Court Opinion

ID: 9863868
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-25 05:55:47.799172+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:04:29.594076
License: Public Domain

Judge CONNELLY
dissenting.
The majority holds Arapahoe County law enforcement officers violated the Fourth Amendment by entering a fenced backyard as a security measure while other officers approached the front door. I respectfully disagree. The reasonableness of police actions should be determined by balancing the intrusion on privacy against the need for the intrusion. In my view the intrusion here (entry of backyard "curtilage") was outweighed by officer safety interests.
The privacy protection of the home is "'lalt the very core' of the Fourth Amendment." Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27, 31, 121 S.Ct. 2038, 150 L.Ed.2d 94 (2001) (quoting Silverman v. United States, 365 U.S. 505, 511, 81 S.Ct. 679, 5 L.Ed.2d 734 (1961)). Because "physical entry of the home is the chief evil" guarded against by the Fourth Amendment, "[it is a basic principle *267of Fourth Amendment law that searches and seizures inside a home without a warrant are presumptively unreasonable." Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 585-86, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 63 L.Ed.2d 639 (1980) (internal quotations omitted).
But a warrant is not always required to enter a home. Rather, "because the ultimate touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is 'reasonableness,' the warrant requirement is subject to certain exceptions." Brigham City v. Stuart, 547 U.S. 398, 403, 126 S.Ct. 1943, 164 L.Ed.2d 650 (2006). The warrant requirement may give way if "the exigencies of the situation make the needs of law en-foreement so compelling that the warrantless search is objectively reasonable under the Fourth Amendment." Id. (internal quotations omitted); see generally People v. Aarness, 150 P.3d 1271, 1277-80 (Colo.2006).
The Fourth Amendment also protects the home's "curtilage," those areas closely proximate to the home that are used for intimate home activities. See United States v. Dunn, 480 U.S. 294, 300-03, 107 S.Ct. 1134, 94 L.Ed.2d 326 (1987). Police sometimes may enter curtilage, however, even where they could not enter the home itself. It is well settled, for example, absent probable cause or reasonable suspicion, that simply going up to a home's front door to "knock and talk" does not violate the Fourth Amendment. See, e.g., United States v. Gould, 364 F.3d 578, 590 (5th Cir.2004) (en banc). And most courts have held such officers may proceed through backyard curtilage, to knock on a rear door, where occupants have not responded to knocks on the front door. Seq, e.g.,. Hardesty v. Hamburg Township, 461 F.3d 646, 654 (6th Cir.2006) (citing cases from the Third, Fourth, Eighth and Ninth Circuits); accord United States v. Daoust, 916 F.2d 757, 758 (1st Cir.1990) (Breyer, J.).
Thus, while the Fourth Amendment protects curtilage, entering a backyard is not as intrusive as entering the home itself. At least where countervailing officer safety interests are asserted, we should recognize this lesser degree of intrusiveness in deciding the ultimate reasonableness of a backyard entry.
I would apply a balancing test drawn from Maryland v. Buie, 494 U.S. 325, 110 S.Ct. 1093, 108 L.Ed.2d 276 (1990), which allows "protective sweeps" after lawful in-home arrests. Bute "balanced the intrusion on the individual's Fourth Amendment interests against its promotion of legitimate governmental interests." Id. at 331, 110 S.Ct. 1093. The Court took the controlling standard from its seminal case allowing protective "frisks" for weapons during investigatory stops. Id. at 331-32, 110 S.Ct. 1093 (citing Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968)). It allowed protective sweeps "when the searching officer possesses a reasonable belief based on specific and articula-ble facts that the area to be swept harbors an individual posing a danger to those on the arrest scene." Id. at 337, 110 S.Ct. 1093; see also id. at 336, 110 S.Ct. 1093 (requiring "a reasonable, articulable suspicion that the house is harboring a person posing a danger to those on the arrest seene"). If so, officer safety interests outweigh the Fourth Amendment intrusion, and "a warrant [is] not required." Id. at 334, 110 S.Ct. 1093.
As in Buie, the constitutionality of the officers' actions here requires a balancing of the privacy intrusion against officer safety concerns. Because the backyard entry here was less invasive of privacy than an in-home sweep, the controlling standard should not be any more demanding than the Buie standard. Accordingly, the officers properly could have entered the backyard if they reasonably believed, based on specific and articulable facts, that doing so was necessary to protect their fellow officers legitimately approaching the front door.
I would conclude that the officers here sufficiently articulated specific facts justifying the backyard entry as a reasonable safety measure. They had probable cause that a car thief was inside the home, and a citizen had told them the occupants were armed and dangerous. The homeowner had responded loudly to the officers' legitimate questions, in a manner the officers believed was meant to signal their presence to the remaining occupants. And the officers reasonably were concerned they could not safely protect their fellow officers approaching the front door by remaining in view of video security cameras positioned to monitor the front and sides of the house.
*268The officers reasonably decided the exigencies of this fast-developing situation required immediate action. It is true that exigent cireumstances cannot exeuse the need for a warrant if the officers themselves "created" or "manufactured" the exigencies. Aarness, 150 P.3d at 1279-80. But Aarness held police did not impermissibly create their own exigencies by approaching and knocking on an apartment door to investigate an anonymous tip that an armed fugitive was there. Id. It is even more clear here that the police did not create their own exigencies by knocking on the front door because, unlike in Aar-mess, the armed occupants could have known of the police presence before the police knocked.
The issue then becomes whether the Fourth Amendment was violated by the officers' later entry of the home to secure the premises. By the time of the entry, the police had learned several additional facts confirming the home was being used for drug manufacturing by armed individuals. First, from their backyard view into the basement window, the police observed drug manufacturing equipment. Next, in the course of temporarily securing three of the four remaining occupants, a semi-automatic handgun fell from one man's pants. Finally, the police understood, from the homeowner's initial admission, that at least one person still remained inside the house.
Police can enter a home without a warrant if there are exigent cireumstances, such as to "prevent the imminent destruction of evidence," Brigham City, 547 U.S. at 403, 126 S.Ct. 1943 (citing Ker v. California, 374 U.S. 23, 40, 83 S.Ct. 1623, 10 L.Ed.2d 726 (1963)), or "if they believe their own lives ... are at risk." Aarness, 150 P.3d at 1278. Here, the officers did not act unreasonably in entering and securing the house, based on both those justifications, pending issuance of a search warrant. I accordingly would hold that the district court properly declined to suppress the drugs ultimately seized pursuant to a search warrant.