United States v. Beaudoin ( 2004 )

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 02-1757
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Appellee,
v.
RODGER BEAUDOIN,
Defendant, Appellant.
No. 02-1850
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Appellee,
v.
ROBERT CHAMPAGNE,
Defendant, Appellant.
APPEALS FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
[Hon. Paul Barbadoro, Chief U.S. District Judge]
Before
Lynch, Circuit Judge,
Siler,* Circuit Judge,
and Lipez, Circuit Judge.
*
Of the Sixth Circuit, sitting by designation.
William E. Christie, with whom Shaheen & Gordon was on brief,
for appellant Rodger Beaudoin.
Joshua L. Gordon for appellant Robert Champagne.
Terry L. Ollila, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom
Thomas P. Colantuono, United States Attorney, was on brief for
appellee.
March 26, 2004
LYNCH, Circuit Judge. This appeal presents interesting
questions about the application of the Fourth Amendment when an
anonymous tipster informs police that there is a dead body in a
motel room.
A series of events cascaded from that tip, resulting in
the arrests of Rodger Beaudoin and Robert Champagne on various
drug-related charges and a federal prosecution for conspiracy to
distribute cocaine and crack and for possession of crack with
intent to distribute. 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), 846. Before trial,
the defendants each moved to suppress all of the evidence that the
police had found in a search of them and their motel room,
including knives, drugs, drug paraphernalia, and large amounts of
cash. After an evidentiary hearing, the trial court, in a
thoughtful opinion, denied their motions. The defendants pled
guilty but preserved the right to challenge the suppression ruling
on appeal, which they now exercise. Champagne also appeals from a
sentence enhancement. We affirm both the denial of the suppression
motions and the sentence enhancement.
I.
Background Facts
The facts are taken from the suppression hearing, as
found by the district judge, and supplemented from the record.
At 5:15 in the morning on July 24, 2001, the Manchester,
New Hampshire Police Department informed the Hookset Police
Department that a dispatcher had just received a 911 call during
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which an unidentified person reported "a drug deal gone bad at the
Kozy 7 Motel, Room 10" in Hooksett. The caller said "I think there
is a dead body in there," and then hung-up before any follow-up
questions could be asked.
Three Hooksett officers, Sergeant Chamberlain and
Officers Pinardi and Sherrill, were immediately dispatched to the
motel, about three miles away. Officer Pinardi understood that the
information was that "a drug deal [had] gone bad, during which a
person was allegedly shot and there was a dead body." The call
transcript itself contains nothing about a shooting, but Pinardi
heard the dispatcher conveying the information to Chamberlain. The
motel was not upscale and was the sort of place that police had
visited before in connection with criminal activity.
The officers arrived several minutes later. They did not
attempt to see the motel manager to ask if there was any unusual
activity in the room, but instead went straight to the room that
the caller had identified. The officers noticed that a light was
on in Room 10, but that all of the other rooms were dark. The
curtain of the window to Room 10 was closed.
The uniformed officers approached the room; Officers
Pinardi and Sherrill took positions on either side of the doorway,
while Sergeant Chamberlain stood farther back on the opposite side
of the motel room's window. Pinardi stood to the left of the door
for "officer safety reasons." Among other things, in that position
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he "would be able to see inside the room, see what was going on,
and also . . . be able to get out of the way if . . . the door . .
. swung open." Officer Sherrill instinctively stood in front of
the door, but he moved to the right after Sergeant Chamberlain told
him to step away from the door. Sergeant Chamberlain chose a
position to the right of the door, by the window, to get "a little
concealment or whatever if something did happen in the room,
whether there was going to be a shoot-out or whatever." He was
concerned for his own safety because of the report that there was
a dead body in the room.
Chamberlain, with a view of the window, saw some movement
behind the window, and the officers heard some rustling from the
room. Pinardi knocked on the door. A man (who was later
identified as Beaudoin) drew back the curtains of the window and
peered outside toward Chamberlain. There was sufficient light to
see the uniformed officers. Chamberlain then identified himself
and the others as Hooksett police officers and asked the man to go
to the door so they could speak with him. The man, Beaudoin,
opened the door, but only wide enough so his face could be seen.
Both the interior door and an outer screen door were opened.
Sergeant Chamberlain could not recall if Beaudoin pushed the screen
door entirely open, or if Beaudoin pushed the screen door part way
open and an officer held it open.
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Officers Chamberlain and Pinardi presented slightly
varying accounts of what transpired next. These differences prove
to be immaterial. Officer Pinardi testified that once Beaudoin
opened the door, the officers explained to him that they were
investigating a crime and had heard that someone had been shot in
the room. Pinardi said that he then asked Beaudoin if he could
"just come out here" so the police could talk to him and that
Beaudoin did so voluntarily. Sergeant Chamberlain, however,
testified that he asked Beaudoin to step outside so they could talk
to him, which Beaudoin did, and only then explained why the police
were there. Either way, Beaudoin stepped outside, leaving the door
behind him sufficiently open so that Pinardi could see inside the
room. Whether Beaudoin felt free not to step outside is an open
question.
Once Beaudoin was outside, Sergeant Chamberlain asked him
if he was carrying any weapons. Beaudoin said that he had a knife
in his left rear pocket and started to reach for it. Sergeant
Chamberlain said that he would remove the knife, ordered Beaudoin
to put his hands on the wall, and proceeded to pat him down.
During the pat down, Sergeant Chamberlain patted Beaudoin's left
rear pocket and felt three objects: an object that seemed to be a
knife and two long and hard cylindrical objects that he was unable
to identify. Chamberlain reached into the pocket and removed a
knife, two glass tubes, and three plastic balls containing crack
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cocaine. The glass tubes and crack cocaine were contained in one
plastic bag. Chamberlain placed Beaudoin under arrest and finished
the pat down. He found $300 in Beaudoin's right front pocket.
While Sergeant Chamberlain was frisking Beaudoin, Officer
Pinardi made eye contact with a second man in the motel room, later
identified as Champagne, through the open door. Once Champagne saw
Pinardi, Champagne hurried across the room toward the far wall and
began to shuffle through some items on top of a dresser and to
reach into his pockets. Pinardi thought it odd that the man, upon
seeing the police, did not come toward them to ask why they were
there. Pinardi feared that Champagne was either searching for a
weapon or trying to hide evidence, so he and Officer Sherrill
entered the motel room and directed Champagne away from the dresser
and toward the middle of the room. Pinardi explained to Champagne
that the officers had received a report that there was a dead
person in the motel room. Champagne denied that there was a dead
body.
Pinardi asked Champagne if he had any weapons.
Champagne, who was nervous, said that he did not, but Officer
Pinardi saw that Champagne had a knife clipped to one of his
pockets. Pinardi removed the knife and conducted a protective
frisk, holding Champagne's arms behind his back. During the frisk,
Champagne became increasingly fidgety and kept attempting to free
his hands to reach into the pockets of his pants. Pinardi patted
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Champagne's right front pocket and felt several long, hard
cylinders, which he feared could be small pen guns or knives.
Champagne became even more fidgety when Pinardi patted that pocket.
When Champagne refused to comply with Pinardi's instruction to stop
moving his hands, Pinardi and Sherrill pushed him face down on the
bed and handcuffed him. Pinardi told Champagne that he was not
under arrest but was being restrained so Pinardi could safely
ascertain the nature of the situation in the room. Officer Pinardi
still had not looked in the bathroom and had no idea whether there
was a dead body inside.
Pinardi and Sherrill helped Champagne to his feet and
asked him what was in his front pocket. When Champagne said that
he did not know, Pinardi stretched open Champagne's pocket so he
could see inside it. With the aid of a flashlight held by
Sherrill, Pinardi saw several crack pipes, which were the long
cylindrical objects that he had feared were weapons, as well as a
substance that later proved to be crack-cocaine. Pinardi seized
these items and continued his frisk, finding yet more crack and a
wad of cash.
