CA2: Entry into curtilage and shooting family dog in front of child not based on exigency

Officers entered the curtilage without a warrant or exigent circumstances and shot plaintiff’s dog in front of his 12 year old daughter. The verdict for the defendant officers is reversed and remanded for trial because they didn’t show reasons for entering the curtilage. Harris v. O’Hare, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 20813 (2d Cir. October 30, 2014), amended 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 22220 (2d Cir. November 24, 2014):

Glenn Harris and his daughter K.H. (together, “Plaintiffs”) filed suit in 2008 against the City of Hartford and Hartford Police Officers John Michael O’Hare and Anthony Pia (together, “Defendants”), for damages stemming from the officers’ warrantless entry onto Harris’s property on December 20, 2006. After entering the property, O’Hare shot and killed Seven, the family’s pet Saint Bernard, at close range and within earshot, if not in front of, Harris’s then-twelve-year-old daughter, K. During the entirety of the litigation leading up to trial, Defendants argued that there was no Fourth Amendment intrusion because the entry into the yard was not a Fourth Amendment search, that it was reasonable in any event, and that they were entitled to qualified immunity. The district court denied the parties’ cross-motions for summary judgment in March 2010 and the parties submitted their Joint Trial Memoranda in January 2011. More than a year later, weeks before trial, Defendants filed an addition to their trial memorandum adding the affirmative defense of exigent circumstances as an exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement. Plaintiffs objected to this late-raised defense. The district court permitted it over objection, and the jury returned a verdict for Defendants.

For the reasons set out in this opinion, we hold that there was insufficient evidence to support a factual finding of exigent circumstances, and that this substantive error requires reversal of the judgment. We therefore reverse the judgment entered in favor of Defendants, and remand the matter for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.