Court Opinion

ID: 9693445
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 16:41:35.416374+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:46.814712
License: Public Domain

*871FARRELL, Associate Judge,
dissenting.
When a police officer executing a search warrant for drugs at an apartment knocks and announces his identity and purpose, hears a video game suddenly turned off followed by footsteps which his trained ear tells him are not coming toward the door, and hears no words of intended compliance with the order to open, may he force the door open without waiting further? My colleagues say no; the officer could not “reaso-nabl[y] belie[ve],” ante at 870, that he had been refused admittance within the meaning of D.C.Code § 33-565(g). Although the right outcome of this case is a close question, I disagree with the majority’s choice of applicable standard and its disposition of the case. Under the test recently stated by the Supreme Court for when police may dispense with the knock and announce requirements altogether, I would uphold the entry and resulting seizure of drugs.1
This is not a “five second wait” ease. If it were, the result generally reached in such cases would dictate suppression here.2 See United, States v. Jones, 133 F.3d 358, 361 (5th Cir.1998) (“Generally, a delay of five-seconds or less after knocking and announcing has been held a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 3109.”). This case, instead, presents an issue of exigency: did Sergeant Robinson, from the sounds (and silence) he heard in response to his announced identity and purpose, have reason to suspect that the occupants of the apartment were denying him admittance at least long enough to do something to “inhibit the effective investigation of the crime.” Richards v. Wisconsin, 520 U.S. 385, -, 117 S.Ct. 1416, 1421, 137 L.Ed.2d 615 (1997).
In Richards, the Supreme Court’s last visit to this subject but one, the Court considered whether “the Fourth Amendment permits a blanket exception to the knock-and-announce requirement” for an “entire category” of criminal investigations, those involving drug felonies. Id. at -, 117 S.Ct. at 1418.3 The Court acknowledged that drug investigations “frequently [do] pose special risks to officer safety and the preservation of evidence,” but declined to exempt them “from the neutral scrutiny of a reviewing court [as to] the reasonableness of the police decision not to knock and announce in a particular case.” Id. at-, 117 S.Ct. at 1421. Instead, the Court set the standard for dispensing with these requirements, in drug cases as in others, at the minimum constitutional level:
In order to justify a “no-knock” entry, the police must have a reasonable suspicion that knocking and announcing their presence, under the particular circumstances, would be dangerous or futile, or that it would inhibit the effective investigation of the crime by, for example, allowing the destruction of evidence. This standard—as opposed to a probable cause requirement—strikes the appropriate balance between the legitimate law enforcement concerns at issue in the execution of search warrants and the individual privacy interests affected by no-knoek entries.
Id. at -, 117 S.Ct. at 1421-22 (emphases added). “This showing is not high,” *872the Court stressed, and one “actual circumstance[]” which the police specifically may rely on in drug cases is “the easily disposable nature of the drugs.” Id. at -, 117 S.Ct. at 1422.
Our case, unlike Richards, presents no issue of “dispensing [entirely] with the knoek-and-announce requirement.” Id. at -, 117 S.Ct. at 1421. By knocking and announcing his identity and purpose, Sergeant Robinson satisfied what one court of appeals has termed “the principal values embodied in” the knock-and-announce statute. United States v. Bonner, 277 U.S.App.D.C. 271, 276, 874 F.2d 822, 827 (1989). If reasonable suspicion, as described in Richards, justifies bypassing the knock and announce requirements altogether, obviously no more was needed to support the more limited judgment by Sergeant Robinson that further delay in awaiting voluntary admittance would inhibit this drug investigation. The issue, then, is whether during the required “brief interlude between announcement and entry” here, Richards, 520 U.S. at - n. 5, 117 S.Ct. at 1421 n. 5, Robinson heard enough to give him reasonable suspicion that he was being refused admittance long enough to permit destruction of evidence.
My colleagues dispute application of the Richards standard. They say that resolution of this case “turns on the construction of a local statute which permits an officer to break down the door only if ‘he is refused admittance.’ ” Ante at 870 n: 7 (emphasis in original). And to satisfy this statute, they say, the police must have “a reasonable belief that the occupants ... deliberately refused [them] entry.” Ante at 870 (emphasis added). In other words, they apply the standard of probable cause rejected in Richards to find a “statutory violation” here. Ante at 870 n. 7. But the answer to this analysis is that the local statute, D.C.Code § 33-565(g) (1993), is identical in all material respects to 18 U.S.C. § 3109. That statute “codifies the common law in this area, and the common law in turn informs the Fourth Amendment,” Ramirez, supra note 3, — U.S. at -, 118 S.Ct. at 997; thus, not surprisingly, the “decisions in Wilson [, supra note 3,] and Richards [interpreting the Fourth Amendment standard of reasonableness] serve as guideposts in construing the statute.” Id. The majority offers no reason, textual or otherwise, for reading § 33-565(g) to impose a higher burden of suspicion than did Richards before police may conclude they are being denied entry long enough to “inhibit the effective investigation of the crime.” Richards, 520 U.S. at -, 117 S.Ct. at 1421.