After completing these searches, the officers searched
the rest of the motel room for a dead body. When they did not find
a body, the officers left behind the contraband they had found and
brought Beaudoin and Champagne to the police station. Once a
search warrant was obtained, the police returned to the motel room
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and took the contraband found in the searches, as well as
additional drug paraphernalia, into police custody. They also
found by the door a plugged-in skill saw with its safety cover
duct-taped up.
II.
Procedural History
Each defendant was indicted on charges of conspiracy to
distribute cocaine and crack and possession of crack with intent to
distribute. 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), 846. Champagne was also
indicted on charges of obtaining proceeds from the distribution of
crack. Id. § 853. Both defendants moved to suppress all of the
evidence that had been seized at or near the motel room, including
the drugs found on them and the contraband discovered inside the
motel room. The prosecution argued that the request that Beaudoin
step out of the motel room doorway was justified by exigent
circumstances, such as a Terry stop, and that the evidence
subsequently found was admissible under the inevitable discovery
doctrine. The trial judge conducted an evidentiary hearing on
December 5, 2001. After hearing the testimony of Officer Pinardi
and Sergeant Chamberlain and reviewing a transcript of the 911 call
and copies of the police reports, the district court judge denied
both defendants' motions. The judge held that the officers'
initial request that Beaudoin exit his motel room and their later
entry into the room were both justified by the emergency assistance
exception to the warrant requirement because the officers could
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reasonably have believed that a person inside of the motel room was
in need of emergency aid.
The defendants then pled guilty to the crimes charged in
the indictment, but reserved their right to appeal the district
court judge's denial of their suppression motions. Beaudoin was
sentenced to fifty-seven months in prison to be followed by four
years of supervised release, and Champagne, to 151 months in prison
to be followed by five years of supervised release. In sentencing
Champagne, the judge imposed a two-point increase in his offense
level based upon his possession of the electric saw, which the
judge deemed to be a dangerous weapon. U.S.S.G. § 2D1.1(b)(1).
III.
Analysis
A. Fourth Amendment Issue
The ultimate conclusion on whether the police violated
the Fourth Amendment is reviewed de novo. Ornelas v. United
States, 517 U.S. 690, 697 (1996). We defer to the district court's
factual findings, which we accept. This case does not turn on any
disputed issue of fact.
The Fourth Amendment protects people from unreasonable
searches and seizures by the government. A warrantless search
involving an intrusion into someone's home is presumptively
unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment. Groh v. Ramirez, No. 02-
811, 2004 U.S. LEXIS 162, at *15-*16 (2004); Steagald v. United
States, 451 U.S. 204, 211-12 (1981). The reasonableness of a
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search depends entirely on the context in which it takes place;
different Fourth Amendment doctrines as to reasonableness have
evolved to fit different contexts.
One set of variants in these doctrines is the degree of
the privacy expectations involved. For example, expectations of
privacy in a commercial establishment are not strong. See New York
v. Burger, 482 U.S. 691, 700 (1987). Privacy expectations in one's
home, by contrast, are quite strong. See Groh, 2004 US LEXIS 162,
at *15-*16; Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27, 40 (2001). As
such, searches usually may not be made in a person's home unless
the police have obtained a search warrant based on probable cause.
Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 586-87 (1980). By analogy, this
rule is usually extended to searches in a person's hotel or motel
room, which is a sort of temporary home. See Stoner v. California,
376 U.S. 483, 490 (1964); United States v. Bardacchino, 762 F.2d
170, 175-76 (1st Cir. 1985).
Another set of contextual variants are grouped under the
doctrine of exigent circumstances. The exigent circumstances
usually recognized include: (1) risk to the lives or health of the
investigating officers; (2) risk that the evidence sought will be
destroyed; (3) risk that the person sought will escape from the
premises; and (4) "hot pursuit" of a fleeing felon. See United
States v. Tibolt, 72 F.3d 965, 969 (1st Cir. 1995).
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Several courts have recognized another type of exigent
circumstance: an emergency situation in which police must act
quickly to save someone's life or prevent harm. See United States
v. Holloway, 290 F.3d 1331, 1337 (11th Cir. 2002); United States v.
Richardson, 208 F.3d 626, 630 (7th Cir. 2000); Seymour v. Walker,
224 F.3d 542, 556 (6th Cir. 2000); Tierney v. Davidson, 133 F.3d
189, 196 (2d Cir. 1998); Wayne v. United States, 318 F.2d 205, 212
(D.C. Cir. 1963) (Burger, J.). This court has not had occasion to
address the emergency doctrine. Recognition of some type of
emergency doctrine is entirely consistent, though, with the logic
of the traditional exigency exceptions to the warrant requirement.
This court implicitly said as much in Bilida v. McCleod, 211 F.3d
166 (1st Cir. 2000), holding that "[w]arrantless entries are most
often justified by 'exigent circumstances,' the best examples being
hot pursuit of a felon, imminent destruction or removal of
evidence, the threatened escape by a suspect, or imminent threat to
the life or safety of the public, police officers, or a person in
residence." Id. at 171 (emphasis added). And the Supreme Court,
in dicta, has said that the 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." Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385, 392 (1978).
In the end, this case involves the intersection of
several Fourth Amendment doctrines, most notably, those of exigent
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circumstances, emergencies, and Terry-type temporary detentions
during investigations. Generally, under the emergency doctrine,
there must be a reasonable basis, sometimes said to be
approximating probable cause, both to believe in the existence of
the emergency and to associate that emergency with the area or
place to be searched.1 3 W. LaFave, Search & Seizure § 6.6(a) (3d
Ed. 1996); People v. Mitchell, 39 N.Y.2d 173, 177-78 (1976). The
analysis must be with reference to the circumstances confronting
the officer, including, as one commentator has put it, "the need
for a prompt assessment of sometimes ambiguous information
concerning potentially serious consequences." LaFave, supra, §
6.6(a); see also Wayne, 318 F.2d at 212 (Burger, J.).
The facts also raise the classic exigent circumstances
situation, of a risk to the safety of police officers; the officers
were investigating a report of both drug activity and possible
deadly criminal activity in the room. Traditional exigent
circumstances justify a warrantless search when there is reasonable
suspicion that a person poses a threat to the lives or safety of
police officers and there is probable cause to believe that a crime
has been committed. McCabe v. Life-Line Ambulance Serv., 77 F.3d
1A few courts have imported an "intent" requirement, demanding
that the officers not be primarily motivated by an intent to arrest
and seize evidence. Subsequent Supreme Court case law, we think,
eliminates any such intent requirement in favor of a purely
objective test. Whren v. United States 517 U.S. 806, 813 (1996);
Scott v. United States, 436 U.S. 128, 137 (1978); see United States
v. Richardson, 208 F.3d 626, 630 (7th Cir. 2000).
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540, 545 (1st Cir. 1996); United States v. Tibolt, 72 F.3d 965, 969
(1st Cir. 1995); Hegarty v. Somerset City, 53 F.3d 1367, 1376 (1st
Cir. 1995). But whether or not probable cause for a crime exists,
the inquiry determining the existence of an exigency is essentially
one of reasonable suspicion. See United States v. Soto-Beniquez,
356 F.3d 1, 36 (1st Cir. 2003); United States v. Lopez, 989 F.2d
24, 26 (1st Cir. 1993).
Further, the government correctly suggests that the
detention of Beaudoin was analogous to a Terry stop. Terry v.
Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968). Terry stops, designed to protect police
officers in their investigations, may occur when there is
reasonable suspicion to believe that criminal activity is afoot,
even where there is not probable cause to arrest. See United
States v. Lee, 317 F.3d 26, 31 (1st Cir. 2003) (warrantless
investigatory stops are allowable if, and to the extent that,
police officers have reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing that is
based on specific, articulable facts); LaFave, supra, § 9.4;
Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 498 (1983). Reasonable suspicion
is a less demanding standard than probable cause. United States v.
