On December 27, 2023, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals decided the United States v. Maxwell[i], which serves as an excellent review of the law related to warrantless, exigent home entry. The relevant facts of Maxwell are as follows:
Lieutenant Steven Bose of the Waterloo, Iowa, Police Department initiated a traffic stop on a blue Chevrolet Trailblazer on November 4, 2020, at approximately 9:40 p.m. The Trailblazer did not stop until it came to a red light. The front-seat passenger opened the door and took off running, dropping a pair of black gloves. The passenger was a Black man wearing dark clothing and shoes. Bose pulled over, exited his patrol car, and gave chase, but lost sight of the passenger. While continuing his search on foot, Bose saw a silver Chevrolet Malibu backed into a driveway at a home on West 10th Street in Waterloo. A man sat in the driver’s seat with the door open, but was not wearing dark clothes. Additional officers soon responded to the area.
Bose stopped Dennis Brown, a Black man wearing dark joggers, on West 10th Street. After Bose reviewed his dash-cam video, he realized that the fleeing passenger was leaner than Brown and wore dark blue jeans. Brown also was not out of breath and maintained that he did not run from officers. Bose apologized for the detention and released Brown.
Officers found the Trailblazer, which was parked nearby. Bose could see two ski masks and one pair of black gloves inside the vehicle. He found another pair of black gloves in the street, where the passenger had exited the Trailblazer.
Meanwhile, dispatch reported that an armed robbery had occurred nearby and described the suspects as two Black men wearing black clothing and ski masks. One suspect was wearing black gloves, the other had hazel eyes, and both were armed with handguns. According to dispatch, the robbery had occurred approximately thirty to forty-five minutes earlier. Around the time of this report, a woman brought a set of keys to the officers, which she had found where Brown was detained. The keys belonged to the Trailblazer, which was registered to Harden.
Bose saw Brown and two others on the porch of the home on West 10th Street where the Malibu was parked. Officers detained Brown for a second time, set up a perimeter around the house, and decided to apply for a warrant. Lieutenant Kye Richter saw movement on the second floor of the home, which he believed was a person descending the stairs.
Richter spoke with the woman who was standing on the front porch. She told him that she rented the home with her boyfriend, Harden, and that her two young children—a four-month-old infant and two-year-old toddler—were alone in the house. She said that the unclothed infant was in a swing in the living room and reiterated that Harden was not at home. She pleaded for permission to go inside to tend to the children, but was told by Richter that she would not be allowed to enter without a police escort. She discussed the matter with Richter for approximately eleven minutes, but ultimately did not consent to the officers’ entry into the residence.
Richter and Bose escorted the girlfriend into the home before the warrant application had been completed. They found Maxwell and Harden in the living room and took them into custody. Officers thereafter conducted a protective sweep of the home, during which they saw a bundle of currency and a pair of black tennis shoes. The infant was seated in a swing in the living room, and the toddler was asleep upstairs.
Search warrants issued hours later. Officers seized from within the residence commercially packaged marijuana products, $130 in currency and a black hair tie from a table in the living room, as well as $1,741 in currency from within a bedroom. The silver-hued Malibu belonged to Maxwell and held a .22 caliber revolver and a .45 caliber pistol within, as well as a receipt for marijuana products and a variety of marijuana products in a green reusable grocery bag. Officers recovered black gloves and ski masks from within Harden’s Trailblazer.[ii]
Harden filed a motion to suppress the evidence observed during the protective sweep and pursuant to the search warrant because he alleged the officer’s entry into the home violated the Fourth Amendment. The district court denied the motion. Harden later appealed the denial of the motion to suppress to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.[iii]
On appeal, the Eighth Circuit first noted the legal principles relevant to warrantless home entry based upon exigent circumstances. The court stated
