D.V.I.: Knock-and-talk not invalid under Jardines just because officers hope to get consent to search

Knock-and-talk not invalid just because officers hope to get consent to search. They don’t violate the implied license described in Jardines by approaching the front door to talk to defendant in a knock-and-talk. United States v. Wesselhoft, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 47669 (D.V.I. April 8, 2016):

Ultimately, for an officer to avail himself of the “knock and talk” exception, both his initial entry onto the property and his conduct on the property must be reasonable; that is, his conduct must not objectively indicate that the officer’s purpose was to initiate a warrantless search instead of engaging the inhabitants. See Jardines, 133 S. Ct. at 1417 (an officer’s entry onto the curtilage with a drug-sniffing dog violated the Fourth Amendment because his “behavior objectively reveal[ed] a purpose to conduct a search”); United States v. Coles, 437 F.3d 361, 370 (3d Cir. 2006) (“knock and talk” doctrine did not apply where officers’ conduct of misleading occupants into believing they were not police officers to gain entry into apartment “demonstrated that the police had no intention of merely investigating matters further or perhaps obtaining consent to search”).

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Under the “knock and talk” doctrine, the agents were permitted to enter through the open gate and approach the individuals in the carport. Such conduct would be within the implied invitation granted to any visitor when coming to a house and wishing to speak to the occupants of the property. See Carman v. Carroll, 749 F.3d 192, 198 (3d Cir. 2014), rev’d on other grounds 135 S. Ct. 348, 190 L. Ed. 2d 311 (2014); United States v. Walker, 799 F.3d 1361, 1363-64 (11th Cir. 2015) (approaching carport did not exceed geographic limit of knock and talk exception, and officers had reason to believe that occupant of house was there).

The fact that the agents were investigating a possible marijuana selling operation at the property and wished to talk with the occupant(s) in the hope that they would be allowed to perform a consent search, does not transform their approach up the driveway, through the gate, and into the carport into a Fourth Amendment violation. Indeed, as indicated above, the law permits a “knock and talk” entry for the purpose of obtaining information from an occupant necessary to secure a search warrant or for the purpose of seeking consent to search. See Coles, 437 F.3d at 370 (observing that a permissible purpose for a “knock and talk” is to obtain consent to search); Claus, 458 Fed. Appx. at 188.

Here, the objective reasonableness of Latchman, Elskoe, and Fritz’s entry onto the property and their interaction with Wesselhoft, Barnes, and Raseem, placed their conduct squarely within the scope of the “knock and talk” doctrine. See Jardines, 133 S. Ct. at 1416 n.4 (“The mere purpose of discovering information … in the course of engaging in [the] permitted conduct [of approaching the home in order to speak with the occupant] does not cause it to violate the Fourth Amendment.”); United States v. Holmes, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 184961, *34, [WL], at *10 (M.D. Fla. Aug. 8, 2014) (detective’s behavior objectively revealed purpose to knock on door and ask questions about complaint of drug dealing at residence with the hope of getting answers or possible consent to search, not to enter his porch and sniff around, look through the windows, or poke around the planters as occurred in Jardines). The Court finds that their conduct was within the parameters of the “knock and talk” doctrine and did not violate Wesselhoft’s Fourth Amendment rights.