Golab, 325 F.3d 63, 66 (1st Cir. 2003). Once the stop has
occurred, an officer may search a suspect's person for weapons
based on reasonable suspicion that the person is armed and
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dangerous. Terry, 392 U.S. at 27.2 When the officer suspects a
crime of violence, the same information that will support an
investigatory stop will, without more, support a protective search.
Id. at 33; United States v. Scott, 270 F.3d 30, 41 (1st Cir. 2001).
Defendants argue only that Terry does not justify a command to step
out of the doorway. They do not argue that Terry precluded the
police, standing outside and knocking, to ask the man (who opened
the curtain) to go to the doorway to talk to the police. Nor do
they argue that Beaudoin went involuntarily to the door and opened
it. So this is more like a situation in which a person voluntarily
stops, and then the police take reasonable steps, during that
temporary stop, to protect themselves during the questioning.
These doctrines are not firm-line tests. "The governing
caselaw under the Fourth Amendment does not yield very many bright
line rules. This is not surprising since the ultimate touchstone
is one of reasonableness . . . ." Joyce v. Town of Tewksbury, 112
F.3d 19, 22 (1st Cir. 1997).
When the police were informed of the anonymous call
reporting both drug dealing and a dead body, they were certainly
2
Several courts have found that Terry does not justify
intrusions into the home. See LaLonde v. Riverside, 204 F.3d 947,
954 (9th Cir. 2000); United States v. Winsor, 846 F.2d 1569, 1577-
78 (9th Cir. 1988) (en banc). But this issue is not before us --
the issue, as described below, does not arise from an intrusion
into the home or motel room.
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justified in promptly going to the motel to investigate.3 Not
surprisingly, nothing visible at the motel either disproved the
report nor particularly confirmed it. As such, it was reasonable
for the police, seeing a light on at 5:30 a.m. in the room that the
anonymous caller had identified, to assume that someone was in the
room and to knock on the door. Once the police heard movement in
the room and saw someone open the curtain, it was reasonable for
them to ask that person to go to the door so they could speak with
him. See Illinois v. Lidster, 124 S.Ct. 885, 890 (2004) (law
enforcement officials can permissibly "seek the voluntary
cooperation of members of the public in the investigation of a
crime").
Beaudoin did not fully open the door in response to the
officers' request; rather, he opened it just enough so that his
face was visible. The officers could not see Beaudoin's hands, nor
could they see any part of the room that was within easy reach of
the doorway. It is at this point that the issue of officer safety
arose. The relevant facts are those that were known to the police
at the time of the exigency. See Banks, 124 S. Ct. at 527. The
police knew that a 911 call had been made within the half-hour
stating that both a crime (drug dealing) and a death (possible
3
The motel was familiar to the police; they had been called
there before in criminal matters. Drug deals in Maine motel rooms
have certainly happened before. See, e.g., United States v.
Julien, 318 F.3d 316, 318 (1st Cir. 2003).
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crime) had happened in the motel room. If the phone report was
true, the man in the doorway probably was involved in either or
both of the reported activities and might even be a murderer; the
man might well be armed and might have companions in the room. The
association between drug dealing and guns is well known. The
officers could not verify that the man was not armed because of the
way he had opened the door, nor could they tell if he had a weapon
close at hand. The partially opened doorway to the small motel
room was not a safe place for the police to investigate whether the
man was armed, in this situation. Additionally, the officers had
heard noises from inside the room and thus had reason to suspect
that at least one other person besides the man at the door was
inside.
In the end, this case turns on whether it was reasonable
for Sergeant Chamberlain to ask Beaudoin to step out of the
doorway.4 It matters not, in these particular circumstances,
whether the request was in essence a command. We will assume
arguendo that Beaudoin did not feel free to ignore the officers'
4
This is not, then, an issue of a search inside of a person's
home or motel room or of the arrest of a person in a doorway.
Indeed, even in the situation of arrests pursuant to warrant in the
doorways of homes, the law is not clearly defined. In the context
of doorway arrests, a more serious intrusion than here, this court
has noted "[t]he Supreme Court cases, with Steagald at one pole and
Santana at the other, do not definitively resolve [the issue].
Even a quick review of lower court cases reveals that there is no
settled answer as to the constitutionality of doorway arrests."
Joyce v. Town of Tewksbury, 112 F.3d 19, 22 (1st Cir. 1997).
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summons. We also assume arguendo that the statement to Beaudoin to
step outside was a "seizure," though this is not free from doubt.5
The issue is whether the command was justified under the
combination of the three doctrines. The Fourth Amendment question
is not whether Beaudoin acted reasonably that morning; the question
is whether the officers' response to Beaudoin's actions was
reasonable in context. Nor is the issue whether the officers had
probable cause to arrest Beaudoin and enter the room based solely
on the anonymous tip; we need not decide that. See Florida v.
J.L., 529 U.S. 266, 270-71 (2000).
There may, of course, be exigent circumstances posing a
threat to officers and justifying reasonable responses even in the
absence of probable cause to arrest. The notion is abhorrent that
police who are investigating a crime and suddenly find themselves
at risk are precluded from acting reasonably in response to that
risk merely because they have not yet established probable cause to
make an arrest for a crime. Finally, the question presented here
is not whether the anonymous tip alone, absent any risk of injury
to the officers, justified the command to step out of the doorway.
Nor is any abstract issue raised about the application of Terry to
persons in doorways absent the emergency and exigent circumstances
present here.
5
Consider, for example, if Beaudoin had already left the
doorway and the officer simply instructed Beaudoin to step closer
to him.
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As the Supreme Court has emphasized, determining whether
the officers' actions were reasonable in the context of exigent
circumstances requires balancing the need for the warrantless
search or seizure against the harm to the individual whose privacy
is being intruded upon in light of all the circumstances. See
United States v. Banks, 124 S. Ct. 521, 525 (2003) (whether exigent
circumstances justify police action depends on a reasonableness
inquiry based on the totality of the circumstances). Courts
engaging in this balancing must be wary of overlaying a
"categorical scheme on the general reasonableness analysis" and
thus "distort[ing] the 'totality of the circumstances' principle,
by replacing a stress on revealing facts with resort to
pigeonholes." Id. at 528.
Here, the harm to Beaudoin in being commanded (assuming
he was commanded) to step out of the doorway of his motel room was
relatively small. The police did not order Beaudoin out of the
doorway until he had voluntarily opened the door and spoken with
them. To the extent this was a seizure, it was more akin to the
temporary detention involved in a Terry stop. The police did not
enter the motel room here, but merely told (or perhaps, requested)
Beaudoin to step outside of his doorway. This is entirely in
keeping with the basic rationale of Terry: a brief "seizure" in
these circumstances protected police safety and facilitated the
investigation while minimizing the intrusiveness of the invasion on
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Beaudoin's privacy. We do not say that Beaudoin relinquished all
expectations of privacy merely by opening his door; still, it was
less intrusive for the police to tell him to step outside at that
point than it would have been if Beaudoin had not himself come
partially outside by opening the door. Cf. U.S. v. Santana, 427
U.S. 38, 42 (1976) (there is no expectation of privacy in the
doorway to one's home because one is knowingly "exposed to public
view, speech, hearing, and touch as if [one] had been standing
completely outside [one's] house").
A police command to step out of the opened door of one's
motel room is, nonetheless, a non-trivial invasion of privacy. But
balanced against the objective safety concerns of the officers
here, and in light of the call about an emergency, it was
reasonable. See United States v. Sargent, 319 F.3d 4, 10-12 (1st
Cir. 2003) (officers had reasonable suspicion of danger in
executing a search warrant at an apartment that they knew contained
drugs and numerous knives when there was a five-second delay
between the police announcement of their presence and the opening
of the door); United States v. Bartelho, 71 F.3d 436, 442 (1st Cir.
1995) (noting the importance of the police officers' safety in the
exigent circumstances analysis).
