Court Opinion

ID: 9498038
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:06:40.737431+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:58:34.949511
License: Public Domain

HEANEY, Circuit Judge,
with whom MORRIS SHEPPARD ARNOLD, BYE, and SMITH, Circuit Judges, join, dissenting.
I respectfully dissent, primarily for the reasons so eloquently stated in the panel majority opinion, authored by Judge Richard S. Arnold. See Doran v. Eckold, 362 F.3d 1047 (8th Cir.2004). In that opinion, Judge Arnold fully considered appellants’ argument that the district court erred when it ruled as a matter of law that exigent circumstances did not justify the no-knock entry into the Dorans’ home. Recognizing the significance that the Supreme Court has placed upon the Fourth Amendment right to privacy in one’s home, he concluded that:
“the police should be required to make [a showing of exigency] whenever the reasonableness of a no-knock entry is challenged.” The burden of proving exigency “is not high.” Even so, there is some flesh to the burden, and we do not think the police sufficiently demonstrated that exigent circumstances existed to justify their “dynamic entry” into the Doran home.
Id. at 1051 (alteration in original) (citations omitted) (quoting Richards v. Wisconsin, 520 U.S. 385, 117 S.Ct. 1416, 137 L.Ed.2d 615 (1997)). I believed Judge Arnold was right then, and continue to believe so now.
*968The en banc majority holds that Sergeant Eric Greenwell and Officer Ty Grant acted reasonably in concluding that exigent circumstances justified their no-knock entry into the Dorans’ home. According to the record,7 their entry was based on a pre-search briefing, a conversation with Detective Wesley Williamson, and their independent review of the search warrant and affidavit. This investigation made clear that the information that appellants now contend justified the no-knock entry was based on an anonymous tip from a person with no previous record of reliability. The tipster alleged that Doran was making methamphetamine, as well as dealing methamphetamine and crack cocaine all day in face-to-face transactions from the front door of his house. The tipster asserted that Doran’s son, who lived at the house, had recently been arrested for possession of a sawed-off shotgun. Despite the obvious ease with which officers could have confirmed whether the allegations in the tip were true, there was an utter failure to do so. There is no evidence in the record that any officer checked the Doran family’s criminal history to see whether they had dealt controlled substances in the past or had a history of violent acts. There is no evidence any officer checked the younger Doran’s arrest history to see if the anonymous tip was accurate regarding the sawed-off shotgun. There is no evidence that any officer verified whether the younger Doran, in his mid-twenties at the time of the search, lived at the house. There is no evidence that officers observed any drug traffic at the Doran residence. There is no evidence that any officer engaged in a controlled buy at the residence. And, importantly, there is no evidence that any officer observed anything that would point to the existence of a methamphetamine lab. As Judge Arnold put it,
Here, the police supported their safety concern by pointing to the following evidence: an anonymous, uncorroborated tip that the Dorans were buying and making methamphetamine; the uncorroborated statement that the younger Mr. Doran had been arrested for illegal firearm possession; the uncorroborated statement that there were guns in the house; and drug residue in a trash bag outside the home. Thus, there was almost no certainty to most of the information the police reportedly “knew.” Had the police done even some investigation or surveillance they would have had a better understanding of whether the Dorans posed a security risk justifying a no-knock entry. Instead, they relied on very sketchy information, a rebanee we find unreasonable, and outweighed by the privacy interest the Fourth Amendment is meant to protect.
Doran, 362 F.3d at 1053.
Before the en banc court, appellants argued that the anonymous tip was suffi*969ciently corroborated, directing us to four trash bags seized from outside the Dorans’ home.8 Inside these bags, according to Williamson, he found fifty sandwich bags with the corners cut, which he asserted was consistent with narcotics packaging. He also found methamphetamine residue on two plastic bags, a pill bottle, and three other pieces of plastic. Lastly, he observed a single empty box of cold medication, which contained pseudoephedrine.
