Officers has exigent circumstances for a warrantless entry into defendant\u2019s trailer. He as a suspected methamphetamine dealer, and they\u2019d been tailing him for hours. At this trailer, they reasonably feared, based on what people were doing, that their cover was blown. United States v. Cruz-Romero, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 109432 (M.D. Ala. August 5, 2013):<\/p>\n
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Here, the evidence is sufficient to support that reasonable officers could have believed that warrantless entry was necessary. For one, there were several opportunities for Cruz-Romero to have discovered that the officers were outside his trailer: although the officers did not know for sure that the woman they encountered was an actual lookout for Cruz-Romero, the disappearance of her phone (or at least what appeared to be her phone) gave sufficient cause to suspect her involvement; if not her, somebody else in the trailer park’s tight quarters could have seen and alerted Cruz-Romero to the officers circling outside; and, although Enfinger’s attempted flight was brief, to say the least, there was the reasonable possibility that he could have used his cell phone to alert Cruz-Romero of his arrest during that short time. The events unfolding that day were “tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving,” Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 396-97 (1989), and given the limited information available to the officers, they had reasonable cause to fear that Cruz-Romero knew of their presence.<\/p>\n
Second, as the officers had sufficient reason to fear that Cruz-Romero knew they were outside and that a large drug transaction had just occurred inside, the decision to enter the trailer without a warrant was reasonable. If they did not, Cruz-Romero could have destroyed evidence or, like his apparent compatriot Enfinger, attempted to flee, which could have endangered the officers or the public at large, for example, if there was a chase on a public road. Again, that the officers did not know for certain that either of these would actually occur is besides the point; the Fourth Amendment allows law enforcement to respond to reasonable probabilities as well as certainties. See United States v. Bradley, 644 F.3d 1213, 1262 (11th Cir. 2011) (“An exigency exists if the facts would lead a reasonable, experienced agent to believe that evidence might be destroyed before a warrant could be secured.”) (punctuation and citation omitted; emphasis in original).<\/p>\n
In sum, the circumstances were such that reasonable law-enforcement officers had cause to fear that Cruz-Romero was aware that they were outside and that, knowing as much, he might seek to destroy evidence or flee. In short, there was sufficient exigency to enter his trailer without a warrant.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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