Telling Beaudoin to step outside was an effective way for
the officers to alleviate their significant safety concerns.
First, it assured the officers that Beaudoin was not holding a
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loaded gun in his hands and that he was not within easy reach of a
weapon. Second, it allowed the police to ask Beaudoin some
questions while putting some distance between themselves and other
persons potentially in the room. Finally, asking Beaudoin out of
the room allowed the police to perform a pat down unhindered by a
door frame and to subdue Beaudoin if necessary.
An argument may be made that there were alternatives
available to the police. The officers could have attempted first
to contact the motel manager or to telephone to see if there were
people inside of the room. But most of those alternatives were
available several steps earlier in the process and were hardly
required. Realistically, they were no longer available once
Beaudoin opened the door as he did. There is also a suggestion
that the officers should not have asked Beaudoin to step out of the
doorway at all once he opened it; they should have simply retreated
from the area. The officers had reasons to fear being shot if they
retreated. The police would have been foolish either to back away
or to turn their backs on Beaudoin. For the officers to ascertain
whether he had weapons, in light of the information they had, was
eminently sensible. Moreover, delay risked the life of the person
in the room reported to be dead, if there were such a person.
None of the officers' actions after Beaudoin stepped out
of the doorway justifies suppressing the evidence. Once Beaudoin
stepped out of the doorway, it was reasonable for the officers to
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ask him if he had a weapon. And when Beaudoin said that he had a
knife and reached for his pocket, it was reasonable for the
officers to do a quick pat down. After finding the knife and two
drug pipes, it was reasonable for them to enter the room, given the
information about the drug deal and the dead body.
The fact that the other two officers had not waited long
before entering the room and frisking Champagne (while Beaudoin was
questioned and frisked outside) need not be addressed in these
circumstances. Under the inevitable discovery doctrine, the
officers would inevitably have entered the room and frisked
Champagne once the results of frisking Beaudoin were known. And,
inevitably, they would have arrested him, once they found what was
in his pockets. See United States v. Scott, 270 F.3d 30, 42 (1st
Cir. 2001). This is what the district court concluded and we
agree. Had Beaudoin not had drugs and a weapon on him, this court
would be faced with a much different question about the police
entry into the room.
One essential purpose of the Fourth Amendment is to
impose a standard of reasonableness on the exercise of discretion
by the police in order to safeguard "the privacy and security of
individuals against arbitrary invasions." Delaware v. Prouse, 440
U.S. 648, 653-54 (1979) (internal quotation marks omitted). This
is distinctly not a case in which the raw question is presented of
whether police may barge into someone's home or even motel room
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merely based on the receipt of a tip that there is a dead body
inside. The concerns raised by such a scenario are very serious.
Anonymous tips, without more, do not justify free-wheeling police
action. J.L., 529 U.S. at 270. It is easy for someone to make an
anonymous 911 call to the police with a false report of a dead body
in a room in order to set up the people in that room. This case
shows exactly that: Beaudoin and Champagne were set up by the
anonymous tipster. Equally, though, society expects police to
investigate reports of dead bodies, and to do so promptly. The
reportedly "dead" body might yet be alive and prompt action could
save the person. See Wayne, 318 F.2d at 212 ("Acting in response
to reports of 'dead bodies,' the police may find the 'bodies' to be
common drunks, diabetics in shock, or distressed cardiac patients
. . . . Even the apparently dead often are saved by swift police
response.").
Fourth Amendment analysis is renownedly fact specific; a
step-by-step analysis is inherent in the claim. Defendants, ably
represented by counsel, argue that the court should not do a step-
by-step analysis of the officers' actions, but should back up and
instead take a look at the entire picture. Courts must do both.
There may indeed be rare cases where the entire picture reveals
that the reasonableness of each succeeding step was so marginal
that an overall conclusion of unreasonableness is warranted.
Still, defendants' disavowal of a step-by-step approach relies too
-23-
much on doctrinal categories, and not enough on the facts of the
case. The Supreme Court expressly disapproved of such an approach
in Banks, 124 S. Ct. at 528.
We emphatically do not create an anonymously reported
murder scene exception to the warrant requirement, nor do we adopt
a broad emergency aid doctrine, as defendants fear. There are
valid concerns about the harm to Fourth Amendment interests from a
generous interpretation of the emergency doctrine as an exception
to the warrant requirement. This case does not, in the end, turn
on the emergency doctrine alone but turns also on the exigent
circumstance of risk to the officers, a risk that justified telling
Beaudoin to step out of the doorway and is a justification for the
Terry doctrine. From that, all else followed.
B. Sentencing Issue
Champagne appeals the district court's two-point increase
in his offense level for possession of a dangerous weapon. He
contends that it was clearly implausible that the circular saw
found in the motel room could have been used as a weapon because it
was unwieldy and had to be plugged in to be operational. The
district court judge was required to impose the enhancement if the
defendant possessed a dangerous weapon "unless it [was] clearly
improbable that the weapon was connected with the offense."
U.S.S.G § 2D1.1(b)(1), cmt. n.3 (2003). Our review is only for
-24-
clear error. United States v. Picanso, 333 F.3d 21, 25 (1st Cir.
2003).
Champagne's arguments do not demonstrate clear error.
The safety cover of the saw was duct-taped so the saw's blade could
be engaged more easily. And the incongruous presence of the saw in
a motel room must be considered in conjunction with the fact that
Champagne, as a convicted felon, knew that he could not lawfully
possess a weapon. Under these circumstances, the district court
did not commit clear error in applying the sentencing enhancement
for possession of a dangerous weapon.
IV.
Conclusion
The denials of the defendants' motions to suppress are
affirmed. Champagne's sentence is affirmed.
Dissenting opinion follows.
-25-
LIPEZ, Circuit Judge, dissenting. The majority concludes
that the Hooksett police officers did not violate the Fourth
Amendment's protections for a private residence when they directed
Rodger Beaudoin to step outside of his motel room. In reaching
this result, the majority does not rely on the emergency exception
doctrine, which provided the basis for the district court's
decision, nor does it accept the government's alternative argument
that the seizure of Rodger Beaudoin was equivalent to an on-the-
beat, non-residential Terry-stop to which the Fourth Amendment's
warrant requirement does not apply. Rather, the majority adopts a
novel amalgam of Fourth Amendment doctrines that combines the
emergency exception doctrine, the traditional exigent circumstance
of risk to the safety of police officers, and the Terry doctrine to
uphold the officers' actions under the Fourth Amendment. Absent
from this analysis is any consideration of whether the command to
Beaudoin was supported by probable cause to believe that a criminal
offense had been or was being committed, or probable cause to
believe that an individual's life or safety was in danger within
the defendants' motel room. Because I believe that the majority's
approach is irreconcilable with long-established Fourth Amendment
jurisprudence, I respectfully dissent.
As I will explain more fully below, under Payton v. New
York, 445 U.S. 573 (1980), and its progeny, the Fourth Amendment
prohibits searches and seizures inside a private residence unless
-26-
they are conducted pursuant to a warrant or are supported by
exigent circumstances and probable cause (or, in the emergency
context, by exigent circumstances amounting to probable cause).
The Terry doctrine, which permits minimally-intrusive, warrantless
stops based on reasonable suspicion of unlawful activity, does not
apply to residential searches and seizures. Moreover, for Fourth
Amendment purposes, an overnight guest temporarily residing in a
hotel or motel room is accorded the same protections as a person
residing in his private residence. In my view, the police
officers' order to Beaudoin constituted a seizure of his person
from his private residence that implicated Payton's heightened
protections for the home. That seizure was not supported by
probable cause of criminal activity or probable cause of a danger
to the life or safety of an individual within the defendants' motel
room. Therefore, I would vacate the district court's order denying
the defendants' motion to suppress.
-27-
I.
