Court Opinion

ID: 9494789
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:46:49.705709+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:37.438546
License: Public Domain

BYE, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I am disturbed our Fourth Amendment jurisprudence allows us to find the execution of this search warrant constitutionally permissible. The reasonableness of a search or seizure is “measured in objective terms by examining the totality of the circumstances.” Ohio v. Robinette, 519 U.S. 33, 39, 117 S.Ct. 417, 136 L.Ed.2d 347 (1996). When I examine the totality of the circumstances in this case, I see little reason in the officers’ conduct. Despite the warrant’s knock and announce limitation, it is apparent the officers simply executed this warrant as a no-knock drug raid.
Six to eight officers executed the warrant to search Mendoza’s home. Despite the lack of facts that would have allowed the officers to obtain a no-knock warrant, all the officers wore raid gear, and at least some wore masks. In their rush on Mendoza’s home, the officers somehow bloodied the nose of one of his children, who was playing outside. Once inside the home, the officers forced Mendoza’s eleven-year-old daughter to the floor at gun point and handcuffed her. The officers found Mendoza inside performing home repairs, still unaware of a police presence in his home. Mendoza testified an officer told him to “freeze, mother fucker, or I’ll blow your fucking head off.” The officers then placed Mendoza in handcuffs. All this occurred before the officers had searched the residence, or had found contraband in the home.
The officers concede no exigent circumstances arose during the execution of the warrant. Yet the officers admit they immediately passed through two doorways after merely announcing their presence. In so doing, they wholly ignored a necessary component of the common law knock *719and announce rule, which requires officers to wait a reasonable time for an occupant to allow or refuse entry. See Garza v. State, 619 N.W.2d 573, 576 (Minn.Ct.App.2000), rev’d on other grounds, 632 N.W.2d 633 (Minn.2001); see also United States v. Gamble, 198 F.3d 672, 673 (8th Cir.1999).
The “purpose of the knock-and-announce rule is to prevent the unnecessary destruction of property and mistaken entry into the wrong premises, protect against unnecessary shock and embarrassment and decrease the potential for a violent response when a search is executed.” Garza v. State, 632 N.W.2d 633, 639 (Minn.2001). I fail to see how the purpose of the knock and announce rule was served by the manner in which police executed this warrant.
The court’s opinion excuses the officers’ failure to comply with the knock and announce rule at the first door by concluding Mendoza’s expectation of privacy in the vestibule behind the first door was not objectively reasonable. The concurring opinion concludes the officers had a reasonable belief that a common, public area lay behind the first door. I disagree with both conclusions.
I. The Lead Opinion
We have, on several occasions, addressed whether a person has an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy in the common area of a multiple-unit dwelling. See United States v. McCaster, 193 F.3d 930 (8th Cir.1999) (involving a hall closet shared with the other tenant of a duplex); United States v. McGrane, 746 F.2d 632 (8th Cir.1984) (involving a storage locker in the basement of a four-unit apartment building); United States v. Luschen, 614 F.2d 1164 (8th Cir.1980) (involving the second floor landing in a multiple-unit security building); United States v. Eisler, 567 F.2d 814 (8th Cir.1977) (involving a hallway in a multiple-unit apartment building).
I do not find any of these cases particularly helpful in analyzing the present dispute. None involved a violation of the knock and announce principle, and none involved a duplex where both occupants with access to the common area had the same interest in having intruders announce their presence before entering. Instead, I find persuasive two cases addressing facts more analogous to those found here, both of which found violations of the knock and announce principle.
United States v. Fluker, 543 F.2d 709 (9th Cir.1976), involved a single-family home with two basement apartments. An outside stairway led to the basement. At the bottom of the stairway, a door (usually locked) opened to a small entry. Inside the small entry, two doorways opened to the basement apartments. The officers had a search warrant for one apartment, occupied by Willard Young. The officers entered the outer door without announcement, and once inside the small entry, encountered a partially open door to Young’s apartment. The officers immediately entered the apartment with announcement, but without allowing the occupant a chance to allow or deny entry. Id. at 712.
