him in his squad car. He followed Paul over a half mile and witnessed Paul roll through two stop signs, travel very fast on a highway and fishtail on the road. Paul exited the highway and headed down a residential street to his home. Paul continued for two more blocks and pulled into a driveway in front of a residence, Gunderson then pulled in “bumper to bumper” with Paul’s vehicle so the car would not be able to leave the driveway.
The record does not reflect that Gunder-son tried to stop Paul before he left the parking lot; nor does it indicate that he tried to pull him over when he entered the public roadway. The officer’s behavior prior to knocking on the front door of Paul’s home was at best “lukewarm pursuit” of a person suspected of DWI and traffic violations; all misdemeanors. Officer Gunderson did not identify his purpose and did not place Paul under arrest until Paul was in his home and Officer Gunderson had entered that‘home without warrant, emergency or exigent circumstance.
Paul was not in his car, he was in his home. Public safety would not have been compromised if the arrest had been delayed until the officer could have secured a warrant. The majority argues that hot pursuit, “the need to preserve evidence” and the statute gave the officer the right to enter the home. Presumably the evidence to be preserved related to a blood or breath test to measure the alcohol in Paul’s blood. But DWI arrests were made and convictions were obtained before blood or breath tests were routinely used. The results of thé breath test would make it easier to obtain a conviction, but if the officer was credible, as he apparently was, his observations would have been sufficient to merit a conviction. Ease of obtaining a conviction should not be enough to permit a warrantless entry into a home to effectuate a misdemeanor arrest.
The Minnesota Constitution is clear on unreasonable searches and seizures. Minn. Const, art. I, § 10. Our laws have provided for limited entry under warrant, consent, emergency or exigent circumstances when a felony is involved. We should not stretch that limitation to break the promise of the constitutional rights of our citizens to be secure in their homes. The majority would have us bend the constitutional promise to include warrantless entry into a person’s home for gross misdemeanor and misdemeanor offenses where exigent circumstances exist. The framers of the Fourth Amendment incorporated the warrant requirement into it, “reflecting their conviction that the decision to enter a dwelling should not rest with the officer in the field, but rather with a detached, and disinterested Magistrate.” Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 582 n. 17, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 1377 n. 17, 63 L.Ed.2d 639 (1980). What the majority does today is allow an officer in the field to make the determination for warrantless entry into a private dwelling. It is here that I disagree. The majority would impugn the intelligence of our police officers by telling us that the officers cannot know whether an offense is a felony or misdemeanor before entering a home. Police officers know the law; they know whether they have a felony or misdemeanor on their hands.
While the majority claims to maintain the sanctity of the home, it would reduce our rights to that sanctity by allowing an officer with exigent circumstances, based on his/her experience and opinion, not the opinion of a neutral magistrate, to enter a citizen’s home without a warrant to arrest a suspect for a misdemeanor or gross misdemeanor.
Over 200 years ago, the Earl of Chatham, William Pitt, spoke before the House of Commons in protest of unreasonable searches and seizures within the confines of a private dwelling. He said: “The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown. It may be frail; its roof may *270shake; the wind may blow through it; the storm may enter; the rain may enter; but the King of England cannot enter — all his forces dares not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement!” Miller v. United States, 357 U.S. 301, 307, 78 S.Ct. 1190, 1195, 2 L.Ed.2d 1332 (1958) (citing William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, in his address to the House of Commons in England in 1763, regarding searches of private dwellings incident to enforcement of an excise tax on cider). Our forefathers believed as passionately in the sanctity of the home as do I. They drafted the Fourth Amendment to deny federal law enforcement such intrusive entry and the Fourteenth Amendment extended that restriction to state law enforcement personnel as well. Our own Minnesota Constitution echoes those same tenets and we should not now decide that the Crown may enter with the storm!
GARDEBRING, Justice,
dissenting.
I join in the dissent of Justice Tomljano-vich.
PAGE, Justice,
dissenting.
I join in the dissent of Justice Tomljano-vich.