United States v. Walker

F I L E D
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
PUBLISH
January 31, 2007
UNITED STATES CO URT O F APPEALS Elisabeth A. Shumaker
Clerk of Court
TENTH CIRCUIT

U N ITED STA TES O F A M ER ICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,
v. No. 05-2287
SHERIDAN W ALKER,

Defendant - Appellant.

A PPE AL FR OM T HE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR T HE D ISTRICT OF NEW M EXICO
(D.C. NO . CR-04-519-RB)

Charles A. Harwood, Assistant Federal Public Defender, Las Cruces, New
M exico, for Defendant - Appellant.

David W illiams, Assistant United States Attorney, (David C. Iglesias, United
States Attorney, and Laura Fashing, Assistant United States Attorney, on the
brief), Albuquerque, New M exico, for Plaintiff - Appellee.

Before HA RTZ, A ND ER SO N, and M cCO NNELL, Circuit Judges.

HA RTZ, Circuit Judge.

Sheridan W alker was indicted in the United States District Court for the

District of New M exico on charges of being a felon in possession of firearms and

certain types of ammunition, see 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1) and 924(a)(2). He
moved to suppress the evidence found in his home during a sweep by police

officers, and the district court denied the motion. He then pleaded guilty to the

charges but reserved his right to appeal the denial of his motion to suppress. O n

appeal he challenges that denial. W e have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291.

W e reverse the decision of the district court and remand for it to determine

whether exigent circumstances may have allowed police to search the house for

victims in need of immediate aid.

I. FACTS

In the early afternoon of October 26, 2003, an anonymous woman called

911 in Roosevelt County to report that two men at 1868 Highway 236 had guns

and were threatening to kill each other. W hen the dispatcher asked the caller

what the two men were doing at the moment, she replied, “I don’t know. I left.”

R. Vol. III at 98-99. At 12:33 p.m. the dispatcher forwarded the information to

Deputy Sheriff M alin Parker. Parker attempted to confirm the address by

reference to the Sheriff’s home, which he knew to be at 600 Highway 236. After

an apparent miscommunication with the dispatcher, he arrived at the home next

door to the Sheriff’s, where a woman was standing outside gardening. He asked

the woman whether she had heard any gunshots or seen anything unusual in the

neighborhood; she replied that she had not. Parker quickly realized that he was at

the wrong house, and that 1868 Highway 236 was on the other side of the

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Sheriff’s home. Once he saw the house at 1868 Highway 236, he recognized it

from previous experience as that of Sheridan W alker.

Despite the confusion Deputy Parker arrived at the W alker residence within

nine or ten minutes of the dispatch alert. He saw no cars or people near the

house. As he approached the house, he heard over his police radio that Deputy

Raul Rosa was meeting with John W alker— Sheridan’s son— at the police station.

During the meeting Rosa had heard the alert and noticed that the address was

John W alker’s. Parker radioed Rosa to ask whether John W alker had said

anything about someone at the house being armed, but Rosa had no additional

information. Parker then asked Rosa who was involved in the altercation

mentioned in the alert; Rosa replied that it was supposed to be John and Sheridan

W alker.

As Deputy Parker walked to the door of the W alker home, two other

officers arrived. He knocked several times on the storm door (which was glass

with a metal frame) and announced himself each time by saying “Sheriff’s

office,” R. Vol. III at 20 (emphasis omitted); but he got no response. He opened

the storm door to knock on the inner wooden door, which was about 10 inches

ajar. (Although M r. W alker’s wife testified that the door had a doorbell, Parker

testified that he did not see one, or he would have used it). As he knocked, he

announced in a loud, commanding voice that he was from the Sheriff’s office.

His knock caused the door to open further, but he saw no one inside and nothing

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indicating that a physical struggle had taken place. He again announced

“Sheriff’s office,” at which point he heard a voice shout from inside the house,

“Yeah, and I got a goddamn gun.” Id. at 22 (emphasis omitted).

Deputy Parker and the two other officers immediately entered the home and

ordered the speaker, Sheridan W alker, to keep his hands in the air. The officers

subdued M r. W alker, handcuffed him, and took him to the front porch. But they

did not place him under arrest. Parker testified that because the dispatcher had

reported two men w ith guns in the house, the officers suspected that someone else

might still be in the house, either hurt or posing a threat to the officers. They

therefore conducted a sweep of the bedrooms, bathrooms, and closets, looking

where someone could have been hiding. During that sweep they discovered

firearms in plain view in two of the bedroom s. A check on the firearms

determined that several were stolen, so M r. W alker was arrested. M r. W alker was

indicted on two counts: one for being a felon in possession of the firearms found

during the sweep, and one for being a felon in possession of ammunition.

