Post details: CA11: Breaking safety beam to reopen closing garage door to enter it was a violation of the Fourth Amendment, but officers get qualified immunity

06/07/11

Permalink 08:19:57 am, by fourth, 438 words, 2046 views   English (US)
Categories: General

CA11: Breaking safety beam to reopen closing garage door to enter it was a violation of the Fourth Amendment, but officers get qualified immunity

Sheriff’s deputies attempting to serve civil process on plaintiffs violated the Fourth Amendment when plaintiff’s wife attempted to close the garage door to keep them out, but one broke the safety beam with his foot, and the door reopened. The garage was a part of the house. However, there was not a case in point, so the officers get qualified immunity. The court explains in great detail the qualified immunity analysis of finding a case with “obvious clarity” for guidance, finding none here. Coffin v. Brandau, 642 F.3d 999 (11th Cir. 2011):

We need not decide in this case whether entering an open garage in order to utilize a passageway to gain access to a visible door to the home is a violation of the Fourth Amendment. We hold, however, that, under the totality of the circumstances, the Deputies' entry into the Coffins' garage was a violation of the Fourth Amendment. The garage here is attached to the home itself, putting it in closer proximity to the home than an unattached garage. In contrast with a carport, the attached garage has walls on three sides and has the capability, if the outside door is rolled down, of being closed to maintain privacy. Ms. Coffin also attempted to exercise her Fourth Amendment rights. In her first conversation with Lutz, she explained that her husband might need a while before he would be able to come to the door. Lutz expressed his willingness to wait, and Ms. Coffin, by closing and locking the front door, indicated that she was maintaining her privacy in the meantime. Following this encounter, when Ms. Coffin noticed Lutz walking up to her window through her bushes, she screamed at him to get out of her bushes and off her property and threatened to call the police. Finally, and most significantly, when Lutz and Brandau remained on the property, Ms. Coffin attempted to close the garage door in order to maintain privacy in that area as well. Under these circumstances and in light of Ms. Coffin's indications that she intended to maintain privacy, we hold that entering the garage as Ms. Coffin attempted to close it was a violation of the Fourth Amendment.

. . .

Although we have concluded that, especially in light of Ms. Coffin's instruction for the officers to leave her property and her attempt to close the garage door, the Deputies' entry of the garage did in fact violate the Fourth Amendment, we cannot conclude that the law was clearly established such that reasonable officers facing these circumstances would know that their conduct would violate federal law. Several reasons inform our conclusion in this regard.

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