Court Opinion

ID: 9471385
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:31:04.176801+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:23.138519
License: Public Domain

NATHANIEL R. JONES, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Although I agree with the majority’s excellent disposition of the 48(b) and the Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154, 98 S.Ct. 2674, 57 L.Ed.2d 667 (1978) issues, I cannot in good conscience concur in its treatment of the 18 U.S.C. § 3109 violation. § 3109 provides:
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.
(emphasis added). As the majority makes clear, the district court found that the agents were not warranted in breaking into the house because a “reasonable person” would not think that a delay of 15 to 30 seconds in answering the door at 12:15 in the morning would constitute a denial of admittance. The majority fails to make clear, however, that the district court explicitly found that the officers’ actions in this case violated § 3109.
Contrary to this explicit finding and contrary to what I feel is any reasonable reading of the facts of this case, and without challenging the factual elements found by the district court, the majority concludes that “there was no violation of § 3109.” The majority observes that the agents waited a “very brief time after the first demand before starting to break the door.” This conclusory statement merely glosses over a relevant and critical fact. The agents, in fact, allowed Nora Ciammitti less than one half of one minute at that hour of the night to answer her front door. I am unable to believe that it was reasonable to expect that this or any individual could have, or would have, unlocked the front door at 12:15 in the morning to a group of yelling and pounding strangers — and do so within one half of one minute. Certainly no reasonable law enforcement agent should have sensibly expected that a 15 to 30 second delay in answering the door at that hour constituted a denial of admittance. The district court, from this factual scenario, explicitly found that the agents were unwarranted in believing that they had been denied admittance.
I do not know how it can now be concluded from these same facts that the “agents were justified in concluding that their summons was being ignored.” For that reason I can not join in a holding which sanctions the use of police authority, under these circumstances, to batter a hole through the front door of a private dwelling in the wee hours of the morning. I am precluded from approving this type of law enforcement by my view of the law which mandates a respect for the privacy of an individual in one’s own home. The picture drawn by the majority of the events at Nora Ciammitti’s home in justification of the physical destruction of private property at 12:15 a.m. is inconsistent with my view of the record. Neither does it square with that of the district court. As the district court found, the agents were unwarranted in believing that they had been denied admittance, and their breaking and entering of the Ciam-mitti home violated § 3109.
*935Facts known to the agents before, or facts discovered by them after the battering of the Ciammitti’s door cannot pardon the clearly unlawful police conduct that took place here. The majority excuses the agents’ behavior because of the “knowledge they had of the activities in the basement.” But I fail to see the relevance of the agents’ prior knowledge to their wanton and reckless disregard for private property. Section 3109 does not provide that an officer, in executing a warrant, may break into a home if he is refused admittance or if he has done a careful and thorough bit of prior police work. The very language of § 3109 assumes that the officer who breaks into a dwelling is doing so to execute a lawfully obtained “search warrant” based upon probable cause. Thus every officer who violates § 3109 does so with sufficient knowledge of activities in the dwelling to constitute probable cause. To hold, as the majority holds, that because the officers knew of the “activities in the basement” and had “probable cause to believe that the chemicals and equipment were in the residence,” they were justified in believing that they had been “refused admittance” is to render § 3109 a complete nullity. I therefore do not agree with the majority’s reliance upon the agents’ “knowledge” of possible lawless activity to justify their lawless conduct.
Nor can I understand the apparent reliance upon the items discovered after the door was broken to sanction the prior unlawful police activity. For instance, the majority concludes its opinion by observing that evidence of illicit activity was indeed found at the searched home:
They ... found a complete laboratory for the production of methamphetamine in the basement of the Ciammitti residence. Suppression of this evidence was not required under the facts of this case.
The majority not only suggests that unlawful police conduct can be forgiven by successful crime prevention, it also implies that successful police activity cannot be unlawful. I find no acceptance of or authority for this implication in the holdings of the Supreme Court or of this Court. I recognize that the exclusionary rule, which is perceived as “letting criminals get off with murder,” is under serious attack. Yet, whatever feelings many in the nation harbor for the exclusionary rule, that rule remains the legal policy of this country, see Illinois v. Gates, — U.S. —, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983), the legal policy of this Circuit, see United States v. Hatcher, 680 F.2d 438 (6th Cir.1982) and the legal policy to be specifically applied in cases where § 3109 has been violated. See Miller v. United States, 357 U.S. 301, 78 S.Ct. 1190, 2 L.Ed.2d 1332 (1958).
Finally, I disagree with the effort to distinguish Miller from the case at bar. Such an effort is unnecessary because the parties agree that there are clear factual discrepancies between these cases.
I deem Miller’s legal import to be entitled to far greater weight than the majority is able to lend. Like the majority, the Miller Court was “duly mindful” of the need for “law and order.” I note, however that Miller went on to conclude:
insistence on observance by law officers of traditional fair procedure requirements is, from the long point of view, best calculated to contribute to that end.
357 U.S. at 313, 78 S.Ct. at 1197. Like the majority, the Miller Court was tempted to condone an otherwise unlawful search because it was successful. Miller withstood that temptation by observing:
We have had frequent occasion to point out that a search is not made legal by what it turns up. In law it is good or bad when it starts and does not change character from its success.
357 U.S. at 312, 78 S.Ct. at 1197; Citing United States v. Di Re, 332 U.S. 581 at 595, 68 S.Ct. 222 at 228, 92 L.Ed. 210. Like the majority, the Miller Court understood the pressures inherent in police activity. I am more comfortable with and impressed by the deeper understanding manifested by the Miller court:
Congress, codifying, a tradition embedded in Anglo-American law, has declared in § 3109 the reverence of the law for the individual’s right of privacy in his house.
*936357 U.S. at 313, 78 S.Ct. at 1198. Finally, like the majority, the Miller Court wished that police conduct would remain lawful and that the judicial system would retain integrity without the aid of sanctions against lawlessness and duplicity — and so do I. Yet, we know that is not always possible. This is one of those times. Therefore, as Miller instructs:
The evidence seized should have been suppressed.
357 U.S. at 314, 78 S.Ct. at 1198. In view of Miller, § 3109 and the facts of this case, I respectfully dissent.