II. D ISC USSIO N

M r. W alker contends that the evidence seized from his home must be

suppressed because (1) the entry into his home was unlawful and (2) even if the

entry was lawful, the sweep of his home was not. “W hen reviewing the denial of

a motion to suppress, we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the

government, accept the district court’s findings of fact unless clearly erroneous,

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and review de novo the ultimate determination of reasonableness under the Fourth

Amendment.” United States v. Apperson, 441 F.3d 1162, 1184 (10th Cir. 2006)

(internal quotation marks omitted).

The Fourth Amendment protects “[t]he right of the people to be secure in

their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and

seizures.” U.S. Const. amend. IV. Public officials trigger the amendment’s

protections when they intrude upon an individual’s reasonable expectation of

privacy. See Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27, 33-34 (2001) (“[A] Fourth

Amendment search does not occur— even when the explicitly protected location

of a house is concerned— unless the individual manifested a subjective

expectation of privacy in the object of the challenged search, and society is

willing to recognize that expectation as reasonable.” (internal quotation marks

and brackets omitted)); United States v. Bute, 43 F.3d 531, 534 n.4 (10th Cir.

1994) (“A ‘search’ occurs when an expectation of privacy that society is prepared

to consider reasonable is infringed.”).

In particular, the Fourth Amendment imposes strict limits on when law-

enforcement officers may enter a home without a w arrant. See United States v.

M cCullough, 457 F.3d 1150, 1163 (10th Cir. 2006) (“‘It is a basic principle of

Fourth Amendment law that searches and seizures inside a home without a

warrant are presumptively unreasonable.’” (quoting Payton v. New York, 445 U.S.

573, 586 (1980)). A warrantless entry into a home may be justified, however, in

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certain exceptional circumstances. See Coolidge v. New Ham pshire, 403 U.S.

443, 474-75 (1971) (“It is accepted, at least as a matter of principle, that a search

or seizure carried out on a suspect’s premises without a warrant is per se

unreasonable, unless the police can show that it falls within one of a carefully

defined set of exceptions based on the presence of ‘exigent circumstances.’”); see

also Brigham City v. Stuart, 126 S. Ct. 1943, 1947 (2006) (“W e have held, for

example, that law enforcement officers may make a warrantless entry onto private

property to fight a fire and investigate its cause, to prevent the imminent

destruction of evidence, or to engage in ‘hot pursuit’ of a fleeing suspect.”

(internal citations omitted)); Georgia v. Randolph, 126 S. Ct. 1515, 1524 n.6

(2006) (listing “hot pursuit,” “protecting the safety of . . . police officers,”

“imminent destruction [of a] building,” “likelihood that [a] suspect will

imminently flee,” and “a fairly perceived need to act on the spot to preserve

evidence” as exigent circumstances that might justify a warrantless search of a

residence). With these principles in mind, we turn to M r. W alker’s two

arguments.

A. Initial Entry

M r. W alker challenges the entry into his home on two grounds. First, he

contends that Deputy Parker violated the Fourth Amendment by opening the

screen door to knock on the partially opened inner door. Second, he contends that

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Parker committed an additional violation by entering his home after he announced

that he had a gun.

To support the first contention, M r. W alker cites United States v. Arellano-

Ochoa, 461 F.3d 1142 (9th Cir. 2006). In that case Border Patrol Agents entered

a trailer (without knocking) after opening a screen door and a partially closed

solid door. See id. at 1143-44. The court affirmed the denial of a motion to

suppress but the opinion contains dictum that opening a screen door when the

solid door is open constitutes a Fourth Amendment intrusion because it violates

the occupant’s reasonable expectation of privacy. See id. at 1145. Regardless of

the merits of this proposition in some circumstances, we see no violation of

M r. W alker’s reasonable expectation of privacy in Deputy Parker’s knock on his

inner door. Parker first knocked several times on the storm door. W hen that

elicited no response, he tried to be heard by knocking on the inner door, an act

that required opening the storm door. W e suspect that most visitors would have

done the same. In our view , opening the storm door to knock on the inner door,

even though the inner door was partially open, was not a Fourth Amendment

intrusion because such action does not violate an occupant’s reasonable

expectation of privacy.

