Court Opinion

ID: 9514210
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 22:45:40.761366+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:06:13.841619
License: Public Domain

KAPSNER, Justice,
concurring.
[¶ 23] Justice Sandstrom’s reliance upon Maryland v. Buie, 494 U.S. 325, 110 S.Ct. 1093, 108 L.Ed.2d 276 (1990), as support for the “protective sweep” of the residence is misplaced. He fails to articulate the holding in Buie:
We conclude that the Fourth Amendment would permit the protective sweep undertaken here if the searching officer “possesse[d] a reasonable belief based on ‘specific and articulable facts which, taken together with the rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant[ed]’ the officer in believing,” that the area swept harbored an individual posing a danger to the officer or others.
Buie, 494 U.S. at 327, 110 S.Ct. 1093 (citations omitted).
[¶ 24] He notes that police might look in closets and other spaces immediately adjoining the area of arrest from which an attack might be launched, but fails to quote the remainder of the paragraph in Buie:
Beyond that, however, we hold that there must be articulable facts which, taken together with the rational inferences from those facts, would warrant a reasonably prudent officer in believing that the area to be swept harbors an individual posing a danger to those on the arrest scene.
Buie, 494 U.S. at 334,110 S.Ct. 1093.
[¶ 25] The Supreme Court in Buie also was cautionary that such searches are not automatic:
Moreover, it is decidedly not “automatic],” but may be conducted only when justified by a reasonable, articulable suspicion that the house is harboring a person posing a danger to those on the arrest scene.
Buie, 494 U.S. at 336,110 S.Ct. 1093.
[¶ 26] The facts in Buie were decidedly different. Police were on the premises with an arrest warrant for an armed robbery suspect. There are no specific and articulable facts demonstrated in this record that the residence harbored an individual dangerous to the officers. Authorizing the search under the circumstances in this case would indeed make “protective sweeps” automatic.
[¶ 27] CAROL RONNING KAPSNER