After careful consideration, the Ninth Circuit concluded Young had an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy in the common entryway. First, the court noted the building contained only two apartments, and the occupants of the two apartments were the only persons with access to the small entry. “[T]he two lower-level tenants thus exercised considerably more control over access to that portion of the building than would be true in a multi-unit complex, and hence could reasonably be said to have a greater reasonable expectation of privacy than would be true of occu*720pants of large apartment buildings.” Id. at 716. Likewise, Mendoza’s home contained just two units, occupied by Mendoza and his girlfriend. They were the only persons with access to the common vestibule. The district court found Mendoza’s “duplex was regarded by the occupants as one house shared by two families, and the vestibule approximated a foyer of a single home.” Appellant’s Add. A-9.
Second, the Ninth Circuit noted the door to Young’s apartment was “actually within reach” of the outer doorway: “Thus, a knock on the outer door might well have been audible in Young’s apartment, and would not have been a useless gesture.” Fluker, 543 F.2d at 716. Similarly, the doorway to Mendoza’s unit was very close to the outer door. A knock on the outer door would likely have been audible to someone in the lower unit. This fact should have been known to the officers before entering the outer door. The house is very narrow. When approaching the home, the officers would have observed a window to the lower level unit just a few feet to the left of the outer door, indicating the inside door was even closer. See Ap-pellee’s App. 2.
Finally, the Ninth Circuit noted the inner door to Young’s apartment was partially open when the officers broke down the outer door, “thus indicating that Young felt some degree of safety and privacy because of the existence of the outer, locked doorway.” Fluker, 543 F.2d at 716. Similarly, Mendoza’s inner door was not just partially open, but he had entirely removed the door from its hinges. This fact clearly supports Mendoza’s subjective expectation of privacy in the vestibule, since the outer door served as the only barrier between his living quarters and the rest of the world. When coupled with the fact that the only other occupant of the duplex was his girlfriend, Mendoza’s subjective expectation of privacy is one society would accept as objectively reasonable.
In United States v. Drummond, 98 F.Supp.2d 44 (D.D.C.2000), the court addressed a dispute involving a duplex almost identical to the one involved here:
The apartment is in a small, residential, two-story dwelling containing only two apartments — the defendants’ first-floor apartment and an apartment upstairs. The outer door to the dwelling is opaque, with no windows allowing visitors to see into the space behind it. Two utility meters are mounted to the left of the outer door. There appears to be a mailbox directly to the right of the outer door. The outer door is hinged on the left. It opens into a small entryway landing at the base of the narrow staircase leading to the upstairs apartment. The landing’s width barely exceeds that of the narrow staircase, and its depth is less than its width. The inner door to apartment one is immediately to the right of the landing.
Id. at 46 (internal references to the record deleted).
In Drummond, the police entered the outer door without announcement, and found the first-floor apartment’s inner door partially open. The officers then announced themselves, but immediately entered the apartment without giving the occupants a chance to allow or deny entry. Id. The court concluded, in a thorough and well-reasoned opinion, that the apartment occupants “had a legitimate expectation of privacy in the entryway behind the outer door,” id. at 49, and held the officers violated the knock and announce rule at the outer door. See id. at 53. In rejecting the government’s argument that knocking at the outer door placed an undue burden on law enforcement, the court said
[tjhis opinion does not support the general proposition that police are required *721to knock at the outer door to any apartment complex. It recognizes that greater police diligence may be required where the police can reasonably be expected to know that there is a very small number of units within a residential building, where they are unclear how many other residents are living in the building, and where they are unclear whether the public has access to the area in the building behind the entrance door.
Where there are sufficient indicia that the inhabitants could have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the entryway directly behind the outer door, the police then have at least two options. They can knock and announce their presence at the outer door, or they can seek additional information about the building to determine if the entryway is open to the public in such a way as would defeat a reasonable resident’s expectation that uninvited and unauthorized persons will not intrude into it.
In other search and seizure contexts, courts routinely charge law enforcement with the responsibility of obtaining enough information to act in a reasonable fashion.
Id. at 51 (internal citations and quotations omitted).
The facts in this case are similar to those in Drummond. From the outside, the home appears to be a single-family home, not a duplex. The only two tenants of the duplex were boyfriend and girlfriend, and thus they shared a common interest in excluding the public from the common vestibule. The main door had a latch,4 which allowed both Mendoza and his girlfriend to control access to the vestibule. In addition, the outer door had a knocker and a peephole, both objective signals that all those within viewed the common vestibule as a private space.