Fourth Amendment Requirements for
Residential Searches and Seizures
The Fourth Amendment's protections hold particular importance
for searches and seizures within a private residence.6 In Payton
v. New York, the Supreme Court explained that:
The Fourth Amendment protects the individual's privacy in
a variety of settings. In none is the zone of privacy
more clearly defined than when bounded by the unambiguous
physical dimensions of an individual's home – a zone that
finds its roots in clear and specific constitutional
terms. . . . In terms that apply equally to seizures of
property and seizures of persons, the Fourth Amendment
has drawn a firm line at the entrance to the house.
445 U.S. at 589-90 (emphasis added). The Fourth Amendment's
warrant requirement serves as the primary safeguard against
unlawful searches and seizures within the home. Welsh v.
Wisconsin, 466 U.S. 740, 748 (1984) (noting that "the physical
entry of the home is the chief evil against which the wording of
the Fourth Amendment is directed"). These heightened Fourth
Amendment protections for the home unmistakably apply to seizures
of individuals who reside in hotel or motel rooms as overnight
guests. Stoner v. California, 376 U.S. 483, 490 (1964) ("No less
than a tenant of a house, or the occupant of a room in a boarding
6
The Fourth Amendment provides: "The right of the people to be
secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against
unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no
Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or
affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched,
and persons or things to be seized." U.S. Const., amend. 4.
-28-
house, a guest in a hotel room is entitled to constitutional
protection against unreasonable searches and seizures.")(internal
citation omitted); United States v. Bardacchino, 762 F.2d 170, 175-
76 (1st Cir. 1985) (defendant "had the same right of privacy
[against a warrantless forced entry into his motel room] that one
would have against an intrusion into one's private dwelling").
Thus, when Beaudoin partially opened the door to his motel room in
response to a police knock and request, he was entitled to no less
constitutional protection against unreasonable searches and
seizures than if he had opened the door to his private residence.
A warrantless search of a residence violates the Fourth
Amendment's proscription against unreasonable searches and seizures
"unless the search comes within one of a 'few specifically
established and well-delineated exceptions'" to the Fourth
Amendment's warrant requirement. United States v. Luciano, 329
F.3d 1, 7 (1st Cir. 2003) (quoting Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412
U.S. 218, 219 (1973) (quoting Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347,
357 (1967)). In the context of a residential search or seizure,
these specifically established exceptions consist of either
consent, or exigent circumstances and probable cause. As the
Supreme Court has recently reaffirmed, "police officers need either
a warrant or probable cause plus exigent circumstances in order to
make a lawful entry into the home." Kirk v. Louisiana, 536 U.S.
635, 638 (2002); see also Arizona v. Hicks, 480 U.S. 321, 328
-29-
(1987) ("A dwelling-place search, no less than a dwelling-place
seizure, requires probable cause."); United States v. Khounsavanh,
113 F.3d 279, 283 (1st Cir. 1997) ("While the warrant requirement
[for a residential search or seizure] may be dispensed with in
certain exigent circumstances that are few in number and carefully
delineated, the probable cause requirement is rigorously adhered
to.") (internal citation and quotation marks omitted). Exigent
circumstances exist where law enforcement officers confront "a
compelling necessity for immediate action that would not brook the
delay of obtaining a warrant." United States v. Tibolt, 72 F.3d
965, 969 (1st Cir. 1995). Probable cause requires that "the
officers at the scene collectively possess[] reasonably trustworthy
information sufficient to warrant a prudent policeman in believing
that a criminal offense had been or was being committed." Id.Under a traditional Fourth Amendment analysis, the lawfulness
of the Hooksett police officers' search and seizure of the motel
room and of the defendants turns on the initial question of whether
Beaudoin exited the motel room voluntarily or whether he did so
only in response to a police order. This question is important
because a police order to exit your private residence is tantamount
to a police seizure of your person within that residence. As the
Supreme Court has explained, a person has been seized for Fourth
Amendment purposes if "in view of all of the circumstances
surrounding the incident, a reasonable person would have believed
-30-
that he was not free to leave." United States v. Mendenhall, 446
U.S. 544, 554 (1980). If a reasonable person in Beaudoin's
position would have believed that he was not free to remain inside
the motel room because of the force of the police order and
apparent authority, then the police constructively entered
Beaudoin's room to effect a seizure within the meaning of the
Fourth Amendment. See United States v. Saari, 272 F.3d 804, 809
(6th Cir. 2002) (police officers' conduct constituted a
constructive entry where they "summoned Defendant to exit his home
and acted with such a show of authority that Defendant reasonably
believed he had no choice but to comply"). On the other hand, if
a reasonable person in Beaudoin's position would have believed that
he was free to decline to exit the motel room, the directive was
not a seizure and did not implicate the Fourth Amendment's
proscription against unreasonable searches and seizures.
Although the district court did not explicitly decide whether
Beaudoin voluntarily stepped outside of the room, it described the
evidence on this point as "equivocal" in its written decision and
noted that it was "by no means clear that Beaudoin voluntarily
exited the room." It further noted, at the suppression hearing,
that "Mr. Beaudoin was not free under those circumstances to shut
the door and decline to come out of the hotel. He was coming out
of the hotel whether he wanted to or not." The government always
bears the burden of proving the existence of an exception to the
-31-
Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement. United States v. Jeffers,
342 U.S. 48, 51 (1951). Where a warrantless search or seizure is
purportedly justified by the defendant's consent, "the prosecution
[must] show, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the consent
was knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily given." United
States v. Marshall, 348 F.3d 281, 285-86 (1st Cir. 2003). Given
the sharp discrepancy between the two officers' testimonies, I
would read the district court's observations as a finding that the
government failed to establish by a preponderance of the evidence
that Beaudoin freely and voluntarily consented to step outside of
the motel room.7 Indeed, the conflicting testimony of the officers
would seem to preclude any finding that the government met its
burden of proof on its claim that Beaudoin exited the motel room
voluntarily. Therefore, I would conclude that the police officers'
order to Beaudoin to step outside constituted a seizure of his
person from his motel room.
Whether Payton's heightened protections for the home apply in
this case depends not only upon whether the order to Beaudoin
7
The majority characterizes the two officers' testimonies as
"slightly varying accounts" and suggests that the differences
between them "turn out to be immaterial." In my view, the
differences between the officers' testimonies are substantial and
significant. While Pinardi testified that he requested that
Beaudoin step outside, Sergeant Chamberlain, when asked by the
court whether he asked Beaudoin to step outside or ordered him out,
responded: "I — I told him to come out, so I would say that I
ordered him out." He later testified that Beaudoin was not free to
refuse this directive, explaining that if Beaudoin had refused to
come out, Chamberlain would have gone in after him.
-32-
constituted a seizure but also upon whether it was a residential
seizure. While one can argue in some cases about where the
entrance to a private residence begins, the Fourth Amendment's
warrant requirement and protections for the home are either
implicated by a given search or seizure or they are not. In Kyllo
v. United States, 533 U.S. 27, 30 (2001), the Supreme Court
reaffirmed Payton, explaining that: "We have said that the Fourth
Amendment draws 'a firm line at the entrance to the house.' That
line, we think, must be not only firm but also bright." On the
external, public side of Payton's firm line, a police officer's
conduct is not subject to Payton's protections. On the internal,
residential side of this line, police officers must obtain a
warrant supported by probable cause prior to conducting a non-
consensual search or seizure, or demonstrate that their actions are
justified by exigent circumstances and probable cause.
The important question in this case, therefore, is not whether
the police conduct was intrusive, non-intrusive, or something in
between when weighed against Beaudoin's reasonable expectation of
privacy, but whether the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement and
heightened protections for the home were implicated by the
challenged police conduct. If the police officers' seizure of
Beaudoin had taken place outside of the motel room, the Fourth
Amendment's warrant requirement would not apply, and the police
officers' directive to Beaudoin might be understood as the
-33-
equivalent of a brief, investigative Terry stop, which requires
only a "reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing – a suspicion that finds
expression in specific, articulable reasons for believing that a
person may be connected to the commission of a particular crime" in
order to meet the Fourth Amendment's reasonableness requirement.
