Court Opinion

ID: 9716400
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 06:38:06.986745+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:45.328756
License: Public Domain

ROBB, Judge,
concurs with separate opinion.
I respectfully concur with Chief Judge Kirsch, but write separately. The issue here concerns whether the evidence recovered from the search of Holder's residence is inadmissible because it was obtained in violation of Article I, Section 11 of the Indiana Constitution. Article I, Section 11 guarantees "[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable search or seizure...." We liberally construe Article I, Section 11 in order to protect Hoosiers from unreasonable police activity in private areas of their lives. State v. Stamper, 788 N.E.2d 862, 865 (Ind.Ct.App.2003), trans. denied. When we evaluate Section 11 claims, we place the burden on the State to show that under the totality of the cireumstances its intrusion was reasonable. Id. We have also stated that the protections provided by the Indiana Con*369stitution, including Article I, Section 11, may be more extensive than those provided by its federal constitutional counterparts. Taylor v. State, 639 N.E.2d 1052, 1053 (Ind.Ct.App.1994).
Although decided on Fourth Amendment grounds, I believe that Divello v. State, 782 N.E.2d 433 (Ind.Ct.App.2003), trans. denied, is instructive here. In Divello, police went to the defendant's house without a search warrant to investigate an anonymous tip that the defendant was selling marijuana out of his residence. The officers knocked on both the front door and the back door of the defendant's home but received no answer. The officers then proceeded to an adjacent property also owned by the defendant. To gain access to the adjacent property, the officers walked through the backyard of the first residence and then through an open gate in a privacy fence. The officers knocked on the front door of the second residence but again received no answer. The officers then noticed a truck in the back of the second residence that was parked partly in the driveway and partly in the grass. One of the officers walked around the truck to a position where he was between the truck and the house. While in this position, the officer smelled the odor of marijuana coming from the house. The other two officers came to that same position and also smelled marijuana. One of the officers indicated that he had to get eighteen inches away from the house before he could smell the marijuana. Based on the marijuana odor, the officers were able to get a search warrant, and marijuana was found in the defendant's home. The defendant filed a motion to suppress the evidence obtained pursuant to the search warrant, arguing that the officers' entry onto and search of his property violated the Fourth Amendment, but the trial court denied his motion.
We initially stated:
When police enter onto private property in order to conduct an investigation or for another legitimate purpose and restrict their entry to places that other visitors would be expected to go, such as walkways, driveways, or porches, any observation made from these areas is permissible under the United States Constitution and the Fourth Amendment thereto. Accordingly, an individual does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy with regard to things or activities within a residence that may be observed by persons using their natural senses from places impliedly open to a visitor's entry. In general, this means that "if police utilize 'normal means of access to and egress from the house' for some legitimate purpose, such as to make inquiries of the occupant ... it is not a Fourth Amendment search for the police to see or hear or smell from that vantage point what is happening inside the dwelling."
Id. at 437 (internal citations omitted). However, we went on to conclude that the officers' observation of the odor of marijuana was constitutionally impermissible. We stated that when the officer "walked around the truck and within four feet of the house, he was clearly no longer in a place where visitors could be expected to go; he had invaded the curtilage of [the defendant's] property. [The defendant] had a reasonable expectation of privacy in this area, and therefore, [the officers'] actions violated the Fourth Amendment." Id. at 489 (internal citations omitted). Because the officers' actions violated the Fourth Amendment, we held that all evidence obtained from the search of the residence should have been suppressed. Id.
This case is similar to Divello. Here, Officer Bruner smelled ether, but could *370not determine exactly where in the neighborhood the smell originated. Lieutenant Hadley and Chief Harmon arrived shortly thereafter, and the three began to walk through the neighborhood trying to determine the source of the ether smell. They noticed a truck with its hood up in Holder's backyard. Without a search warrant, they entered Holder's property, walked past his house and into his backyard, and proceeded to examine the area around the truck. Apparently not finding anything, they left Holder's yard and went to a neighbor's house. When no one answered the door at the neighbor's house, they returned to Holder's property. As they walked along the south side of the house, Officer Bruner noticed a crack in a basement window. He knelt down to within inches of.the window and smelled ether.
Pursuant to Divello, I believe that the officers' actions here violated the Fourth Amendment, but that is not the issue we are asked to decide here. I believe that in this case, Article I, Section 11 affords the same or greater protection than the Fourth Amendment. Therefore, I concur with Chief Judge Kirsch that the officers' actions are unreagonable under Article I, Section 11.' When the officers entered Holder's backyard and examined the area around the truck and when Officer Bruner smelled ether at the crack in the basement window, the officers were no longer in areas where visitors would be expected to go, and had invaded the curtilage of the property. Holder had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the area constituting the curtilage of his home, and, therefore, the officers violated Article I, Section 11.
Judge Baker's dissent evinces a strong concern regarding the threat posed by the manufacture, sale, and use of methamphetamine. I share this same concern, but I do not feel that the threat posed by methamphetamine justifies allowing police officers to wander around a neighborhood searching for the source of an ether odor. Nor does it justify police officers entering onto private property without a search warrant and sniffing at the cracks of an individual's basement window. I therefore concur with Chief Judge Kirsch.