Applying the Richards test, as we must, I would hold that Sergeant Robinson had the requisite reasonable suspicion, though not by much. As the majority points out, the trial judge credited the testimony of Robinson whose experience in executing search warrants ran to “probably hundreds” of cases. When he arrived at the door of the apartment with his team, he could hear a video game being played inside. After he knocked and loudly announced his identity and purpose, the video game stopped and was followed by footsteps. No one said, “I’m coming,” “Be right there,” or anything else manifesting an intent to open voluntarily.4 Nonetheless, although “[a] refusal to reply to an officer’s order to ‘open up’ can be implied from silence,” United States v. Mendonsa, 989 F.2d 366, 370 (9th Cir.1993), I agree with my colleagues that hearing no spoken reply could not furnish the required suspicion without more, even coupled with the stopping of the electronic game. Any occupant, including an innocent one, who experiences the shock of a loud pounding at the front door might need several seconds to collect himself before responding orally. If Robinson acted reasonably, it is because of the added suspicious meaning of the footsteps.
The majority regards the footsteps as insolubly (“quite”) ambiguous, ante at 869, largely because Robinson stated only that they “did not sound like they were coming to*873wards the door” (emphasis added). Since the occupant might have been preparing to comply (“fetch[ing] his bathrobe or slippers”), ante at 869, the police had to wait some undefined additional time before entering. I view the matter differently. If Robinson had stated, “I heard steps running away from the door,” there is no question he could have forced entry immediately. See, e.g., McClure v. United States, 332 F.2d 19, 21-22 (9th Cir.1964), If, only slightly less unambiguously, he had heard sounds “moving away” from the door, the result would be no different. See, e.g., United States v. Smith, 171 U.S.App.D.C. 342, 343, 520 F.2d 74, 75, aff'd after remand, 173 U.S.App.D.C. 313, 524 F.2d 1287 (1975) (per curiam) (entry justified by sounds of shuffling thought to be “movement away from the door”); Masiello v. United States, 115 U.SApp.D.C. 57, 58, 317 F.2d 121,122 (1963) (entry justified when police “heard no words [of compliance] spoken” and heard “a rustling or other commotion inside the room”). In my view, there is no constitutional or statutory difference between steps that do not sound like they are (or sound like they are not) coming toward the door and steps that sound like they are retreating. Robinson heard steps that were inconsistent with movement toward the door, combined with no verbal indication of intended compliance. This caused him reasonably to fear that an occupant unmistakably aware of his presence might be on his way to destroy evidence.
By implication, decisions that have invalidated no-knock entries in a similar time frame support the reasonableness of Robinson’s fear, for a recurrent theme of those decisions is the absence of sounds in response to the police announcement. See, e.g, United States v. Lucht, 18 F.3d 541, 550 (8th Cir.1994) (police heard “no noise or movement” inside dwelling); United States v. Marts, 986 F.2d 1216, 1217 (8th Cir.1993) (police “neither heard nor saw anything from inside the trailer”); United States v. Rodriguez, 663 F.Supp. 585, 587 (D.D.C.1987) (police “heard no noises or suspicious sounds from within' the house”) (emphasis in original); Gregory v. State, 616 A.2d 1198, 1200 (Del.1992) (police “hear[d] no noise from inside the apartment”). Even Judge Wald’s dissent in United States v. Bonner, supra, .prized by the majority, was based importantly on what she viewed as the lack of clear findings by the trial court on whether the officer heard a sound inside that “was inconsistent with someone getting up to answer the door.” 277 U.S.App.D.C. at 280 n. 1, 874 F.2d at 831 n. 1 (Wald, Chief Judge, dissenting). That description fits Sergeant Robinson’s suspicion exactly.
The fact that, as the majority says, the occupant of the apartment might have been moving to get his robe or slippers before coming to the door does not make Robinson’s contrary fear unreasonable. “It must be rare indeed that an officer [hears] behavior consistent only with [suspicion of] guilt and incapable of innocent interpretation.” United States v. Price, 599 F.2d 494, 502 (2d Cir.1979) (emphasis in original). By its nature the reasonable suspicion standard leaves open possible innocent explanations for ambiguous behavior. The police here were not bound to assume a benign explanation for the footsteps. Nor were they obliged to consider, with the majority, the possibility that while the steps were not coming toward the door they might be moving “in some neutral direction.” Ante at 870 n. 7. Compliance with the Fourth Amendment, and the statute, does not turn on such subtle calculations.
The police here had obtained a search warrant,5 and they knocked and announced their identity. At most my colleagues can say Robinson should have waited some additional few seconds to let the ambiguous evidence of his senses clarify itself. Like the trial judge, I do not think his judgment on the spot was unreasonable. Forcing entry into a home is serious business, but the Supreme Court has taken that concern into account in yet setting the standard that applies here at reasonable suspicion. Applying *874that test, I would sustain the validity of the entry.