United States v. Lee, 317 F.3d 26, 31 (1st Cir. 2003) (citing Terry
v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 20 (1968)). The reasonable suspicion standard
is "an intermediate standard requiring more than unfounded
speculation but less than probable cause." United States v. Cook,
277 F.3d 82, 85 (1st Cir. 2002) (quoting Ornelas v. United States,
517 U.S. 690, 696 (1981)). In evaluating whether a Terry stop was
justified by reasonable suspicion, the reviewing court must examine
"'the totality of the circumstances' of each case to see whether
the detaining officer ha[d] a 'particular and objective basis' for
suspecting legal wrongdoing." United States v. Arvizu, 534 U.S.
266, 273 (2002). In the course of a legitimate Terry stop, a
police officer may conduct a frisk of the suspect, searching his or
her person for weapons, "on reasonable suspicion that the suspect
is armed and dangerous." United States v. Scott, 270 F.3d 30, 31
(1st Cir. 2001), cert. denied 535 U.S. 1007 (2002).
In arguing that the seizure of Beaudoin was justified under
the Terry doctrine, the government suggested that under the Supreme
Court's decision in United States v. Santana, Beaudoin had no
reasonable expectation of privacy in his motel room once he opened
-34-
the door to the police. See United States v. Santana, 427 U.S. 38,
40 n.1, 42 (1976) (holding that a suspect "was in a public place"
and could be arrested without a warrant where she was standing
"directly in the doorway . . . not merely visible to the public but
[] exposed to public view, speech, hearing, and touch, as if she
had been standing completely outside of her house"). The
government relied on the Second Circuit's opinion in Gori v. United
States, which found that the Santana doorway exception permitted a
Terry-type investigatory stop based on reasonable suspicion where
defendants voluntarily opened the door of their apartment to public
view in response to the knock of a delivery person they had
invited. 230 F.3d 44, 53 (2d Cir. 2000); c.f. Saari, 272 F.3d at
811 (finding that Terry did not apply where the defendant was
forcibly summoned out of the house at the command of the police and
did not voluntarily relinquish Payton's heightened protections for
the home).
In my view, the Santana doorway exception does not obviate the
need in this case for a warrant or exigent circumstances plus
probable cause. Unlike the defendants in Gori, who "opened [their
apartment] to public view . . . in response to the knock of an
invitee" and therefore had "no expectation of privacy as to what
could be seen from the hall," Beaudoin opened the interior door of
his motel room in response to a knock and request by law
-35-
enforcement officials.8 Moreover, he opened the door just enough
to reveal his face, exposing nothing inside the room. He did not
relinquish his and Robert Champagne's reasonable expectation of
residential privacy. Thus, when the police ordered Beaudoin to
step outside, he was not in a place where Terry's reasonable
suspicion analysis would apply in lieu of the probable cause basis
required for a search or seizure within a private residence.
Because Beaudoin did not voluntarily step outside of the motel room
or voluntarily expose the room to public view, Payton's heightened
protections for private residences apply in this case.
II.
Fourth Amendment Doctrines and the Majority's
Exigency/Emergency/Terry Approach
As noted above, the majority does not uphold the warrantless
seizure of Beaudoin based on the presence of exigent circumstances
plus probable cause nor does it affirm the district court's denial
of the motion to suppress under the emergency exception doctrine.
It also does not adopt the alternative argument advanced below by
the government that the order to Beaudoin did not take place within
Beaudoin's private residence and thus constituted a Terry stop that
was justified solely on the ground of reasonable suspicion of
unlawful activity. Instead, the majority's analysis "involves the
8
Pinardi and Chamberlain testified that Beaudoin opened the
main, inside door to the motel room, leaving an outer, screen door
between Beaudoin and the officers. The record does not resolve the
question of when the screen door was opened, or by whom.
-36-
intersection of several Fourth Amendment doctrines, most notably,
those of exigent circumstances, emergencies, and Terry-type
temporary detentions during investigation." Under this analysis,
"the issue is whether the command [to Beaudoin] was justified under
the combination of the three doctrines." This combination of
Fourth Amendment doctrines is an innovation. To my knowledge, no
other court has combined the traditional exigent circumstances
doctrine, the emergency exception doctrine, and the Terry doctrine
to justify a residential search or seizure. The outcome of this
unusual mix is an analysis that is, in my view, at odds with each
of the doctrines it purports to adopt.
A. The Terry Doctrine
The majority's emergency/exigency/Terry approach removes the
Terry doctrine from its constitutional moorings and extends the
doctrine to the seizure of a person from his private residence.
First, the majority suggests that the Terry doctrine applies to the
police officers' order to Beaudoin because Beaudoin stopped
voluntarily when he opened the curtain to his motel room and
answered the knock at his door. Thus, the majority claims that the
circumstances that culminated in the order to Beaudoin to exit his
motel room were like "a situation in which a person voluntarily
stops, and then the police take reasonable steps, during that
temporary stop to protect themselves during the questioning."
-37-
Although the majority is correct that once a Terry stop has
occurred, "an officer may search a person for weapons based on
reasonable suspicion that a person is armed and dangerous," the
voluntary actions that the majority describes do not constitute the
involuntary, investigative Terry stop (the seizure) that is the
premise of the Terry analysis. Indeed, the so-called voluntary
"stop" of Beaudoin within the motel room seems to be offered as a
substitute for the involuntary Terry seizure, which would require
reasonable suspicion that Beaudoin had committed, was committing,
or was about to commit a crime.
More importantly, the majority's analysis overlooks the
critical fact that Beaduoin was inside his motel room when he
looked out the window and responded to the officers' knock by
opening the door to his motel room just far enough to reveal his
face. This situation differs in constitutionally significant ways
from a situation in which police officers conduct a voluntary stop
of an individual in a public setting. In order to place Beaudoin
in a situation where Terry's reasonable suspicion standard might
apply, the officers had to order him to exit his room. Terry did
not justify that command because Terry does not apply to seizures
of individuals from their private residences. Although the
majority observes that "[w]hen the officer suspects a crime of
violence, the same information that will support an investigatory
-38-
stop will without more support a protective search," it is the
stop, not the protective search, that is at issue in this case.
The majority's blend of Fourth Amendment doctrines overlooks
the importance of place in determining whether a minimally
intrusive seizure can be justified under Terry's reasonable
suspicion standard. The majority cautions that this case does not
present "any abstract issue . . . about the application of Terry to
persons in doorways absent the emergency and exigent circumstances
present here."9 Yet Terry's applicability to the order to Beaudoin
does not turn on the presence or absence of exigent circumstances
but on the physical location of Beaudoin and the police officers at
the time of the seizure. Terry itself distinguished police conduct
"predicated upon the on-the-spot observations of an officer on the
beat — which historically has not been and as a practical matter
could not be, subject to the warrant procedure" from "conduct
subject to the Warrant Clause of the Fourth Amendment." Terry, 392
9
While the majority acknowledges that "[s]ome courts have
found that Terry does not justify intrusions into the home," it
insists that "[t]his issue is not before us — the issue, as
described below, does not arise from an intrusion into the home or
motel room." However, insofar as Beaudoin was positioned on the
residential side of Payton's firm line at the time that he opened
the inner door of his motel room, the officers' seizure of his
person was subject to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement,
and the Terry doctrine did not apply. See, e.g., United States v.
Winsor, 846 F.2d 1569, 1577-78 (9th Cir. 1988) (holding that
Terry's reasonable suspicion standard could not justify a
constructive search that was conducted as police officers peered
through the doorway into the defendant's home); Saari, 272 F.3d at
809 (holding that Terry did not apply where police officers ordered
the defendant to exit his home).
