HI: Knock-and-announce for 25 seconds at 6:15 am before forced entry unreasonable

Under the state constitution, police knocks on the door for 25 seconds in the early morning before forcibly entering after even hearing the homeowner call out was not a reasonable amount of time to respond, and this warranted suppression of the search. State v. Naeole, 2020 Haw. LEXIS 172 (June 22, 2020):

Among the rights guaranteed by the Constitutions of the United States and the State of Hawai’i is the fundamental right of the people to be secure in their homes from unreasonable searches, seizures, and invasions of privacy. See U.S. Const. amend. IV; Haw. Const. art. I, § 7. “Both the fourth amendment to the United States Constitution and article I, section 7 of the Hawai’i Constitution ensure that an individual’s legitimate expectations of privacy will not be subjected to unreasonable governmental intrusions.” State v. Meyer, 78 Hawai’i 308, 311-12, 893 P.2d 159, 162-63 (1995). “Every householder, the good and the bad, the guilty and the innocent, is entitled to the protection designed to secure the common interest against unlawful invasion of the house.” Miller v. United States, 357 U.S. 301, 313, 78 S. Ct. 1190, 2 L. Ed. 2d 1332 (1958). To safeguard this constitutional guarantee, “[t]he standards by which any governmental search is to be judged is always its reasonableness[.]” State v. Garcia, 77 Hawai’i 461, 467, 887 P.2d 671, 677 (App. 1995) (quoting State v. Martinez, 59 Haw. 366, 368, 580 P.2d 1282, 1284 (1978)). More specifically, when the police demand entrance to a person’s home pursuant to a search warrant, they are constitutionally required to afford the occupants of the home a “reasonable time” to respond before forcing entry. State v. Monay, 85 Hawai’i 282, 284, 943 P.2d 908, 910 (1997) (quoting Garcia, 77 Hawai’i at 468, 887 Hawai’i at 678).

In this case, we consider whether the Honolulu Police Department (“HPD”) gave Petitioner/Defendant-Appellee Dawn Naeole (“Naeole”) a reasonable amount of time to respond to their demand for entry when they executed a search warrant at her home in the early morning of September 4, 2015. Naeole, who was suspected of illegal drug activity, had the front door of her 900 square foot home broken down at approximately 6:15 a.m. after the police knocked, announced their presence, and demanded entry four times within the span of twenty-five seconds. A police officer heard a female voice inside the house after the third “knock-and-announce,” but the HPD officers had no reason to believe that Naeole was fleeing or that any evidence was being destroyed. Under these circumstances, we hold that the amount of time afforded to Naeole to respond to the demand for entry was not reasonable, and thus vacate the Intermediate Court of Appeals’ (“ICA”) opinion to the contrary.