{"id":32207,"date":"2018-03-15T00:00:39","date_gmt":"2018-03-15T05:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=32207"},"modified":"2018-03-16T04:58:07","modified_gmt":"2018-03-16T09:58:07","slug":"mn-officers-entry-on-defs-property-to-look-at-serial-number-of-an-allegedly-stolen-camper-violated-curtilage-entry-suppressed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=32207","title":{"rendered":"MN: Officer’s entry on def’s property to look at serial number of an allegedly stolen camper violated curtilage; entry suppressed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Defendant was a suspect in having a stolen pop-up camper on his property. The victim saw it and called the police. The police entered to look at the serial number on the camper, but it was curtilage under Dunn. The officer\u2019s entry on the property violated Jardines because he entered to search first and not to go to the door as any other visitor would. Thus, he violated the implied license granted by Jardines. State v. Chute<\/a>, 2018 Minn. LEXIS 105 (Mar. 14, 2018):
\n<\/p>\n

Respondent Quentin Todd Chute was convicted of possession of a stolen camper trailer. He challenges the district court\u2019s denial of his motion to suppress evidence obtained when an officer entered his property, examined the stolen camper, and then, after obtaining Chute\u2019s consent, searched his home. Chute contends that the officer\u2019s examination of the camper violated his Fourth Amendment rights and tainted his subsequent consent to the officer\u2019s search of his home. The district court concluded that the officer\u2019s entry onto Chute\u2019s property was lawful because the camper was on a driveway that was impliedly open to the public, and that the officer had authority to seize the camper under the plain view doctrine. The court of appeals reversed, and the State sought review. We conclude that because the officer\u2019s conduct objectively amounted to a search and was not a permissible \u201cknock-and-talk,\u201d the warrantless search violated Chute\u2019s Fourth Amendment rights. We therefore affirm the court of appeals. <\/p>\n

. . . <\/p>\n

Applying the Dunn factors to the unique facts of this case and then balancing them, we conclude that the area of Chute\u2019s backyard on which the camper was parked was \u201cso intimately tied to the home itself that it should be placed under the home\u2019s \u2018umbrella\u2019 of Fourth Amendment protections.\u201d Dunn, 480 U.S. at 301. It was curtilage. <\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

Because Chute had impliedly granted the public access to his backyard to seek \u201ca back door entrance to the house and garage,\u201d we must next consider whether the officer acted within the scope of this implied license while on the property. The scope of the implied license \u201cis limited not only to a particular area but also to a specific purpose.\u201d Jardines, 569 U.S. at 9. The license, therefore, has a spatial limitation and a purpose limitation. To determine whether the officer acted within the limitations of this implied license, we must determine the officer\u2019s purpose, objectively, for entering the curtilage. See id. at 10 (looking to the behavior of an officer to determine whether, objectively, the officer\u2019s purpose complied with the implied license). Based on the evidence, we conclude that the officer\u2019s intrusion violated the limitations of the implied license to enter Chute\u2019s property. <\/p>\n

Viewed objectively, the evidence demonstrates that the officer\u2019s purpose for entering the curtilage was to conduct a search. Photographs in the record show that the camper was parked at the end of Chute\u2019s driveway, past the house, in the back corner of Chute\u2019s backyard. To inspect the camper, the officer had to deviate substantially from the route that would take him to the back door of the house or to the garage. The officer walked directly to the camper, inspected it thoroughly, both inside and out, and only turned back toward the house when he was satisfied that the camper was stolen. Anyone observing the officer\u2019s actions objectively would conclude that his purpose was not to question the resident of the house, but to inspect the camper, \u201cwhich is not what anyone would think he had license to do.\u201d Jardines, 569 U.S. at 10; …<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

Like the Eighth Circuit, we have never held that a \u201cknock-and-talk\u201d license allows officers to proceed to the backyard of the property before attempting to contact the resident at the front door. But even assuming that the officer was permitted to bypass the front door of Chute\u2019s house, he was not permitted to stray from a visitor\u2019s normal route of access. As even the dissent in Jardines recognized, \u201c[a] visitor cannot traipse through the garden, meander into the backyard, or take other circuitous detours that veer from the pathway that a visitor would customarily use.\u201d 569 U.S. at 19 (Alito, J., dissenting); accord id. at 9 (explaining that \u201csocial norms that invite a visitor to the front door do not invite him there to conduct a search\u201d). By moving away from the path that a visitor would reasonably use to access the house or garage, the officer violated the spatial limitations of the implicit license. <\/p>\n

The officer also violated the temporal limitations of the implicit license. In Jardines, the Court noted that an implied license authorizes visitors to enter the curtilage \u201cbriefly,\u201d unless they receive an \u201cinvitation to linger longer.\u201d Id. at 8. …<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

h\/t to a reader<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Defendant was a suspect in having a stolen pop-up camper on his property. The victim saw it and called the police. The police entered to look at the serial number on the camper, but it was curtilage under Dunn. The … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-curtilage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32207"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32213,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32207\/revisions\/32213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}