The Fourth Amendment protects the right of people to be secure in their homes against unreasonable searches and seizures. “[W]arrants are generally required to search a person’s home or his person unless ‘the exigencies of the situation’ make the needs of law enforcement so compelling that the warrantless search is objectively reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.” Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385, 393-94, 98 S. Ct. 2408, 57 L. Ed. 2d 290 (1978) (quoting McDonald v. United States, 335 U.S. 451, 456, 69 S. Ct. 191, 93 L. Ed. 153 (1948)); see Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 586, 100 S. Ct. 1371, 63 L. Ed. 2d 639 (1980) (“[S]earches and seizures inside a home without a warrant are presumptively unreasonable.”). The Supreme Court has long considered “the need to assist persons who are seriously injured or threatened with such injury” as an exigency that justifies a warrantless search. Brigham City v. Stuart, 547 U.S. 398, 403, 126 S. Ct. 1943, 164 L. Ed. 2d 650 (2006). The Fourth Amendment thus “allows officers to enter a home if they have ‘an objectively reasonable basis for believing’ that such help is needed, and if the officers’ actions inside the home are reasonable under the circumstances.” Caniglia v. Strom, 593 U.S. 194, 206, 141 S. Ct. 1596, 209 L. Ed. 2d 604 (2021) (Kavanaugh, J., concurring) (quoting Brigham City, 547 U.S. at 406).[iv]
The court then examined the facts known to the officers at the time they entered the residence. The facts were as follows: (1) an armed robbery occurred which involved at least two, ski mask-wearing, darkly clothed, armed suspects, one of whom wore black gloves; (2) dark gloves were dropped by a suspect that ran from a Chevy Trailblazer, owned by Harden; (3) the Trailblazer contained ski masks and a second pair of gloves; (4) the keys to the Trailblazer were found at the location where Brown, who was wearing all black clothing, had been detained; (5) Brown went to Harden’s residence after he was detained; (6) Harden’s girlfriend insisted that he was not home, however an officer saw a person going down stairs at the residence; (7) an unclothed infant and a toddler were alone in the residence, and the infant was in a swing; and (8) the male that parked the Malibu at the residence was no longer outside.[v]
The court of appeals held that, based on the facts above, the officers reasonably believed (1) that Brown was involved in the armed robbery, (2) that he drove the Trailblazer, and (3) that at least one armed-robbery suspect was currently in the residence.[vi] Additionally, the court held it was reasonable for the officers to not allow Harden’s girlfriend to enter the residence without being escorted by police. Further, the officers knew it would “take hours” to obtain a search warrant and “a reasonable officer would have known it was dangerous to leave an infant and a toddler alone for that amount of time.”[vii] The court of appeals stated
Once the officers entered, they arrested Maxwell and Harden and performed only a protective sweep to ensure that no one was hidden in the home. Officers did not seize evidence until a warrant authorized them to do so. We conclude that the circumstances here were sufficiently exigent to allow officers to enter, in light of the very young unattended children that were either alone (if Harden’s girlfriend were to be believed) or with at least one armed-robbery suspect (as Bose and Richter reasonably believed).[viii]
Thus, exigent circumstances were present to allow the officers to enter without a warrant. Further, the officers did not seize evidence until the search warrant authorized the seizure of evidence. The court of appeals also noted court precedent that allowed warrantless entry to protect children unattended in residences.[ix]
As such, the court of appeals held that the warrantless entry was “reasonable and constitutional under the exigent circumstances doctrine.”[x]
Note: Court holdings can vary significantly between jurisdictions. As such, it is advisable to seek the advice of a local prosecutor or legal adviser regarding questions on specific cases. This article is not intended to constitute legal advice on a specific case.
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Citations
[i] No. 22-2653, No. 22-2655 (8th Cir. Decided December 27, 2023)
[ii] Id. at 2-5
[iii] Note: This article will only discuss the appeal regarding the denial of the motion to suppress.
[iv] Id. at 6-7 (emphasis added)
[v] Id. at 7
[vi] Id. at 7-8
[vii] Id. at 8
[viii] Id.
[ix] Id. at 8-9 (citing Sanders, 4 F.4th at 677-78 (holding that officers had objectively reasonable basis to enter the house without a warrant because the circumstances indicated a serious concern for the safety of the children inside the home); United States v. Antwine, 873 F.2d 1144, 1147 (8th Cir. 1989) (holding that an officer’s entry into the home, his limited search, [*9] and the seizure of firearm was reasonable because an eleven-year-old boy and small girl would be left alone at the home after the arrest of armed robbery suspect). Bose and Richter’s warrantless entry thus was reasonable and constitutional under the exigent circumstances doctrine. See Caniglia, 593 U.S. at 208 (Kavanaugh, J., concurring) (explaining that the exigent circumstances doctrine permits warrantless entries in “cases involving unattended young children inside a home”); Mincey, 437 U.S. at 392 (“The need to protect or preserve life or avoid serious injury is justification for what would be otherwise illegal absent an exigency or emergency.” (citation omitted)).
[x] Id. at 9
