Court Opinion

ID: 9498673
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:24:41.452861+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:58:59.841673
License: Public Domain

ROTH, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
The majority’s opinion is based on the dubious proposition that two rights, as determined by the Supreme Court, make a wrong. More concretely, the majority’s decision to focus the exigency analysis on the subjective intent of the investigating officers, and the subsequent, haphazard reaction the investigation generates on the part of the alleged criminal, produces the “could’ve, should’ve, would’ve” analysis that is so anathema to our judicial role. For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.
As an initial matter, the majority’s central reliance on Johnson is misplaced. The majority seemingly accepts the government’s argument that in Johnson “the Supreme Court did not rule that officers *372impermissibly created exigent circumstances; instead, it noted that the government had not established an exigency”. In this regard, the majority and the government are correct — Johnson was not about exigent circumstances. In Johnson, the Supreme Court specifically found that “[n]o evidence or contraband was threatened with removal or destruction.” 383 U.S. at 15, 68 S.Ct. 367. This case, however, is entirely about exigency. As opposed to the opium being smoked in Johnson, here the police heard the sound of a toilet flushing. Subsequently, the police found drugs in and around the toilet.
Nonetheless, the majority argués that here, as in Johnson, the police had no justification for knocking and demanding entry to Coles’s hotel room before securing a warrant. The majority’s use of Johnson ignores the salient, distinguishing factor with the instant ease; here, there was a exigency.
With this misreading of Johnson, the majority then ignores the point that knocking and attempting to engage a person in conversation are not violations of the Fourth Amendment. See . generally Florida v. Bostick, 501 U.S. 429, 439, 111 S.Ct. 2382, 115 L.Ed.2d 389 (1991) (noting that “[t]he Fourth Amendment proscribes unreasonable searches and seizures; it does not proscribe voluntary cooperation.”). Also, entry into a dwelling in the face of exigent circumstances when the police have probable cause is not a violation of the Fourth Amendment. Payton, 445 U.S. at 586-87, 100 S.Ct. 1371. The majority feels, however, that these two otherwise constitutional actions performed in sequence are greater than the sum of their parts and, therefore, constitute a violation of the Fourth Amendment because the police could have and, consequently, should have waited to .obtain a warrant. The majority’s math is not supported by the Fourth Amendment. The majority implicitly acknowledges the fact that its analysis is constitutionally unmoored when it categorizes conflicting Fifth and Second Circuit precedent. According to the majority, the Fifth Circuit correctly focuses on the reasonableness of the police investigative tactics giving rise to the exigency while the Second Circuit incorrectly focuses on the legality. The majority’s reasonableness test, however, imposes a standard for police behavior that is.not derived from the Constitution.
The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution protects the people “against unreasonable searches and seizures.” U.S. Const. amend IV. Such unreasonable searches are “illegal” in the sense that they violate one’s constitutional rights. In order to give import, however, to the difference between Fifth Circuit and Second Circuit jurisprudence, one must acknowledge a category of police behavior which is legal, ie., not vio-lative -of the Constitution, yet unreasonable. Otherwise, the Fifth Circuit’s use of “unreasonable” would be synonymous with the Second Circuit’s use of “legal.” The majority, however, goes to great lengths to distinguish the two competing threads of jurisprudence. The result is a reasonableness inquiry completely devoid of a base in the Fourth Amendment.
The practical flaw with the reasonableness inquiry is best captured in the majority’s statement that the police “had no legitimate reason to utilize the ‘knock and talk’ procedure.” First, the majority’s use of quotation marks around the phrase “knock and talk” is a result of this investigatory technique entering the police lexicon due to its compatibility with the Fourth Amendment in a way similar to the association of Miranda with the Fifth Amendment. See Gould, 364 F.3d at 590 (noting that the “ ‘knock and talk’ police *373investigatory practice has clearly been recognized as legitimate.”). The majority’s holding, however, disturbs this venerable precedent.
Second, the assertion that there was no legitimate reason for further investigation is purely speculative. By communicating with Coles, the police could have learned whether he was carrying a weapon, with whom he was expecting to transact business, or other bits of information which individuals are prone to disclose in like circumstances. The potential information would help the police meet the conviction burden of reasonable doubt — a concern reflected in the Supreme Court’s observation that:
Law enforcement officers are under no constitutional duty to call a halt to a criminal investigation the moment they have the minimum evidence to establish probable cause, a quantum of evidence which may fall far short of the amount necessary to support a criminal conviction.
Hoffa, v. United States, 385 U.S. 293, 310, 87 S.Ct. 408, 17 L.Ed.2d 374 (1966). The majority’s opinion allows Coles’s malfeasance to restrict law enforcement’s ability to support a criminal conviction and is, therefore, an unwarranted departure from Supreme Court precedent.
Finally, the majority’s opinion, and the adoption of the Fifth Circuit’s jurisprudence, can only be implemented via an inquiry into the subjective intent of the officers who created the exigency. As the majority notes, the first step in the analysis is to ask “whether the officers deliberately created the exigent circumstances with the bad faith intent to avoid the warrant requirement.” Gould, 364 F.3d at 590; Such an inquiry is inconsistent with this Circuit’s precedent. Acosta, 965 F.2d at 1254 (quoting Scott v. United States, 436 U.S. 128, 136, 98 S.Ct. 1717, 56 L.Ed.2d 168 (1978), for the proposition that “subjective intent alone ... does not make otherwise lawful conduct illegal or unconstitutional.”).
In contrast, the Second Circuit, whose precedent, I believe, is more consistent with our Circuit’s in this area, relies on an objective test when analyzing exigent circumstances. MacDonald, '916 F.2d at 769. In this regard, the Second Circuit’s focus is truer to Supremé Court precedent. See generally Horton v. California, 496 U.S. 128, 138, 110 S.Ct. 2301, 110 L.Ed.2d 112 (1990) (arguing that “evenhanded law enforcement is best achieved by the application of objective standards of conduct, rather than ¡ standards that depend upon the subjective state of mind of the officer.”).
A correct inquiry 'analyzes each of the interactions between .the police and Coles.16 The first interaction between the police and Coles was Sgt. Josey’s announcement of “room service.” The second interaction was Sgt. Josey’s announcement that he was seeking entry to fix a reported leak. The third interaction was Sgt. Josey’s announcement “open the door, this is the police.” Upon then hearing the sound of a flushing toilet, the police entered the apartment. Since none of the three interactions violated the Fourth Amendment, and since entry was made only on hearing the toilet flushing, I would affirm the District Court’s denial of Coles’s motion to suppress the physical evidence.

. I note that the only issue on appeal vis-a-vis the motion to suppress is whether the police improperly created the exigency.