Court Opinion

ID: 9460672
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:57:22.392199+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:43.807284
License: Public Domain

ALFRED T. GOODWIN, Circuit Judge
(concurring in part and dissenting in part):
I concur in the first part of the majority’s opinion, which holds that an entry obtained by means of a ruse such as the one employed here does not violate 18 U.S.C. § 3109. However, I dissent from that portion of the majority’s opinion which holds that, because the agents lacked probable cause to believe that Phillips was in his own office building at the time of the raid, the entry and subsequent arrest must be invalidated.
I agree with the majority that before an officer can execute an arrest, with or without a warrant, at the residence of a third party, the officer must have reason to believe that the person named in the warrant is present in the third party’s residence. I do not, however, agree that when the police have probable cause or a warrant to arrest a person, they cannot enter the suspect’s own building to arrest him merely because they do not know, but only think, that he is inside.
Courts have properly denounced the police practice of searching from house to house until they find a suspect. Typically, it has been in the context of invasions of the property of those other than the arrestee that courts have spoken of the requirement that arresting officers must have probable cause to believe that the arrestee is on that property before they can enter to effect an arrest. See, e. g., United States v. Brown, 151 U.S.App.D.C. 365, 467 F.2d 419, 423 (D.C.Cir. 1972); United States v. McKinney, 379 F.2d 259, 262-263 (6th Cir. 1967); Lankford v. Gelston, 364 F.2d 197, 201-204 (4th Cir. 1966); Restatement (Second) of Torts § 204 (1965). Certainly, entering the property of a third party is quite different from entering the office building of the arrestee himself. The affront to the rights of an innocent party is far greater in the former case.
The majority relies heavily upon the opinion of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in Dorman v. United States, 140 U.S.App.D.C. 313, 435 F.2d 385 (1970). However, as the majority points out, the court there conceded that, though the police had no special knowledge that the suspect was at home, “concepts of probable cause and reasonableness prima facie justify looking for a man at home after 10 p. m.” 435 F.2d at 393. Looking at all the probabilities here, I should think that they would preponderate in favor of *1137Phillips’ being in his building where the action was, rather than at home or somewhere else. all
The majority concludes by observing that a contrary result here would be “to grant the agent a license to go from house to house employing ruse entries in violation of the right of privacy of the respective occupants.” I do not understand how sustaining the arrest in this case could spawn such progeny. The agents were not going from house to house searching for Phillips; rather, they went directly to his own office building, which had been the focus of their investigation, and at which they knew narcotics transactions had recently taken place. No other person’s privacy was remotely endangered.
I would affirm the judgment of conviction.