Turning next to Deputy Parker’s entry into the house, we agree with

M r. W alker that the entry was a Fourth Amendment intrusion. To justify the

entry, the government relies on the exigent-circumstances doctrine. See United

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States v. Najar, 451 F.3d 710 (10th Cir. 2006). This doctrine creates an exception

to the general prohibition of warrantless entries when (1) the officers had an

objectively reasonable basis to believe that there was an immediate need to enter

to protect the safety of themselves or others, and (2) the conduct of the entry was

reasonable. See id. at 718. The government has the burden of demonstrating both

elements. See United States v. Scroger, 98 F.3d 1256, 1259 (10th Cir. 1996).

W e agree with the district court that exigent circumstances supported the

officers’ entry. W hen Deputy Parker knocked on the inner door, again

announcing that he was from the Sheriff’s office, M r. W alker responded, “Yeah,

and I got a goddamn gun.” R. Vol. III at 22 (emphasis omitted). This threatening

remark justified the officers in taking prompt action to protect themselves.

Although retreat was an alternative, it was also reasonable for them to take

control of the situation by entering to disarm M r. W alker, who could otherwise

continue to pose a danger to the officers and others. Because the officers could

reasonably believe that they needed to enter M r. W alker’s home to protect their

own safety, and because they acted reasonably in entering and restraining M r.

W alker, we hold that the officers committed no Fourth Amendment violation in

those actions.

B. Sw eep of the H ouse

M r. W alker next argues that the warrantless sweep of his home after he had

been handcuffed and removed to the porch also violated the Fourth Amendment.

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The district court justified the search as a “protective sw eep” under M aryland v.

Buie, 494 U.S. 325, 327 (1990) (“A ‘protective sweep’ is a quick and limited

search of premises, incident to an arrest and conducted to protect the safety of

police officers or others.”). Such a sw eep is permitted if “there [are] articulable

facts w hich, taken together with the rational inferences from those facts, would

warrant a reasonably prudent officer in believing that the area to be sw ept harbors

an individual posing a danger to those on the arrest scene.” Id. at 334.

This court has stated that a “protective sw eep” of a residence to ensure

officer safety may take place only incident to an arrest. See United States v.

Torres-Castro, 470 F.3d 992, 996-97 (10th Cir. 2006) (collecting cases); United

States v. Davis, 290 F.3d 1239, 1242 n.4 (10th Cir. 2002) (“As it appears in the

first sentence of Buie, ‘a “protective sweep” is a quick and limited search of

premises, incident to an arrest and conducted to protect the safety of police

officers or others.’” (internal brackets omitted)) (quoting Buie, 494 U.S. at 328).

But M r. W alker had not yet been arrested when the officers conducted the sweep,

and the government has not argued that the sweep was incident to an arrest.

Therefore, Buie cannot support the sweep.

The sw eep may nevertheless have been proper under the exigent-

circumstances doctrine set out in Najar, 451 F.3d at 717. In the context of this

case, however, application of the exigent-circumstances doctrine to justify a

sweep for the purpose of officer safety would eviscerate our precedent

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establishing an incident-to-arrest requirement for such a protective sweep. W e

note that both Najar and the Supreme Court opinion on which it relied, Brigham

City, 126 S. Ct. 1943, involved Fourth Amendment intrusions justified by a threat

to a civilian’s safety. Therefore, absent clarification from an en banc court, we

refrain from justifying this sweep by applying the exigent-circumstances

exception based on officer safety.

On the other hand, the government argued in district court and maintains

before us that the sweep of M r. W alker’s home could be justified by the risk of

danger to others, such as the person with whom M r. W alker allegedly had been

fighting. The district court did not address this potential justification for the

sweep. W e therefore remand for a determination whether the warrantless sweep

of M r. W alker’s home was permissible under the exigent-circumstances doctrine

as it relates to victim safety. See id., 126 S. Ct. at 1947 (“One exigency obviating

the requirement of a warrant is the need to assist persons w ho are seriously

injured or threatened with such injury.”); Najar, 451 F.3d at 714 (“‘[T]he Fourth

Amendment does not bar police officers from making warrantless entries and

searches when they reasonably believe that a person within is in need of

immediate aid.’” (quoting M incey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385, 392 (1978))).

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III. C ON C LU SION

W e REVERSE the judgment below and REM AND to the district court for

consideration of whether exigent circumstances may have justified a search of

M r. W alker’s home as a sweep for potential victims.

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