Court Opinion

ID: 9466401
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:14:43.536159+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:42.718169
License: Public Domain

EDWARDS, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
Defendant-appellant appeals from a conviction and sentence in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, Southern Division, on a charge of violating 21 U.S.C. §, 841(a)(1) (1976). Defendant was found guilty by a jury of possession with intent to distribute cocaine and was sentenced to the custody of the Attorney General for a period of five years, to be followed by a three-year special parole term, as required by the statute. The case is back before this court after having been remanded for additional findings and testimony, if necessary, relative to defendant’s motion to suppress evidence, namely, the cocaine found in a suitcase in the motel room he was occupying on the day of his arrest.
The total facts in this case are quite complicated and have been fully stated by my brethren. They apparently involve an excellent piece of police investigation on the part of Drug Enforcement Agents both in Pittsburgh and Detroit. The investigation unfortunately is claimed to have ended in an illegal search and seizure.
The facts which apply directly to what appear to me to be the primary issues in this appeal can be quite simply stated. DEA agents in Detroit were called from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania during the early morning of September 20, 1977. The Pittsburgh DEA agents advised that several people with whom a man known only as “Artie” had been involved in drug trafficking had just been arrested in Pittsburgh on charges of selling narcotics. The Detroit DEA agents were also informed that an arrest warrant for “Artie” was “authorized” and would be “issued” at 9:00 a. m. the following morning. During the course of the drug transactions in Pittsburgh, one of the drug sellers had placed a telephone call to “Artie” in Room 229 of the Compton Village Motor Hotel in Livonia, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit.
At 7:00 a. m. on September 20, 1977, four DEA agents assembled at the Compton Village Motor Hotel for the purpose of arresting a man known to them only as “Artie” if they could locate him. The agents learned from the motel desk that an A. Montano, from Tampa, Florida, was registered in *152Room 229 and that he was accompanied by two or three adults. The agents proceeded to Room 229, knocked on the door, which was opened with a security chain in place. One of the agents recognized the person at the door as a man he had seen in Pittsburgh apparently engaged in drug transactions there and asked him, “Are you Artie?” — or, simply, “Artie?” — receiving an affirmative answer. At that point, according to undisputed testimony, the agents forced their way into the room by pushing on the door, ripping the door chain off the loose door molding, without previously announcing their identity or purpose, as required by 18 U.S.C. § 3109 (1976).1
It is clear to this court that although § 3109 is phrased in terms of entry made to execute search warrants, the section has been held to apply equally to forcible entries to domiciles by federal officers made with or without a warrant. Sabbath v. United States, 391 U.S. 585, 88 S.Ct. 1755, 20 L.Ed.2d 828 (1968); United States v. Murrie, 534 F.2d 695 (6th Cir. 1976). It is also clear that although the officers who broke into Room 229 in this motel may have had probable cause to believe that “Artie” had been party to a drug transaction in Pittsburgh, the grounds for their belief had not been presented to any judge or magistrate in an application for either an arrest or search warrant as required by the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.2
As I see this case, the first deficiency is the lack of any warrant (search or arrest) which would serve as authority for entry into the domicile occupied by appellant. No effort was made in either Pittsburgh or Detroit to procure such a warrant, as far as this record discloses. The case must therefore be treated initially as simply a warrantless entry into a domicile by force. As such, the entry and search is prohibited by the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. This court has recently spelled out the legal history of that amendment and its application to a forcible entry into a motel room. United States v. Killebrew, 560 F.2d 729 (6th Cir. 1977).
We recognize that this issue was not squarely raised by appellant’s counsel in the District Court.3 However the abuse of a fundamental constitutional right is subject to review in spite of such failure unless it results from a willful by-pass which is clearly not involved here: See Kaufman v. United States, 394 U.S. 217, 89 S.Ct. 1068, 22 L.Ed.2d 227 (1969). I believe the conviction must be vacated on Fourth Amendment grounds alone. See generally: Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616, 6 S.Ct. 524, 29 L.Ed. 746 (1886); Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U.S. 25, 69 S.Ct. 1359, 93 L.Ed. 1782 (1949); Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 81 S.Ct. 1684, 6 L.Ed.2d 1081 (1961); Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 89 S.Ct. 2034, 23 L.Ed.2d 685, rehearing denied 396 U.S. 869, 90 S.Ct. 36, 24 L.Ed.2d 124 (1969).
