CA4: Cellphone call to confederate inside created exigency

Defendant’s cellphone call as he was being stopped with probable cause created exigent circumstances. The officers had no cause to go into the premises until they discovered he made a call to a confederate and that something was going on inside. United States v. Moses, 540 F.3d 263 (4th Cir. 2008):

It is true that the officers initially had no evidence suggesting that another person was present in 407-A North Cedar Street. When, however, Moses made a telephone call during the course of the traffic stop to his cousin at 407-B North Cedar Street — the residence adjacent to unit 407-A from which Moses was seen to have emerged — Sergeant Kroh became concerned that Moses had warned someone back at Cedar Street about the police so that evidence at 407-A could be removed or destroyed. Moreover, when the officers reacted to this suspicion and returned to 407-B North Cedar Street to interrogate the cousin, her behavior in causing a loud and unprovoked commotion added to the officers’ suspicions that someone else was present inside unit A and that her outburst was calculated as a warning to that person. See United States v. Vasquez, 638 F.2d 507, 531-32 (2d Cir. 1980) (upholding an exigent-circumstances search of a fourth-floor apartment where suspects deceived officers into investigating a second-floor apartment whose occupants created a loud commotion that officers reasonably believed might have warned persons on the fourth floor to the police’s presence). The officers also observed that the windows of unit A were blocked and that a gold vehicle was parked outside the house, suggesting the possibility that someone else might be present. Moses’ argument simply ignores these highly relevant facts.