PA: In a child murder case, the police entry merely to look for other children in the home did not taint subsequent SW

Defendant was sentenced to death for murder of a two-year old boy. On the search issue, officers entered the house only to see if there was another child in the house that he was caring for. They came back with a search warrant, and the prior entry did not taint the search warrant. There was independent evidence supporting the warrant, and the entry didn’t taint the search. Commonwealth v. Woodard, 2015 Pa. LEXIS 2786 (Dec. 3, 2015):

[T]he record establishes that Officer Roy Kohler heard Appellant state that he had been caring for more than one child and entered Appellant’s residence prior to obtaining a warrant for the limited purpose of determining whether Appellant had left any additional children alone in the home. N.T. (Suppression Hearing), Oct. 23, 2012, at 14. He did not move or collect evidence at that time and did not take any photographs. Id. at 15, 27. Moments later, Officer Kohler again briefly entered the residence because a neighbor caring for Jaques’s baby sister asked if she could retrieve diapers from the home. Id. at 16. Again, no evidence was moved or collected. Id. at 27. At 5:20 p.m. on the afternoon of the murder, officers obtained a warrant, but realized that the address on the warrant was that of the neighbor’s home from which the 911 call was made, and not Appellant’s residence. Id. at 43, 56. The officers remedied the error by obtaining a second search warrant listing the correct address. The officers did not conduct any search of Appellant’s residence or seize evidence until after the corrected search warrant was executed at 5:40 p.m. Id. at 43, 46, 59.

Accordingly, the trial court was correct in holding that the search of Appellant’s residence and subsequent seizure of evidence comported with the Fourth Amendment because it did not occur until after police obtained a valid warrant. Moreover, as referenced by the trial court, the information contained in the affidavit of probable cause was based on the suspicious nature of the child’s death and Appellant’s statements made at the crime scene, which was independent from any evidence purportedly viewed by police during a previous entry into Appellant’s residence. Under these circumstances, Appellant’s claim fails.