FL5: Defendant answering knock-and-talk had a right to retreat back inside

Police came to defendant’s house to do a drug knock-and-talk because they got an anonymous tip he was selling drugs. One officer was at the front door and another was watching the side door. After some knocking, defendant opened the door, stepped out, said “oh, shit” and retreated into the house. The police beat on the side door until his mother answered, and the occupants were ordered out at gunpoint and the police did a protective sweep. He had a right to retreat into his own house and not be ordered out at gunpoint and arrested. Calloway v. State, 118 So. 3d 277 (Fla. 5th DCA 2013):

For these reasons, we hold that Wardlow does not apply to these facts. Accordingly, even in a high crime area, police conducting a “knock and talk” are not authorized to order the resident from the home or detain him, even if he opens the door and steps out briefly, but then retreats into the home upon seeing the police.

On appeal, the State also adds that the facts relayed to the officers prior to approaching the house (from the anonymous tip), when combined with Calloway’s flight upon seeing uniformed officers in a high crime area would be enough to give them reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, thus justifying their detention of Calloway. We reject this argument for the same reasons. Officers using the “knock and talk” procedure will invariably be armed with some information similar to the tip in this case when they approach the front door of a home in an attempt to engage the occupants in a consensual conversation. If they could then use an occupant’s firm desire to avoid police by retreating into the house, or shocked reaction at seeing police, as the only extra information necessary to confirm whatever suspicion brought them to the door in the first place, it would render the consensual nature of the knock and talk procedure completely illusory and unjustifiably erode “the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion” — which stands “[a]t the very core” of our Fourth Amendment protections. Kyllo, 533 U.S. at 31. We therefore hold that the officers violated the occupants’ Fourth Amendment rights by ordering them from their home, and further violated Calloway’s Fourth Amendment rights by handcuffing and involuntarily detaining him.

Calloway’s later admission regarding the presence of marijuana in the house was a fruit of the illegal detention, and could not be used to justify the subsequent search. …