{"id":1495,"date":"2008-01-03T13:34:01","date_gmt":"2007-11-02T08:10:18","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2007-11-03T08:27:25","slug":"en-US","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=1495","title":{"rendered":"9th Cir.: Misdemeanor FTA bench warrant permits entry to arrest"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Consistent with the decisions of other federal courts to consider the issue, we hold that police possessing a valid bench warrant for the arrest of a person who has failed to appear may enter that person’s residence to the extent necessary to execute the warrant” even for a misdemeanor under Payton<\/em><\/a>. United States v. Gooch<\/a>, 506 F.3d 1156 (9th Cir. 2007):<\/p>\n

The Ninth Circuit has not previously had occasion to decide whether a misdemeanor bench warrant for failure to appear–as opposed to a felony arrest warrant–is sufficient to permit entry into a residence under Payton. The Second Circuit, however, in United States v. Spencer<\/em> persuasively reasoned that the Court’s decision in Payton permits entry into a residence to effectuate a valid arrest warrant, regardless of the precise nature of the underlying warrant. 684 F.2d 220, 223 (2d Cir. 1982), cert. denied<\/em>, 459 U.S. 1109, 103 S. Ct. 738, 74 L. Ed. 2d 960 (1983). Rejecting an argument identical to the one that Gooch makes here–that a misdemeanor bench warrant not premised on a formal finding of probable cause does not lie within Payton<\/em>‘s reach–the Second Circuit explained:<\/p>\n

The decision of the New York City Criminal Court Judge to issue a bench warrant constituted a finding made by a neutral magistrate that [the defendant] had failed to appear in a pending criminal matter. We recognize that its issuance did not amount to a judicial finding of probable cause to arrest in the traditional sense …. Nonetheless, the police, armed with the warrant, had authority to find and seize [the defendant] anywhere they could find him for his failure to appear in court. Thus, the presence of the police in the defendant’s room was pursuant to a direction made by a neutral magistrate. Defendant’s rights under the Fourth Amendment require no more.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

684 F.2d at 223 (citing Payton, 445 U.S. at 582 n.17, 586 n.24); see also id. at 223-24 (“[T]he courts, in striving to safeguard a suspect’s Fourth Amendment rights when he is arrested at home, emphasized the necessity that a warrant be issued by a neutral magistrate. . . . In determining reasonableness, the nature of the underlying offense is of no moment.”).FN1 <\/p>\n

1. The holding in Spencer<\/em>, permitting entry into a residence based on a misdemeanor arrest warrant or a bench warrant for failure to appear, has been followed in similar cases with near uniformity by the federal courts. See Shreve v. Jessamine County Fiscal Court<\/em>, 453 F.3d 681, 689 (6th Cir. 2006); United States v. Clayton<\/em>, 210 F.3d 841, 843-44 (8th Cir. 2000); Cogswell v. County of Suffolk Deputy Sheriff’s Dept.<\/em>, 375 F. Supp. 2d 182, 187-88 (E.D.N.Y. 2005); United States v. Ray<\/em>, 199 F. Supp. 2d 1104, 1112-13 (D. Kan. 2002); Smith v. Tolley<\/em>, 960 F. Supp. 977, 991-92 (E.D. Va. 1997); Heine v. Connelly<\/em>, 644 F. Supp. 1508, 1514-15 (D. Del. 1986). <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We find the reasoning of Spencer persuasive, and affirm the district court’s denial of Gooch’s motion to suppress. We hold that a valid arrest warrant issued by a neutral magistrate judge, including a properly issued bench warrant for failure to appear, carries with it the limited authority to enter a residence in order to effectuate the arrest as provided for under Payton<\/em>. The Fourth Amendment presumption against warrantless entries into the home is designed to protect privacy interests against uncabined police discretion. Payton<\/em>, 445 U.S. at 586 (“[W]e have long adhered to the view that the warrant procedure minimizes the danger of needless intrusions [into the home].”). Those interests are sufficiently safeguarded when an entry is premised on the execution of a valid arrest warrant issued by a judge or magistrate, regardless of whether that warrant is for a felony, a misdemeanor, or simply a bench warrant for failure to appear. Here, the police held a valid warrant for Conn’s arrest, a warrant that bore the confirmed address of the residence police entered after following Conn. The entry and subsequent search for Conn were reasonable and permissible under Payton<\/em> and the Fourth Amendment.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

b2evALnk.b2WPAutP Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"pingsdone","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1495\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}