Court Opinion

ID: 9735318
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 18:08:55.115847+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:57.197268
License: Public Domain

*824JANINE P. GESKE, J.
(dissenting). I dissent from that portion of the majority opinion which concludes that the warrantless search of Johnston's home and the seizure of the evidence found in his home do not violate his fourth amendment rights. The basis for the majority's conclusion is that the consent for entry given to undercover officers somehow also extended to uniformed police, who made a subsequent entry into Johnston's home. I disagree and conclude that the consent to enter Johnston's home, obtained by undercover police using a ruse, did not extend to a distinctly separate and warrantless entry by uniformed officers, without some exception to the warrant rule. For example, exigent circumstances or actual consent by Johnston would have authorized such an entry. However, the majority has failed to show that any exception was present.
Warrantless entries by law enforcement officials into the privacy of one's home have been sanctioned in only " 'a few specifically established and well-delineated' situations." Vale v. Louisiana, 399 U.S. 30, 34 (1970) (quoting Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 357 (1967)). One such exception is the presence of exigent circumstances,1 which may include an emergency situation at a residence, a belief that evidence is being destroyed or removed from the jurisdiction, or a situation where officials are in hot pursuit of a felon.
No exigent circumstances existed at the Johnston residence to justify the warrantless entry by the uniformed police. The beer party was just getting underway when undercover officials gained access; the *825number of people present increased from fifteen or twenty to approximately fifty. Additionally, all of the paraphernalia associated with the serving of beer, including the kegs, cups, and money from alleged sales, was not in danger of being destroyed. Finally, the police officer in charge of the investigation testified that several days prior to the party, he received a tip that underage drinking parties previously had occurred at the Johnston home. On the night of the party at issue, the undercover officers arrived at the Johnston home around 6:30 p.m. They were told by Johnston himself that they should return in an hour when the beer would be set up and available in the basement. This information certainly could have served as a basis for a search warrant request.
Another exception to the warrant requirement is consent. Consent searches often serve as a means to investigate suspected criminal behavior, especially when probable cause may be lacking to provide the foundation for a warrant. See 1 Wayne R. LaFave & Jerold H. Israel, Criminal Procedure sec. 3.10 at 340 (1984). The issue as to whether a consent to search results from the consenting party's voluntary action or whether the waiver of a constitutional right is implicated was addressed in Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218, 248-49 (1973), wherein the United States Supreme Court held:
IWjhen the subject of a search is not in custody and the State attempts to justify a search on the basis of his consent, the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments require that it demonstrate that the consent was in fact voluntarily given, and not the result of duress or coercion, express or implied. Voluntariness is a question of fact to be determined from all the circumstances, and while the subject's knowl*826edge of a right to refuse is a factor to be taken into account, the prosecution is not required to demonstrate such knowledge as a prerequisite to establishing voluntary consent.
The subjects of the search in Schneckloth were approached by uniformed police. The consent in that situation differed significantly from what occurred in the present case. Johnston was not aware of the true identity of the undercover officers. Rather, he gave the undercover group permission to enter his home based upon the fact that the civilian agent in the group was an acquaintance of his brother. It was at the point of the second entry by uniformed police, not the first by the undercover officers, that Johnston's fourth amendment rights were implicated.
The majority relies upon the cases of Lewis v. United States, 385 U.S. 206 (1966), and United States v. Scherer, 673 F.2d 176 (7th Cir. 1982), for the proposition that "[a] government agent may obtain an invitation onto property by misrepresenting his identity, and if invited, does not need probable cause nor warrant to enter so long as he does not exceed the scope of his invitation." Scherer, 673 F.2d at 182. This is true, as it applies only to the undercover officers who were given permission by Johnston to enter his home, and who did not expand their search of the premises beyond the locus of the beer party.2
*827However, the consent for entry did not extend to the uniformed police officers. Even if Johnston's expectation of privacy "could be unknowingly waived by the presence of an undercover officer, this cannot realistically be construed as a waiver of expectations of privacy as to 'a class of persons whose very existence is unknown' to [him]." State v. Dugger, 12 Wash. App. 74, 79, 528 P.2d 274, 276-77 (1974) (quoting State v. Darroch, 8 Or. App. 32, 39, 492 P.2d 308, 311 (1971) (Fort, J., dissenting)). Therefore, I disagree with the majority's reliance on United States v. Paul, 808 F.2d 645 (7th Cir. 1986), because it is used to create a second consent where only one was given. In Paul, a confidential informant for federal drug authorities arranged to *828buy a bale of marijuana from the defendant. The informant was to gain access to Paul's home and, when he saw the marijuana, send an electronic signal to the federal agents waiting outside the home. When the sale transpired, the signal was sent, and the agents entered the home. The federal agents, however, testified that they did not request a warrant becaüse (a) until the informant signaled them, they did not have probable cause to believe marijuana was in the house, and (b) they could not satisfy the warrant particularity requirement, since they were not sure which building on Paul's farm would be the locus of the drug sale. The Seventh Circuit concluded that the officers already possessed enough detailed information about Paul to obtain a warrant. Additionally, they did not have to execute the warrant unless or until the drug sale occurred. The decision chides the government for its failure to obtain a warrant in this case and concludes that the search did not fall within the emergency exception under Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573 (1980). Instead, the court creatively authorized the entry on an alternative ground of consent — "consent once removed" — and held that once the undercover informant was granted permission to enter Paul's home and saw the marijuana, the consent extended to the federal agents who entered, arrested. Paul and seized the drugs.3
*829The majority has failed to articulate the exception to the warrant requirement on which it relies. On the one hand, the majority states that Johnston consented to the entry of the uniformed police when he consented to the entry of the undercover agents. However, the consent to the agents, who used a ruse, extended only to them. Johnston still maintained an expectation of privacy as to anyone else who wished to enter his home.
Further, the majority also attempts to apply the exception of exigent circumstances when it states that the uniformed police entered Johnston's home only to provide assistance or backup. However, there were no exigent circumstances. The undercover agents did not face a perilous situation in the Johnston basement nor was any of the evidence which the undercover agents themselves could have seized in danger of being destroyed.
The second round of officers entered Johnston's home without a warrant. The state failed to establish an exception to the warrant requirement. For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.
*830I am authorized to state that Chief Justice Nathan S. HEFFERNAN and Justice SHIRLEY S. Abrahamson join this dissenting opinion.