-39-
U.S. at 20. Terry dealt with the former category of conduct and
did not require exigent circumstances or probable cause to justify
the warrantless seizure — because a warrant was not required in the
first place. By contrast, if the situation in Terry involved
conduct subject to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement, the
Court "would have [had] to ascertain whether 'probable cause'
existed to justify the search and seizure which took place." Id.
Thus, the majority's incorporation of Terry into an
exigency/emergency analysis overlooks the constitutional difference
between police conduct in the home and police conduct outside it.10
This approach represents a significant departure from well-
established Fourth Amendment doctrine, under which residential
seizures must be supported by a warrant or exigent circumstances
and probable cause, whereas seizures short of arrest that are
conducted outside of the home do not require a warrant and may be
justified under Terry's reasonable suspicion standard. The command
to Beaudoin to exit his motel room constituted a seizure of
Beaudoin from his private residence. It was an intrusion of
10
Although the majority assumes, arguendo, that the order to
Beaudoin was a seizure of his person, it suggests that the order
may not have been a seizure after all, inviting us to "[c]onsider,
for example, if Beaudoin had left the doorway, and the officer
simply instructed Beaudoin to step closer to him." This example
again misapprehends the significance of place. Whether the
officers' directive was a seizure for Fourth Amendment purposes
turns on the nature of the order, not the location of Beaudoin. On
the other hand, Beaudoin's location is relevant in determining
whether that order was a residential seizure that implicated the
Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement or whether it was a
nonresidential seizure equivalent to an on-the-beat Terry stop.
-40-
significant import that required a search warrant or exigent
circumstances plus probable cause. Therefore, Payton, not Terry,
applies in this case.
B. The Exigent Circumstances and Emergency Doctrines
Just as the majority's approach is inconsistent with the Terry
doctrine, so too it cannot be reconciled with the traditional
exigent circumstances doctrine or the emergency exception doctrine.
1. The Exigent Circumstances Doctrine
Under a traditional Fourth Amendment analysis, exigent
circumstances present an exception to the Fourth Amendment's
warrant requirement for residential searches and seizures. Exigent
circumstances involve a "compelling necessity for immediate action
as w[ould] not brook the delay of obtaining a warrant." United
States v. Wilson, 36 F.3d 205, 209 (1st Cir. 1994)(quoting United
States v. Adams, 621 F.2d 41, 44 (1980)). The exigent
circumstances analysis is necessarily fact-intensive and is
"limited to the objective facts reasonably known to, or
discoverable by, the officers at the time of the search." Tibolt,
72 F.3d at 969. As the majority notes, this circuit has recognized
that exigent circumstances may exist where a suspect poses a threat
"to the lives or safety of the public, the police officers, or to
herself." Hegarty v. Somerset Cty., 53 F.3d 1367, 1375 (1st Cir.
1995).
-41-
Yet exigent circumstances alone cannot excuse the Fourth
Amendment's warrant requirement for residential searches and
seizures. While the majority is correct that a risk to the safety
of the public or the police may rise to the level of an exigent
circumstance, our case law is clear that this exigency justifies a
warrantless residential search or seizure only where it is also
supported by probable cause. See, e.g., United States v. Bartelho,
71 F.3d 426 F.3d 442 (1st Cir. 1995); United States v. Lopez, 989
F.2d 24, 27 (1st Cir. 1993). Thus, the traditional exigent
circumstances doctrine requires two separate elements. The exigent
circumstance element focuses on circumstances that are incident to
the criminal investigation, such as a risk of flight, the
destruction of evidence, or a risk to police officer safety. The
probable cause element focuses on the suspicion of criminal
activity, which must amount to probable cause to believe that a
crime has been or is being committed. In the absence of a valid
search warrant or consent, both elements must be present in order
to justify a search or seizure within a private residence.
2. The Emergency Exception Doctrine
The Supreme Court has recognized that some emergencies may
obviate the need to obtain a warrant prior to entering a private
residence, Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385, 392 (1978), and
numerous state and federal courts have upheld emergency entries and
searches of private residences based on the need to render
-42-
emergency aid. See United States v. Holloway, 290 F.3d 1331, 1336-
37 (11th Cir. 2002) (collecting cases). In contrast to the
traditional exigent circumstance case, in which the exigency
presents itself in the course of a criminal investigation and
requires probable cause of criminal activity, a search or seizure
that falls under the emergency exception doctrine may be only
incidentally connected to unlawful acts. Police officers
responding to emergency situations are responding to the need to
locate and provide assistance to a person whose life may hang in
the balance rather than the search for evidence of criminal
activity.
As the Fourth Circuit has explained, "[t]his particular
exigency is expressed as one of [a] reasonably perceived
'emergency' requiring immediate entry as an incident to the service
and protective functions of the police as opposed to, or as a
complement to, their law enforcement functions." United States v.
Moss, 963 F.2d 673, 678 (4th Cir. 1992). A Fourth Amendment issue
arises in these emergency exception cases only when someone becomes
the subject of a search or seizure within the protected area,
usually because the police discover evidence of criminal activity
while searching for the individual believed to be in need of aid.11
11
The emergency exception doctrine must be distinguished from
the "special needs" exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant and
probable cause requirements. The latter exception provides that "a
residential search pursuant to an established warrantless search
procedure, may be reasonable if conducted in furtherance of an
-43-
In such cases, the reasonableness of the search or seizure does not
depend on the existence of probable cause to believe that criminal
activity had been or was being committed. Indeed, the law
enforcement officers initially may not be aware of any connection
between the emergency and a crime. Instead, the reasonableness of
the intrusive action under the emergency doctrine depends on the
objective probability that someone's life or safety is in danger
within a setting protected by the Fourth Amendment.
Thus, the emergency exception suggested by Mincey, and adopted
in various forms by state and federal courts, does not dispense
with the Fourth Amendment's probable cause requirement. In
applying the emergency doctrine, other circuits have found that the
Fourth Amendment requires a standard of suspicion approximating
probable cause to justify a warrantless search or seizure in a
private residence under the emergency exception doctrine. While
the phrasing of the applicable standard varies, I agree with the
Second Circuit that probable cause exists in the emergency context
where there exists a probability that an individual's life or
safety is in danger within an area protected by the Fourth
important administrative or regulatory purpose, or 'special need,'
which would be undermined systematically by an impracticable
warrant or probable-cause requirement." McCabe v. Life-Line
Ambulance Serv., Inc., 77 F.3d 540, 545 (1st Cir. 1996)(emphasis in
the original)(applying the exception to a municipal policy allowing
warrantless entries into private residences for the purpose of
executing involuntary commitment papers).
-44-
Amendment. See Koch v. Town of Brattleboro, 287 F.3d 162, 169 (2d
Cir. 2002) (probable cause under the emergency doctrine requires "a
probability that a person is in danger"). Courts that have found
that the emergency doctrine requires a "reasonable belief" or a
"reasonable basis for believing" that someone is in danger have
also essentially applied a probable cause test. See, e.g.,
Holloway, 290 F.3d at 1338 ("[I]n an emergency, the probable cause
element may be satisfied where officers reasonably believe a person
is in danger."); 3 LaFave, Search and Seizure § 6.6(a), at 393
("There must be some reasonable basis, approximating probable
cause, to associate the emergency with the area or place to be
searched.")(quoting People v. Mitchell, 39 N.Y.2d 173, 177-78
(1976)).
Whether articulated as a reasonable belief or a probability,
the probable cause element of the emergency doctrine requires the
same heightened standard that applies to other warrantless searches
and seizures in a private residence where the object of the search
and seizure is criminal activity. However, under the emergency
doctrine, the separate elements of exigent circumstances and
probable cause come together. In other words, probable cause in
the emergency context focuses on the threat to an individual's life
or safety – that is, on the exigency itself. Unless the objective
basis for suspicion of an emergency rises to the level of probable
-45-
cause, a warrantless residential search or seizure violates the
Fourth Amendment.