More specifically in point see United States v. Killebrew, 560 F.2d 729 (6th Cir. 1977); United States v. Reed, 572 F.2d 412 (2d Cir.), cert. denied sub nom. Goldsmith v. United States, 439 U.S. 913, 99 S.Ct. 283, 58 L.Ed.2d 259 (1978); Dorman v. United States, 140 U.S.App.D.C. 313, 435 F.2d 385 (D.C. Cir. 1970) (en banc).
Turning now to the 18 U.S.C. § 3109 issue concerning failure of the DEA agents to announce their purpose and authority before entering, we find two Supreme Court *153cases directly applicable to the situation with which we deal. They are Sabbath v. United States, 391 U.S. 585, 88 S.Ct. 1755, 20 L.Ed.2d 828 (1968) and Miller v. United States, 357 U.S. 301, 78 S.Ct. 1190, 2 L.Ed.2d 1332 (1958). In Sabbath the Supreme Court said:
And it has been held that § 3109 applies to entries effected by the use of a passkey, which requires no more force than does the turning of a doorknob. An unannounced intrusion into a dwelling— what § 3109 basically proscribes — is no less an unannounced intrusion whether officers break down a door, force open a chain lock on a partially open door, open a locked door by use of a passkey, or, as here, open a closed but unlocked door. The protection afforded by, and the values inherent in, § 3109 must be “governed by something more than the fortuitous circumstance of an unlocked door.” Keiningham v. United States, 109 U.S. App.D.C. 272, 276, 287 F.2d 126, 130 (1960).
Id. 391 U.S. at 590, 88 S.Ct. at 1759 (footnotes omitted).
In Miller v. United States the Supreme Court opinion said:
Whatever the circumstances under which breaking a door to arrest for felony might be lawful, however, the breaking was unlawful where the officer failed first to state his authority and purpose for demanding admission. The requirement was pronounced in 1603 in Semayne’s Case, 5 [Coke] Co. Rep. 91a, 11 E.R.C. 629, 77 Eng.Repr. 194 at 195: “In all cases where the King is party, the sheriff (if the doors be not open) may break the party’s house, either to arrest him, or to do other execution of the K[ing]’s process, if otherwise he cannot enter. But before he breaks it, he ought to signify the cause of his coming, and to make request to open doors . . . .” (Emphasis supplied.)
The requirement stated in Semayne’s Case still obtains. It is reflected in 18 U.S.C. § 3109, [18 U.S.C.A. § 3109] in the statutes of a large number of States, and in the American Law Institute’s proposed Code of Criminal Procedure, § 28. It applies, as the Government here concedes, whether the arrest is to be made by virtue of a warrant, or when officers are authorized to make an arrest for a felony without a warrant. There are some state decisions holding that justification for noncompliance exists in exigent circumstances, as, for example, when the officers may in good faith believe that they or someone within are in peril of bodily harm, Read v. Case, 4 .Conn. 166, or that the person to be arrested is fleeing or attempting to destroy evidence. People v. Maddox, 46 Cal.2d 301, 294 P.2d 6.
Miller v. United States, supra, 357 U.S. at 308-09, 78 S.Ct. at 1195-1196 (footnotes omitted).
While the government does not dispute these precedents, it does argue that exigent circumstances excused the breaking and entering without warrant or notice of authority and purpose.
We note that the District Judge did find exigent circumstances in “the suspect’s pri- or felony conviction . . . for a violent crime,, i. e. kidnapping” and the fact that this “was a motel room not a home” and the fact that “the total property damage consisted of a strip of molding being torn off the door.” We do not think the last two of these findings of fact serve in any way to excuse this warrantless entry without compliance with § 3109.
Our major consideration has been the question as to whether or not the officers who approached Room 229 were in such hazard as to excuse failure to apply for a search warrant, and failure to notify the occupants of their authority and purpose.
It is clear to me that DEA agents on the morning concerned had a duty to ascertain whether “Artie” was in that motel room and if so, to arrest him if they could do so legally. This could have been accomplished by staking out the premises and simultaneously seeking an arrest or search warrant. There is no proof in this record that Montano was armed or made any resistance. He would have had to close the door *154in order to remove the chain. I do not reach the question of search of the suitcase since I believe the agents entry into the room was itself unlawful and unconstitutional. The admission of the cocaine seized in the room, which is the basis of this prosecution, was error which requires the vacation of the judgment of the District Court as ordered in the opinion of my Brother Peck.
I observe that prosecution of Montano for the narcotics transaction in Pittsburgh, which triggered this arrest, is not in anywise affected by this decision.

. § 3109. Breaking doors or windows for entry or exit
The officer may break open any outer or inner door or window of a house, or any part of a house, or anything therein, to execute a search warrant, if, after notice of his authority and purpose, he is refused admittance or when necessary to liberate himself or a person aiding him in the execution of the warrant.

. The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

. Originally appellant’s motion to suppress was based upon a Michigan statute which paralleled 18 U.S.C. § 3109.