{"id":7498,"date":"2012-09-14T08:29:22","date_gmt":"2012-07-29T11:55:19","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-07-30T09:49:16","slug":"en-US","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=7498","title":{"rendered":"VA: Exigency permitted entry into defendant’s home police thought was being burglarized"},"content":{"rendered":"

Officers received a burglary call and followed fresh footprints in the new snow from one burglary to a trailer that they thought was being burglarized, too. Instead, it was defendant\u2019s, and the entry through the open door for a sweep was valid when nobody answered. When incriminating evidence was found, they got a search warrant. Note that this was analyzed as one of those \u201csplit second decisions\u201d for reasonableness. Washington v. Commonwealth<\/a>, 60 Va. App. 427, 728 S.E.2d 521 (2012)*:<\/p>\n

Washington contends the deputies could not be certain a burglary suspect was still in the trailer. True, but the deputies were “not required to possess either the gift of prophecy or the infallible wisdom that comes with hindsight. Their conduct in making a warrantless search must be judged by the circumstances confronting the officers at the time they act.” Hill, 18 Va. App. at 3, 441 S.E.2d at 51 (quoting Reynolds v. Commonwealth, 9 Va. App. 430, 437, 388 S.E.2d 659, 664 (1990)). In Fourth Amendment cases, the “calculus of reasonableness must embody allowance for the fact that police officers are often forced to make split-second judgments\u2014in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving.” Ryburn v. Huff, 132 S. Ct. 987, 992, 181 L. Ed. 2d 966 (2012) …. Police officers must often make an “on-the-spot judgment based on incomplete information and sometimes ambiguous facts bearing upon the potential for serious consequences.” United States v. Taylor, 624 F.3d 626, 634 (4th Cir. 2010) … When they do so, courts should not “engage in ‘should have\/could have\/would have’ hindsight” to second-guess their objectively reasonable judgments. Id.<\/p>\n

For these reasons, the trial court correctly denied Washington’s motion to suppress the incriminating evidence obtained from the later search pursuant to the warrant. The deputies’ initial warrantless entry did not violate the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable searches, and thus, the observations made during their protective sweep did not taint the application for the search warrant.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

[Actually posted 7\/30]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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