E.D.Ky.: 911 call about burglary in progress led to objectively reasonable warrantless entry

Officers responded to a possible burglary 911 call in an area known for recent burglaries. They talked to the 911 caller, and she told them that the car parked across from the defendant’s house didn’t belong in the neighborhood, and she saw a strange man who also didn’t belong there walking in the front yard of the house. Officers checked the front and back doors which were unlocked, so they entered. Inside in the basement, while looking for the potential “prowler” they saw marijuana plants. They retreated and got a search warrant. The entry was objectively reasonable under all the circumstances. United States v. Friskey, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 165583 (E.D. Ky. November 26, 2014):

The Fourth Amendment protects “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures ….” U.S. Const. amend. IV. The “chief evil” the Fourth Amendment guards against is the government’s physical entry into the home; therefore, warrantless entries and searches inside a home are “presumptively unreasonable.” Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 585-86, 100 S. Ct. 1371, 63 L. Ed. 2d 639 (1980). However, police may reasonably enter a home without a warrant when there is an exigent circumstance. Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385, 394, 98 S. Ct. 2408, 57 L. Ed. 2d 290 (1978).

When officers have probable cause to believe a burglary is in progress, there is an exigent circumstance that justifies a warrantless entry into the home. United States v. Brown, 449 F.3d 741, 747 (2006). This exception is based on the common sense rationale that “it would defy reason to suppose that [an officer] had to secure a warrant … leaving the putative burglars free to complete their crime unmolested.” United States v. Johnson, 9 F.3d 506, 509 (6th Cir. 1993). To determine whether the officers had probable cause, a reviewing court considers the “totality of the circumstances” to arrive at a “common-sense” conclusion whether there was a “fair probability” a burglary was in progress. Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 239, 103 S. Ct. 2317, 76 L. Ed. 2d 527 (1983).

In this case, the officers had probable cause to believe that a burglar was inside the Defendant’s home. The officers received a dispatch call that a concerned citizen had made a 911 call reporting a suspicious person on Mills Road, a location where there had been a recent string of burglaries. After arriving and checking what turned out to be the incorrect house, the officers spoke face-to-face with the neighbor who had made the 911 call. The neighbor told the officers that a suspicious male had been walking around the front door of the Defendant’s home (3277 Mills Road). He also alerted the officers to a vehicle across the street, and explained that both the vehicle and male were “out of the ordinary” for the area. The officers then discovered that both the front and back door of Defendant’s home were unlocked. Based on this information, the officers had probable cause to believe that a burglary was in progress, and therefore an exigency justified their entry into the home.