W.D.Mo.: Exigency was speculative; search suppressed

That an emergency “might” come into being is not enough to dispense with a warrant. There was probable cause, but no warrant and no exigency. United States v. Castro, 959 F. Supp. 2d 1205 (W.D. Mo. 2013)*:

In testimony during the evidentiary hearing, law enforcement officers repeatedly made the point that the entry into Phelps Avenue address was justified because they had probable cause to believe that Castro had committed and was in the process of furthering the commission of a crime. The officers may well be correct and, indeed, it seems likely that Urbina’s vehicle could legitimately have been stopped after leaving the Denny’s but before reaching the residence. But, even with all of that, the Constitutional rules changed when the vehicle arrived at the residence and was parked in the attached garage. As succinctly noted by the Supreme Court:

We are not dealing with formalities. Because the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion stands at the very core of the Fourth Amendment, our cases have firmly established the basic principle of Fourth Amendment law that searches and seizures inside a home without a warrant are presumptively unreasonable. Thus, absent exigent circumstances, a warrantless entry to search for weapons or contraband is unconstitutional even when a felony has been committed and there is probable cause to believe that incriminating evidence will be found within.

Groh v. Ramirez, 540 U.S. 551, 558-59, 124 S.Ct. 1284, 1290-91, 157 L. Ed. 2d 1068 (2004) (citations and internal punctuation omitted). The probable cause possessed by the officers, standing alone, does not justify the entry into Castro’s residence.