As Judge Arnold noted in the panel decision, although officers may have suspected (based on an anonymous tip) that Doran was involved in the manufacture of methamphetamine, “the police did no corroborating investigation to show that the Dorans were either selling or making methamphetamine. While [appellants] point to the trash test, such evidence, at best, points to use, and certainly does not demonstrate any of the potential concerns raised by an alleged meth lab, which might, if properly developed, justify disregarding the knock-and-announce rule.” Doran, 362 F.3d at 1052 n. 3. Even if the contents of the trash bag may have suggested that Doran was selling methamphetamine, there was no evidence whatsoever that Doran was currently operating an active methamphetamine lab. Our cases have gone to great lengths to detail the type of evidence linked to the existence of an active lab. See, e.g., United States v. Lloyd, 396 F.3d 948, 954 (8th Cir.2005) (noting that the strong smell of ether is indicative of an active methamphetamine lab); United States v. Dishman, 377 F.3d 809, 810 (8th Cir.2004) (identifying cans of Coleman fuel and anhydrous ammonia as precursor products to the manufacture of methamphetamine); Kleinholz v. United States, 339 F.3d 674, 677 (8th Cir.2003) (associating the intense smell of ether with an active methamphetamine lab); United States v. Francis, 327 F.3d 729, 732 n. 7 (8th Cir.2003) (noting that items seized in clean up of methamphetamine lab “included coffee filters stained with red phosphorous, juice jars with coffee filters, a 1,000 ml Pyrex flask, a bottle of hydrochloric acid, another 1,000 ml flask half full with a liquid, a bottle of Vitablend, a triple-neck Pyrex beaker containing actively-reacting liquids, a large plastic baggie that contained coffee filters with red stains, miscellaneous tubing and hoses, a bottle of PH paper, empty Mason jars, muriatic acid, laboratory funnels, multiple 500 ml Pyrex flasks, miscellaneous funnels, Pyrex measuring material, acetone, and other chemical containers”); Walsh, 299 F.3d at 734 (“Here, the strong smell of ether and the equipment and residue found in the carport suggested ongoing [methamphetamine] manufacture in the shed.”). In this case, there was no suggestion that anything in the trash pointed to an active methamphetamine lab in the Dorans’ home, that odors that typically emanate from active labs were evident, or that officers observed any of the attributes of a methamphetamine lab during their investigation.
In footnote 4 of its opinion, the majority cites a number of cases for the proposition that the suspicion of “harboring a clandestine methamphetamine lab ... has justified no-knock entries.” Ante at 966. A careful review of these cases makes clear that each of them involved the reasonable suspicion of an active methamphetamine lab. For instance, in United States v. *970Tucker, 313 F.3d 1259 (10th Cir.2002), whether the officers properly entered without first knocking was not even an issue on appeal; the case involved a nighttime search. Even so, the night-time search was permitted because officers had a reasonable suspicion, based on information including direct observations of the defendant’s recent purchases of methamphetamine precursors, that the defendant might be starting a methamphetamine cook. Id. at 1261, 1265-66. In United States v. Spinelli, 848 F.2d 26, 29-30 (2d Cir.1988), the defendant had a prior conviction for methamphetamine production, possessed a handgun during a prior arrest, and had a reputation for violence. Furthermore, “agents had observed activity ... during the previous few days that indicated that the manufacture of methamphetamine was ongoing.” Id. at 29. The two cases cited from our circuit, United States v. Keene, 915 F.2d 1164 (8th Cir.1990), and United States v. Walsh, 299 F.3d 729 (8th Cir.2002), are equally inapplicable. Keene involved direct observations of an active methamphetamine lab in the defendant’s basement. Keene, 915 F.2d at 1166-67. In Walsh, the information gleaned immediately prior to the execution of the warrant, such as “the strong smell of ether and the equipment and residue found in the carport area suggested ongoing [methamphetamine] manufacture in the shed.” Walsh, 299 F.3d at 734. These cases involved a reasonable suspicion of an active methamphetamine lab based on reliable information. The same cannot be said for Doran’s case.
I also take issue with the majority’s view that Greenwell and Grant cannot be liable for Doran’s severe injuries, because their decision to effect a “dynamic entry” was based on information provided by Williamson. The majority cites United States v. Hensley, 469 U.S. 221, 105 S.Ct. 675, 83 L.Ed.2d 604 (1985), in support of this proposition, yet ignores Hensley’s caution that the officers’ reliance on information provided by others must be reasonable, id. at 232-33, 105 S.Ct. 675. In Hensley, an officer from one jurisdiction performed an investigatory stop on the defendant based on a “wanted flyer” that had been issued by another jurisdiction. The question for review was “whether police officers could stop and briefly detain a person who is the subject of a ‘wanted flyer’ while they attempt to find out whether an arrest warrant has been issued.” Id. at 223, 105 S.Ct. 675. The Court determined that the reasonableness of such police conduct depends on the extent of the officers’ knowledge: “It is the objective reading of the flyer or bulletin that determines whether other police officers can defensibly act in reliance on it.” Id. at 232-33, 105 S.Ct. 675.9
Applying Hensley, it is obvious that Greenwell’s and Grant’s reliance on the information provided to them by Williamson prior to the search could not possibly insulate them from liability. The analogue for Hensley’s “wanted flyer” in this case is *971the search warrant and affidavit, and a briefing by Williamson. From this information, Greenwell and Grant knew the “facts” were largely uncorroborated and unreliable allegations from an anonymous informant, and did not answer the question of whether genuine exigencies permitted Greenwell and Grant to do away with the knock-and-announce rule. Moreover, Greenwell and Grant knew they did not have a magistrate’s permission to perform a no-knock search. No objective officer could have believed that, based on this information, a no-knock search was permissible.