. I note at the outset how surprised the trial judge likely will be to find himself reversed oh a ground never argued to him at the hearing on the motion to suppress. This case does not require me to join issue with the majority on its over-broad reading, ante at 868 n. 3, of Yee v. Escondido, 503 U.S. 519, 534, 112 S.Ct. 1522, 1532, 118 L.Ed.2d 153 (1992).

. The government has not made the arguments of remedy for a knock-and-announce violation that it made as amicus in Wilson v. Arkansas, 514 U.S. 927, 937 n.4, 115 S.Ct. 1914, 1919 n. 4, 131 L.Ed.2d 976 (1995), and which the Supreme Court did not reach there.

. In United States v. Ramirez, - U.S. -, 118 S.Ct. 992, 140 L.Ed.2d 191 (1998), the Court later decided the unrelated issue of whether the Fourth Amendment holds officers to a higher standard when a no-knock entry results in the destruction of property. Along the way, however, the Court pointed out that its "decisions in Wilson [v. Arkansas, 514 U.S. 927, 115 S.Ct. 1914, 131 L.Ed.2d 976 (1995)] and Richards l supra ] serve as guideposts in construing the [federal knock and announce] statute,” 18 U.S.C. § 3109. Ramirez, — U.S. at -, 118 S.Ct. at 997. The Court also held that " § 3109 codifies the exceptions to the common-law announcement requirement.” Id.
Richards, as well as Wilson and Ramirez, were decided after all of the decisions of this court on which the majority relies.

. Appellant testified that it was he who had been playing the video game and had put it on pause. While the trial judge at one point speculated that Robinson might have heard the footsteps of "children running,” he did not imply that hearing a video game played—an activity often engaged in by children—diminished Robinson’s reason to suspect from the footsteps and silence that entry was being deliberately delayed.

. "[T]he officers had secured a warrant, eliminating that element of the exigency requirement designed to ensure that the Fourth Amendment's Warrant Clause is not eroded by an exigency too quickly perceived by those called upon to serve on the firing line.” Bonner, 277 U.S.App.D.C. at 276, 874 F.2d at 827.