Alaska refuses to follow Hudson v. Michigan by statute

The officers here failed to substantially comply with the Alaska knock and announce statute. They knocked for 20 seconds on a hotel room door, but they never announced who they were or that they had an arrest warrant. They entered with a pass key and arrested the defendant. This is not substantial compliance under Alaska case law. [Defendant waived his state constitutional argument by not raising it until the reply brief.] Hudson is not followed under Alaska statute. Berumen v. State, 182 P.3d 635 (Alas. App. 2008):

The police officers in this case violated a longstanding requirement of Alaska law that is designed to protect the privacy and dignity of this state’s citizens. On the issue of whether the police must announce their claimed authority and purpose, and on the related issue of whether the police are allowed to break into a building if they have neither sought nor been refused admittance, the statute is written in clear and unambiguous terms. The only exception to the statute’s requirements — the “exigent circumstances” exception — has been identified and analyzed in Lockwood and in various subsequent decisions issued by this Court, and the State concedes that this exception does not apply to the facts of Berumen’s case.

Under these circumstances, the words of the Supreme Court in McNabb are likewise applicable to Berumen’s case: the evidence found in the hotel room was “secured through such a flagrant disregard” of the procedure specified by the Alaska legislature that it “cannot be allowed to stand without making the courts themselves accomplices in [willful] disobedience of [the] law.”

Finally, the fourth Harker factor points toward application of the exclusionary rule. The fact that there are several Alaska appellate decisions that discuss the meaning and application of AS 12.25.100 suggests that this issue comes up more than occasionally in criminal litigation. And yet, despite this, it appears that police officers may not be paying sufficient attention to this statute. During the evidentiary hearing in this case, one of the officers could not remember that one of the reasons for the “knock and announce” statute is to protect citizens’ privacy, and a second officer testified that he had no idea why the officers failed to abide by the requirements of the statute when they entered Berumen’s hotel room. Given this history and this record, we cannot ignore the possibility that there may be widespread or repeated violations of the statute.

In sum, we conclude that all four of the factors mentioned in Harker support the application of the exclusionary rule to violations of AS 12.25.100 that are neither justified by exigent circumstances nor excused under the “substantial compliance” doctrine.

Mississippi day care centers are pervasively regulated under state law such that records inspections and visits are constitutional under New York v. Burger. The operators have no reasonable expectation of privacy in the operation. Moreover, by accepting the license, the operator has consented to the search (citing Samson). Ellis v. Miss. Dep’t of Health, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 37951 (N.D. Miss. May 8, 2008).

Search of defendant’s car glove compartment for a weapon was justified by search incident doctrine, even if he was standing outside of it when he was arrested for assault. The officers had reason to believe he was armed. Lyons v. State, 182 P.3d 649 (Alas. App. 2008).*