PA: Hot pursuit of a drug dealer to his door permitted warrantless entry when door answered

Officers observed defendant involved in a drug deal and then pursued him to his house and knocked and then entered on answer. This was not a police created exigency. The court engages in a lengthy state constitutional and historical review of warrantless entries into the home before concluding that this entry did not offend either the Fourth Amendment or the state constitution because it was consistent with 18th Century practice. Commonwealth v. Haynes, 2015 PA Super 94, 2015 Pa. Super. LEXIS 207 (April 22, 2015):

Here, police personally observed the drug transactions. They then pursued the culprit, knocked, asked to speak to the renter, and announced that it was police before entering. These actions are consistent with allowable, i.e., reasonable, 18th century common law practice. See also Commonwealth v. Govens, 429 Pa. Super. 464, 632 A.2d 1316, 1326-1327 (Pa.Super. 1993) (en banc) (discussing Fourth Amendment and police created exigency law). Police only forcibly entered after the renter refused to open the door, again a practice not prohibited by the 1776 and 1790 constitutions. Further, police did not uncover the drugs in question by undertaking an overbroad and prohibited search of the entire residence on the grounds that it was incident to arrest. Rather, the drugs were seized in plain view. Thus, this case is markedly different from Mason, Melendez, and even Demshock and Waddell, which both relied on the Fourth Amendment.

The defendant in Mason was not personally observed committing a crime. Instead, police witnessed a different individual commit the drug transaction after leaving the residence of the defendant. Further, while a police officer did knock, he did not announce that he was an officer and testified that he intended to pose as a maintenance worker. Hence, the forced warrantless entry in Mason was not consistent with the common law warrant exceptions when the early Pennsylvania Constitutions went into effect. Phrased differently, there was no fresh pursuit of a felon after personally witnessing the commission of the crime and an announcement after knocking.

Melendez involved even more egregious police action. There, police did not have grounds to stop the defendant, having observed no suspicious activity on her part. Police then transported the defendant back to her residence and directed her to open her door. Not a single common law exception to warrantless entry into a defendant’s home applied. With respect to Demshock, police witnessed a minor offense, underage drinking, occur inside the home. While knocking, police intentionally did not announce their presence. The minor nature of the offense and the failure to indicate they were police in order to gain entry are distinguishable facts from the present case.

Similarly, Waddell, though focusing on a Fourth Amendment analysis, is consistent with this decision and Pennsylvania constitutional jurisprudence. The distinction between Waddell and this matter is that therein the police did not observe any drug transactions, and the defendant was no longer inside, having exited out a window. Waddell, supra at 215. Under the common law at the time of the passage of Pennsylvania’s first two constitutions, forced entry would have been unlawful because the fleeing felon was not inside and police were not in fresh pursuit after seeing the crime. For the aforementioned reasons, we find that the police in this matter did not violate Article I, § 8.