{"id":5561,"date":"2011-12-28T12:34:18","date_gmt":"2011-05-17T07:25:23","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-05-17T07:25:23","slug":"en-US","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=5561","title":{"rendered":"MO: Deputy at back door to effect arrest in case defendant fled violated curtilage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two bailbondsmen with a warrant for defendant\u2019s arrest call Sheriff\u2019s deputies per state law for assistance. The deputies look up the arrest warrant from a neighboring county, and they all go to the house where defendant would be found. One bondsman and one deputy to the front door, and one each to the back door. At the back door, they find a marijuana plant, clearly in an area not visible from the road. On the knock at the front door, the defendant comes out the back door, and he gets arrested. The back door was curtilage, and the marijuana plant was suppressed. On the mixed question of law and fact, the trial court\u2019s finding of curtilage and reasonable expectation of privacy is affirmed. State v. Bates<\/a>, 344 S.W.3d 783 (Mo. App. 2011):<\/p>\n

. . . The rationale justifying an officer\u2019s warrantless presence at a residence for a legitimate investigatory purpose is that \u201cthere is no reasonable expectation of privacy subject to Fourth Amendment protection where the public at large is welcome.\u201d Kriley, 976 S.W.2d at 22.<\/p>\n

We find that Kruse is basically indistinguishable from the present matter. In Kruse, officers went to Kruse\u2019s mobile-home residence shortly after midnight to search for a third party, Jeremy Beel, who had an arrest warrant which had \u201ccaution indicators,\u201d meaning the subject was considered dangerous. Kruse, 306 S.W.3d at 606. When the officers arrived at Kruse\u2019s residence, the vehicle Beel was driving was parked on the driveway with a flat tire. Id. \u201cNo trespassing\u201d signs were posted near the front door of Kruse\u2019s trailer and on the front door of a shed at the end of the driveway on the property. Id. No obstructions blocked access to the backyard. Id. As the officers passed between the shed and the residence, without first knocking at the front door, the shed door flew open and Kruse came \u201cbolting\u201d out of the shed. Id. at 607. With the shed door open, an officer observed methamphetamine manufacturing equipment inside the shed. Id. A search warrant for the property was secured, pursuant to which the officers discovered various evidence of methamphetamine manufacturing. Id. The trial court found that the officers conducted a warrantless search of Kruse\u2019s backyard and that the search was not justified by exigent circumstances. Id. at 607-08. The Western District of this Court affirmed the suppression of the evidence and found that Kruse had an expectation of privacy in his backyard and that the trial court did not err in finding that exigent circumstances that would allow the officers to search the home of Kruse for Beel did not exist. Id. at 612.<\/p>\n

The State encourages us not to follow Kruse or, in the alternative, claims Kruse is distinguishable. We decline the first request and disagree with the second. In Kruse, unlike in this case, the vehicle that police were informed that Beel was driving was at Kruse\u2019s residence. Id. at 606. Beel was considered violent. Id. In this case, Threlkeld had an outstanding warrant for driving while revoked. Despite the more compelling facts in Kruse, suppression of the evidence was affirmed because Kruse had an expectation of privacy in his backyard and the trial court did not err in finding that exigent circumstances did not justify the search. Id. at 612. Likewise, we find the trial court did not err in finding Defendant had a reasonable expectation of privacy in his backyard. In the light most favorable to the trial court\u2019s ruling, the evidence was discovered on \u201cproperty as to which there was a privacy interest protected by the Fourth Amendment.\u201d Id. We believe Kruse is controlling precedent and not meaningfully distinguishable.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

[Arkansas had a similar case and came out just the opposite.]<\/p>\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-5561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5561","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\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5561\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}