The Supreme Court has consistently emphasized the importance of an officer’s duty to knock and announce his presence before forcing entry into a person’s home. In Wilson v. Arkansas, 514 U.S. 927, 929, 115 S.Ct. 1914, 131 L.Ed.2d 976 (1995), the Court held that the “common-law ‘knock and announce’ principle forms a part of the reasonableness inquiry under the Fourth Amendment.”10 It noted that an unannounced entry may be permissible if the government could show that there was a threat of violence or a risk that evidence would likely be destroyed if officers complied with the knock-and-announce rule. Id. at 935-36, 115 S.Ct. 1914. Neither showing was made here.
The knock-and-announce principles were revisited in Richards v. Wisconsin, 520 U.S. 385, 117 S.Ct. 1416, 137 L.Ed.2d 615 (1997), where the Court was faced with Wisconsin’s rule that officers are never required to knock and announce in felony drug investigations.11 Justice Stevens, writing for a unanimous court, recognized that felony drug investigations frequently involve the threat of violence and the possibility that evidence may be destroyed. Id. at 392 & n. 2, 117 S.Ct. 1416. Nonetheless, he concluded that blanket exceptions to the traditional knock-and-announce requirement could not be tolerated under the Fourth Amendment:
First, the exception contains considerable overgeneralization. For example, while drug investigation frequently does pose special risks to officer safety and the preservation of evidence, not every drug investigation will pose these risks to a substantial degree. For example, a search could be conducted at a time when the only individuals present in a residence have no connection with the drug activity and thus will be unlikely to threaten officers or destroy evidence. *972Or the police could know that the drugs being searched for were of a type or in a location that made them impossible to destroy quickly. In those situations, the asserted governmental interests in preserving evidence and maintaining safety may not outweigh the individual privacy interests intruded upon by a no-knock entry. Wisconsin’s blanket rule imper-missibly insulates these cases from judicial review.
A second difficulty with permitting a criminal-category exception to the knock-and-announce requirement is that the reasons for creating an exception in one category can, relatively easily, be applied to others. Armed bank robbers, for example, are, by definition, likely to have weapons, and the fruits of their crime may be destroyed without too much difficulty. If a per se exception were allowed for each category of criminal investigation that included a considerable-albeit hypothetical-risk of danger to officers or destruction of evidence, the knock-and-announce element of the Fourth Amendment’s reasonableness requirement would be meaningless.
Thus, the fact that felony drug investigations may frequently present circumstances warranting a no-knock entry cannot remove from the neutral scrutiny of a reviewing court the reasonableness of the police decision not to knock and announce in a particular case. Instead, in each case, it is the duty of the court confronted with the question to determine whether the facts and eircum-stances of the particular entry justified dispensing with the knock-and-announce requirement.
Id. at 393-94, 117 S.Ct. 1416 (footnote omitted).12
The majority clearly ignores the admonition in Richards to determine whether the facts and circumstances in this case justified excused compliance with the knock- and-announce rule. Id. It rather takes the position that a “dynamic entry” was permitted because of an anonymous tipster’s allegations that methamphetamine manufacture and sales were occurring at the Doran residence, and that the Dorans’ son had recently been arrested for possessing a prohibited weapon. In doing so, the majority has disregarded Richards, and, in effect, has created a “blanket exception” to the knock-and-announce requirement. Judge Arnold put it well in his opinion for the original panel:
Officer Grant testified that exigent circumstances existed because (a) there was a “safety factor” involved in raiding drug houses, (b) there were violent, armed people in drug houses, and (e) he assumed the existence of lethal fumes from the chemicals used to produce methamphetamine. While not directly stated, the implication behind his testimony is that the police feared for their safety because the Doran house was presumed to be a methamphetamine lab. This reasoning, if allowed, would lead to a per se exception to the knock-and-announce rule for methamphetamine *973labs. The Supreme Court has warned against such a result. The Fourth Amendment preserves the right of privacy one has in one’s home. To overcome that privacy exception, the police interest should be specific to the individual and the place, not generalized to a class of crime.