Unlike our case, the upper apartment in Drummond was vacant, so only the tenants of the first-floor apartment had access to the small entryway behind the outer door. Id. at 46. But in Drummond, the police had a confidential informant (Cl) who told police the front door to the first-floor apartment was sometimes left open. The police did not bother to determine whether the duplex had other residents. Id. at 46^7. Similarly, here the officers had a Cl, and could have inquired about the duplex’s other residents, the close relationship between the occupants of the lower and upper units, and the status of Mendoza’s inner door.
In sum, under the facts and circumstances present in this case, I believe the defendant’s subjective expectation of privacy in the vestibule was objectively reasonable.
II. The Concurring Opinion
Instead of focusing upon whether the defendant’s subjective expectation of privacy in the vestibule was objectively reasonable, the concurring opinion concludes the officers were reasonable in believing a common, public area lay behind the front door. Although this argument has more force than the court’s opinion, I still dis*722agree. The facts known to the officers before entering the first door, coupled with the situation they encountered after entering the first door, should have led an objectively reasonable officer to conclude the vestibule was a part of the defendant’s home.
The concurring opinion cites Maryland v. Garrison, 480 U.S. 79, 107 S.Ct. 1013, 94 L.Ed.2d 72 (1987), which upheld a search warrant authorizing the search of the single apartment on the third floor of a building, even though the building actually contained two third-floor apartments. The officers uncovered illegal contraband after searching the wrong apartment without realizing their mistake. Id. at 80, 107 S.Ct. 1013. The Supreme Court held the officers’ execution of the warrant was reasonable because “the objective facts available to the officers at the time suggested no distinction between [the two apartments].” Id. at 88, 107 S.Ct. 1013.
In Garrison, however, the Supreme Court also stated the officers “were required to discontinue the search of respondent’s apartment as soon as they discovered that there were two separate units on the third floor and therefore were put on notice of the risk that they might be in a unit erroneously included within the terms of the warrant.” Id. at 87, 107 S.Ct. 1013; see also Pray v. City of Sandusky, 49 F.3d 1154, 1159 (6th Cir.1995) (citing Garrison and holding the Fourth Amendment requires officers “to retreat as soon as they knew or reasonably should have known that there was a mistake” in executing a warrant); Turner v. Sheriff of Marion County, 94 F.Supp.2d 966, 983 (S.D.Ind.2000) (“Even if the initial entry into a residence results from an objectively reasonable mistake, the Fourth Amendment requires officers to retreat as soon as they discover or reasonably should discover their mistake”).
When the officers arrived at Mendoza’s home, they knew the home was being used as a duplex, and there were two mailboxes beside the front door. But they also encountered an outer door with a latch, a knocker, and a peephole. A knocker is a clear signal the occupants of the dwelling expected outsiders to knock at that door, not enter. In fact, other than a sign on the door which says “Knock, Do Not Enter,” I cannot think of a more reasonably objective way to convey the message. In addition, the presence of a peephole clearly indicated the occupants wanted to see who was at the first door before allowing anyone to enter. Finally, the latch indicated the occupants of both units could bar entry to what lay behind the first door.
After the officers entered the first door, they saw Mendoza had entirely removed the inner door from its hinges. This left the first door as the only barrier between the lower unit and the world at large. It is objectively unreasonable to believe a person will completely remove the only barrier separating his home from a common, public area. In addition, the officers saw a seven-year-old child run from within the lower unit, through the vestibule, and up the stairs to the upper unit. Reasonable police officers would have known of their mistake under these circumstances, and realized they were already in Mendoza’s home after entering the first door. Under Garrison, the officers were constitutionally required to retreat at that point.
Because I believe the officers violated the Fourth Amendment at the first door, I find it unnecessary to address whether the knock and announce rule applies to the second, open doorway. I respectfully dissent.

. The lead opinion concludes Mendoza did nothing to lead the officers to believe he had a privacy interest in the vestibule because "the door was not latched.” The lead opinion is inconsistent with the facts found by the district court, which indicated "it is unclear whether the latch was secured.” Appellant’s Add. A-3. Moreover, since some of Mendoza’s children were playing outside, I do not see how a failure to latch the door bears on the question of the objective reasonableness of Mendoza's expectation of privacy in the vestibule area.