CA4: Entry onto property from side to look in window on a domestic disturbance call was not unreasonable

An officer did not violate the Fourth Amendment by coming up to property the subject of a 911 domestic disturbance call from the side and looking in a broken window seeing a gun. United States v. Moore, 453 Fed. Appx. 401 (4th Cir. 2011) (unpublished):

Here, Ayers was responding to a 911 call indicating that there was a domestic disturbance ongoing at Moore’s residence. Although another police officer had already responded to and resolved the incident, the officer had not alerted police dispatchers, and Ayers arrived on the scene, believing himself to be the first officer to respond. At the suppression hearing, Ayers testified that he approached the residence from the side, rather than proceeding to the front door, for his own safety, and decided to investigate further after seeing a broken window and hearing voices from inside. We conclude that Ayers’s action in proceeding to the side of the home and looking inside was not “so incompatible with the scope of [his] original purpose that any evidence inadvertently seen by [him] must be excluded as the fruit of an illegal search.” United States v. Anderson, 552 F.2d 1296, 1300 (8th Cir. 1977) (citing United States v. Bradshaw, 490 F.2d 1097, 1100 (4th Cir. 1974)).

“It is a hallmark of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence that the possibility of a threat to the safety of law enforcement officers may constitute exigent circumstances justifying a warrantless search or seizure.” United States v. Legg, 18 F.3d 240, 244 (4th Cir. 1994); see also Bellotte v. Edwards, 629 F.3d 415, 422-23 (4th Cir. 2011) (listing cases addressing the justification for no-knock entries that speak primarily in terms of threats or danger to officer safety). “For police officers successfully to assert the exigent circumstances doctrine, they need only possess a reasonable suspicion that such circumstances exist at the time of the search or seizure in question.” Figg v. Schroeder, 312 F.3d 625, 639 (4th Cir. 2002) (internal quotation marks omitted). Courts should not “engage in unreasonable second-guessing of the officers’ assessment of the circumstances that they faced.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). We have reviewed the record and conclude that the officers were justified in entering the home when Ayers observed one of Moore’s companions pointing a firearm at the front door where other deputies stood. Indeed, they acted entirely reasonably under the circumstances.