KY: Protective sweep after 1:30 am knock-and-talk was unreasonable

Kentucky S.Ct. adopts Buie protective sweep for the first time finding that the area swept during a 1:30 am knock-and-talk was inappropriate on the facts. Defendant and his girlfriend were in bed and the officers did a protective sweep of an adjoining room without any factual justification finding drug residue on a spoon and then coercing consent to search the entire house. Guzman v. Commonwealth, 375 S.W.3d 805 (Ky. 2012):

Today, for the first time, this Court follows and adopts the holding in Buie. We note, in passing, that four years before Buie our own Court of Appeals recognized that a “protective sweep” or “safety check” is an exception to the warrant requirement in Kentucky law. Commonwealth v. Elliott, 714 S.W.2d 494, 496 (Ky.App. 1986). Guzman points out that the Buie case is distinguishable from the facts of this case in that the “protective sweep” there was performed incident to an in-home arrest on a warrant and was for the purpose of protecting the safety of the police. We agree that Buie is clearly distinguishable. Unlike this case, the holdings in both Buie and Elliott dealt with a limited sweep in conjunction with an in-home arrest.

Note: The fact of a 1:30 am knock-and-talk should be presumptively invalid anyway as inherently coercive. How can armed police officers at the door at 1:30 am be non-consensual?