W.D.Va.: Looking through porch window was a search, but justified by officer safety

Looking in the porch window is a violation of the curtilage and a search. Here, however, it was justified by the exigency of officer safety. United States v. Macdowell, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 139432 (W.D. Va. Aug. 19, 2019). As to the look itself:

Because Hayton deviated from the path to MacDowell’s front door in order to observe things not clearly visible from the street, front door, or other permissible vantage points, I find that a search occurred. See Jardines, 569 U.S. at 6 (noting that the right of a person to retreat into his or her home and be free from governmental intrusion “would be of little practical value if the State’s agents could stand in a home’s porch or side garden and trawl for evidence with impunity” or “enter a man’s property to observe his repose from just outside the front window”).

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