Doran, 362 F.3d at 1052 (citation and quotation omitted).
In addition to being inconsistent with the Supreme Court’s Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, the case before us is indistinguishable from United States v. Lucht, 18 F.3d 541 (8th Cir.1994). Lucht involved a large-scale drug conspiracy. One defendant, Kress, appealed the denial of his motion to suppress evidence seized during a search of his home. He argued that the executing officers acted improperly by not first knocking and announcing their presence before forcing entry. Prior to the search, Robert Frock, who was in charge of executing the search, was advised that the search was for a large amount of methamphetamine, and that “there was a likelihood weapons would be present.” Id. at 550. Frock was aware that Kress was a member of a motorcycle gang, and suspected “that Kress had anti-police sentiments.” Id. Frock supposed that the search would be dangerous because his team, the Emergency Response Unit (ERU), was being used. Id. Based on these facts, the government argued its agents were confronted with an exigency that relieved them of the requirement to knock and announce their presence before forcing their way into Kress’s home. Our court disagreed:
We appreciate the fact that Frock assumed this was a high risk situation because ERU was employed. However, a decision to force entry cannot rest on an assumption. It requires consideration of the particular facts and circumstances surrounding the execution of the warrant. Here, ERU was not in a dangerous tactical situation. They did not hear or see anything to indicate they were in danger or that evidence was being destroyed. Frock knew that there was a likelihood that there were weapons in the house, but he had no information indicating that Kress was considered dangerous or violent or might be inclined to use the weapons against them. See United States v. Marts, 986 F.2d 1216, 1217-18 (8th Cir.1993) (reasonable belief firearms may have been within residence, standing alone, clearly insufficient for exigent circumstances). Frock’s belief that Kress had a propensity for anti-police sentiments was not based on any particularized knowledge. In fact, Kress’s criminal record consisted of a nine-year-old misdemeanor drug possession conviction and a thirteen-year-old charge for carrying a concealed weapon for which prosecution was declined. Frock also knew that the search was for a large amount of methamphetamine, but he testified that this did not alter how he entered the house.
Id. at 551 (footnote omitted).
In Lucht, Kress was alleged to be dealing methamphetamine and carrying weapons, yet this did -not justify ignoring the knock-and-announce rule. Similarly, Do-ran was anonymously alleged to be dealing drugs, having weapons, and his son supposedly had recently been arrested for possessing a sawed off shotgun. Of course, the en banc majority can overrule Lucht, but it does not so much as mention the case.
There, is additional support for my view that the no-knock search- was unreasonable. First, when officers went to the magistrate to obtain the warrant, they did not seek permission to perform a no-knock entry. I have found no authority for the proposition that an officer, armed with all *974the knowledge that he believes supports a no-knock entry prior to asking for a warrant, may nonetheless usurp the role of the magistrate and decide on his own whether to knock and announce his presence. As a panel of our court has recently noted, “when the officers know, before searching, of circumstances that they believe justify a no-knock entry, it seems more consistent with the Fourth Amendment to ask a neutral judge for approval before intruding upon a citizen’s privacy.” United States v. Scroggins, 361 F.3d 1075, 1082 (8th Cir.2004). Indeed, “[t]he showing the police must make to obtain a no-knock warrant is the same showing they must make to justify their own decision to dispense with the knock-and-announce requirement. Only the timing differs.” Id. (emphasis added). After today, not even the timing differs: Officers may seek a warrant but withhold a request for no-knock authorization, even when they later justify their no-knock intrusion entirely on information they knew before they sought the warrant.
As the district court noted, nothing changed from the time the officers sought the warrant and the time they executed the search. The police received the anonymous tip in this case on July 20, 1998. Without explanation, Williamson delayed his request for a warrant until August 6, 1998. Even after officers received the warrant, they did not perform the search until August 11, 1998. Certainly, there is questionable logic in appellants’ assertion that they were concerned about an active methamphetamine lab and all of its attendant dangers when they took nearly a month to search for the lab.
In conclusion, I find no reasonableness in the “dynamic entry” into the Dorans’ home in the dead of night. The executing officers knew that the purported exigency was based on stale, unvarying, and largely uncorroborated information, which turned out to be entirely untrue. Their suspicions were based upon inference built upon inference, with no true factual basis. Moreover, there was no information specific to the Doran home that permitted a no-knock entry. The officers’ view that cases involving drugs and weapons should be excepted from the knock-and-announce principle finds no support in the Constitution. Nonetheless, it has now been adopted by the majority in this case. This stands at odds with the Supreme Court’s knock-and-announce jurisprudence, and leaves an innocent man with no redress for clearly unreasonable and unconstitutional governmental conduct. I cannot accept the fairness of such a result. I would respect the jury’s verdict and affirm the district court.