 See also Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443, 474-75 (1971) (a warrantless search of one's home is per se unreasonable absent a carefully defined exception based on the presence of exigent circumstances).

 In its opinion, the majority quotes the court of appeals as saying:
A general principle in Wisconsin is that additional officers may enter an individual's home after one officer has been legally admitted provided that they do not expand the scope or intensity of the search.
State v. Johnston, 178 Wis. 2d 20, 32, 503 N.W.2d 346 (Ct. App. 1993) (citing State v. Pires, 55 Wis. 2d 597, 604-05, 201 N.W.2d *827153 (1972)). However, I do not believe that Pires stands for that proposition. In Pires, the defendant's husband called for a police ambulance, stating that his infant child was dead and his wife was having a nervous breakdown. The ambulance took Pires, his wife, and infant to the hospital. No items from the home were removed by the police at that time, and Pires gave no one else permission to enter. Id. at 600-01. When the police arrived, in response to a radio dispatch, they found no one at home. Finding the back door unlocked, they entered and searched for the victims. Later, after learning that the defendant and infant were in the hospital, apparent victims of a drug overdose, the police returned to the home and searched for inculpatory evidence. Id.
The first entry by the police was justifiable under the exigent circumstances exception to the warrant requirement. However, the second entry could not be justified because
[a]fter the officers had determined no one was present, victim or otherwise, the application of the 'emergency rationale' terminated. Any further search beyond this point, unless further steps are taken to independently satisfy constitutional mandates, is unconstitutional.
Id. at 606-07.

 Support for this concept was drawn from United States v. Janik, 723 F.2d 537 (7th Cir. 1983). The Paul court states the Janik holding as the following:
[W]hen one invites an undercover agent into his house, the agent can summon other agents to assist in the arrest, and the other agents are not guilty of a violation of the Fourth Amendment.
Paul, 808 F.2d at 648. Interestingly, an examination of the Janik decision reveals that no such holding was stated. Janik, a *829deputy sheriff in Cook County, Illinois, told a friend, Heidemann, about a submachine gun he had purchased from a known burglar. Janik knew that Heidemann was a Chicago police officer when he invited Heidemann into his home to see the gun. However, at that point Janik was unaware that Heidemann was working with federal agents regarding this unregistered weapon.
The Janik court stated that
[a] guest who stays within the part of the premises to which he is invited does not invade his host's privacy. . . . [Arresting officers [may] seize things in plain view without either a warrant or a justification for not having one. . . . The fact that Heidemann got help from other officers in removing the submachine gun can make no difference....
Janik, 723 F.2d at 548 (citations omitted).