TN: Path in the grass was enough to permit police to approach front door in knock and talk

Defendant lived on a building on a relative’s property, and he argued it violated curtilage to even come to his door. A path in the grass from a dirt road was enough to show that the front door could be approached. State v. Robertson, 2013 Tenn. Crim. App. LEXIS 12 (January 7, 2013):

The Defendant’s main contention with regards to whether the police officers executed a valid “knock and talk” is that there was no “pathway” from Grinnell Drive to the Defendant’s building. Likewise, the Defendant argues that there was no “pathway” from the dirt road to the door of the building. However, the validity of an attempted “knock and talk” does not depend on the existence of a cobblestone pathway or a set of ornate stepping stones leading from the road directly to a defendant’s front door. Nor is the procedure limited only to buildings that the police can reach by major public thoroughfares. Instead, the operative question is whether the defendant has an expectation of privacy in the area between the roadway and the defendant’s front door. This principle applies regardless of whether the police are approaching a one-room shack off of a dirt road or a residence off of Old Hickory Boulevard.