. During oral argument, a question was raised as to whether we should rely solely on the trial record or whether we should follow the district court and consider the pre-trial record as well. While a strong case can be made for the former, Judge Arnold, writing for the original panel, considered the entire record, and I agreed with that decision. I continue to do so here. In his dissent to the panel opinion, Chief Judge Loken stated that "the court erred in failing to specify the record on which its ruling was based and on relying on inferences drawn from pretrial proceedings rather than on the facts proved at trial." Doran at 1055. Apparently, Chief Judge Loken has now changed his mind. Compare, ante at 962 (approving the district court's consideration of matters outside the trial record in determining if exigent circumstances exist). If we were to limit ourselves to the trial record, a no-knock search here would be clearly unreasonable: the only evidence before the jury was that Greenwell and Grant were aware that the information about the possibility of a methamphetamine lab and weapons in the Doran house came from an uncorroborated, anonymous tipster with no record of reliability.

. Before the original panel, appellants primarily focused their argument on the lack of proximate cause to support the damage awards. Neither party sought to supplement the record with the pretrial material that the majority finds dispositive until this stage in the litigation. See Doran, 362 F.3d at 1050 (“The warrant and warrant affidavit were not offered into evidence and are not part of the record on appeal.”). The trash bags and their contents have never been a part of this record.

. Baker v. McCollan, 443 U.S. 137, 99 S.Ct. 2689, 61 L.Ed.2d 433 (1979), is also cited by the majority for the proposition that Green-well and Grant did not need to perform further investigation. This case is wholly inap-posite. Baker involved a person who was wrongly arrested on an outstanding warrant due to mistaken identity, and the Court held that there was no due process violation arising from officers' arrest and three-day detention of the plaintiff. There was no question, though, that the warrant itself was valid and appeared to confer the power to arrest the wrongly detained individual, and that the plaintiff matched the name and description of the sought-after fugitive (who was his brother). In contrast, Greenwell and Grant should have known from reviewing the warrant and supporting documents that there was not sufficient information to support a no-knock entry without further corroborative investigation.

. It is because of Wilson that I find unpersuasive the majority's citation to Dalia v. United States, 441 U.S. 238, 99 S.Ct. 1682, 60 L.Ed.2d 177 (1979), in support of its contention that the execution of a warrant is best left to an officer’s judgment. When Dalia was decided, Wilson had not explicitly included the knock-and-announce principle as part of the Fourth Amendment reasonableness inquiry. Thus, Dalia stands for nothing more than the rule that officers have discretion to conduct searches within the bounds of the Constitution, which did not happen in this case.

. The majority notes that the Richards Court upheld the no-knock search, even though the officers had asked for and been denied a no-knock warrant. While it is not clear why the magistrate initially denied the no-knock warrant application, it is clear from Richards why the Court approved the no-knock execution: when officers were executing the warrant, the suspected drug dealer slammed his motel room door in the officers' faces. See Richards, 520 U.S. at 396, 117 S.Ct. 1416 (stating that "the petitioner’s apparent recognition of the officers combined with the easily disposable nature of the drugs [] justified the officers' ultimate decision to enter without first announcing their presence and authority”). I have found no authority for the majority's proposition that an officer can conduct a no-knock search without a magistrate’s approval based on information acquired prior to seeking the warrant. Despite the majority's insinuation to the contrary, Richards certainly does not stand for, or even support, this theory-

. Since Richards, the Supreme Court has reaffirmed the knock-and-announce rule in United States v. Ramirez, 523 U.S. 65, 118 S.Ct. 992, 140 L.Ed.2d 191 (1998), and United States v. Banks, 540 U.S. 31, 124 S.Ct. 521, 157 L.Ed.2d 343 (2003). Ramirez involved a no-knock search that was conducted, pursuant to a no-knock search warrant, after police received information about an escapee from a confidential, reliable informant. Ramirez, 523 U.S. at 68-69, 118 S.Ct. 992. Banks did not involve a no-knock search at all; the issue was whether a fifteen-to-twenty-second pause between an announcement and forced entry was permitted during a daytime warrant execution in a drug investigation. Banks, 540 U.S. at 33-34, 124 S.Ct. 521. Neither case speaks to an officer's (as opposed to a magistrate's) decision to conduct a nighttime, no-knock execution of a warrant based on anonymous and largely uncorroborated information.