3. The Majority's Approach
The majority never claims that the anonymous call reporting a
failed drug deal and possible dead body, and the light inside of
the defendants' motel room, provided an adequate basis for a
warrantless entry into the room under the traditional exigent
circumstances doctrine or the emergency exception doctrine. At
most, the majority's analysis suggests that the facts known to the
officers relating to the possible emergency and crime justified
their decision to approach the defendants' motel room and knock on
the door. I agree with that proposition.
However, Beaudoin had no obligation to open that door, even in
response to a knock and request of the police. Because the
officers did not have a warrant, Beaudoin could have simply told
them to go away. In that case, the officers would have been
required to explore other investigative options until they could
develop sufficient probable cause to support a search warrant.
Yet Beaudoin responded to the officers' knock by opening the
inner door to his motel room, revealing only his face. At that
critical moment, the majority introduces the exigent circumstance
of the risk to the officers' safety. According to the majority,
the police officers had a reasonable basis to believe that their
safety was at risk based on the information provided by the
-46-
anonymous call,12 the sounds that they heard inside of the room, and
the way that Beaudoin opened the door. As the majority explains:
"[t]he partially opened doorway to the small motel room was not a
safe place for the police to investigate whether [Beaudoin] was
armed, in this situation."13 Therefore, it concludes that "balanced
against the objective safety concerns of the officers here, and in
light of the call about an emergency, it was reasonable" to order
Beaudoin to step outside of his motel room.
I do not doubt that an officer investigating reports of drug
activity and a possible dead body in a motel room has valid
grounds for concern about his or her personal safety in standing
outside of that room under the circumstances presented here.
However, the officers could have addressed their concerns for
personal safety by withdrawing from the area around the motel room
door in any one of several directions. The door was adjacent to a
12
The majority points out that Officer Pinardi testified that
he believed the call had reported a shooting, as well as a drug
deal gone bad and a possible dead body. However, the source of
that belief is unclear, and it conflicts with the transcript of the
call, which said nothing about a shooting, as well as the testimony
of Sergeant Chamberlain, who said nothing about a shooting.
13
In fact, as noted in footnote 3, supra, Beaudoin initially
opened the interior door of the room. The record leaves unclear
whether he had pushed open the outer, screen door at the time that
the police commanded him from the room.
-47-
lit walkway that flanked a circular driveway where the police
officers had parked their car in view of the defendants' room. The
police did not have to turn their backs to Beaudoin or end their
vigilance as they retreated from the area in front of the door.
While courts are appropriately reluctant to tell police officers
how to carry out their investigatory responsibilities, officers
must make investigative choices within the limits of the
Constitution. A decision by the Hooksett police officers to
withdraw from the area around Beaudoin's door would not mean an
abandonment of their investigation of the anonymous call. They
could have pursued a number of alternative options, including
staking out the scene,14 questioning other motel residents, or
calling Beaudoin's room in an effort to win his consent to a
voluntary departure from that room. What the police could not do,
however, was use their continued presence outside the motel room
door as a basis for disregarding the well-established
constitutional prohibition against entering a private residence
without a combination of probable cause to believe that criminal
activity was occurring within and exigent circumstances or, in a
14
Sergeant Chamberlain recognized the availability of other
alternatives, testifying that if the call had reported a drug deal
gone bad but not a dead body, the officers would not have ordered
Beaudoin to step outside when he guardedly opened the door but
would have "put a perimeter up outside the place and tried to
develop enough probable cause to at least get a search warrant, and
[] would also have at that point called for more help."
-48-
pure emergency situation, probable cause to believe that somebody's
life or safety is in danger within the private residence.
Implicit in the majority's analysis is the notion that the
officers' belief that someone was injured or dying inside of the
room justified their continued presence outside of the doorway and,
after concerns arose for their own safety, their seizure of
Beaudoin. In other words, the police could not have been required
to abandon their position in front of the motel room door because
they were in the process of investigating a reported emergency.
However, the only basis for the officers' belief that someone might
be in danger inside the room was an anonymous, uncorroborated 911
call devoid of any details (other than the room number) that did
not provide sufficiently reasonable grounds to believe that an
emergency existed. Nor was the officers' belief in a possible
emergency rendered any more reasonable by their concerns for their
own safety or by the fact that they ordered Beaudoin to step
outside of his motel room rather than physically entering the room
themselves. In essence, when the majority's amalgam of doctrines
and its language of reasonableness are probed, it concludes that an
anonymous, uncorroborated call trumps the strong Fourth Amendment
rule that the police may not enter a private residence without
probable cause to do so. This proposition represents a new
exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant and probable cause
requirements that cannot be squared with traditional exigent
-49-
circumstances analysis or the emergency exception doctrine.
Because the officers in this case had no probable cause basis for
believing that there was criminal activity or an emergency inside
the defendants' room, I would hold that their decision to order
Beaudoin from his motel room violated his Fourth Amendment rights.
III.
Fourth Amendment Analysis of the Seizure of Beaudoin
A. Traditional Fourth Amendment Analysis
Although the district court did not decide this case on
traditional Fourth Amendment grounds, it stated at the suppression
hearing that "the ordinary exigent circumstances exception, when
you're trying to seek evidence of a crime rather than trying to
determine if somebody in need of assistance can get that
assistance, requires probable cause. And I agree [with the
defendants] that in these circumstances, there is not probable
cause present." Because the majority affirms the decision of the
district court under its exigency/emergency/Terry analysis, it does
not consider whether the seizure of Beaudoin was justified by
probable cause of criminal activity. I suspect, however, that the
majority would agree with the district court, as do I, that the
seizure of Beaudoin was not justified by probable cause of criminal
activity, notwithstanding the presence of any exigent
circumstances.
As noted in Part I, for Fourth Amendment purposes, probable
cause exists where "the officers at the scene collectively
-50-
possessed reasonably trustworthy information sufficient to warrant
a prudent policeman in believing that a criminal offense had been
or was being committed." Tibolt, 72 F.3d at 969. The probable
cause standard is a fact-specific concept that "deals with
probabilities and depends on the totality of the circumstances."
Maryland v. Pringle, 124 S. Ct. 795, 800 (2003); see Valente v.
Wallace, 332 F.3d 30, 32 (1st Cir. 2003) (noting that whether the
requisite probability must be "'more likely than not' [is] . . .
arguably unsettled; but, centrally, the mercurial phrase 'probable
cause' means a reasonable likelihood"). Like the less demanding
standard of reasonable suspicion, probable cause is "dependant upon
both the content of information possessed by the police and its
degree of reliability. Both factors – quantity and quality – are
considered in the 'totality of the circumstances' – the whole
picture – that must be taken into account" when evaluating whether
a search or seizure was supported by reasonable suspicion or by
probable cause. Alabama v. White, 496 U.S. 325, 330 (1990). Of
course, probable cause is a more demanding standard than reasonable
suspicion, both in terms of the detail of information and the
degree of reliability required. See id.An anonymous tip "seldom demonstrates the informant's basis of
knowledge or veracity" and typically fails to give rise to
reasonable suspicion, let alone probable cause. Id. at 329 (finding
that a detailed anonymous tip that a woman was carrying cocaine and
-51-
predicting that she would leave an apartment building at a
specified time, enter a car of a specified description, and drive
to a specified motel would not, without further corroboration, have
justified a Terry stop based on reasonable suspicion); see Florida
v. J.L., 529 U.S. 266, 271 (2000) (holding that an anonymous 911
call lacked sufficient indicia of reliability for a showing of
reasonable suspicion where the caller reported that a young man
standing at a particular bus stop wearing a plaid shirt was
carrying a gun). The anonymous 911 call to the Manchester police
reporting a dead body and failed drug deal in a particular room at
a particular motel did not provide anything approaching the degree
of detail and specificity that might have supported the veracity of
the information. See Khounsavanh, 113 F.3d at 288 (noting that
"there may be cases where an informant provides such a wealth of
detail, with such a high degree of specificity that it is unlikely
that the informant is inventing these assertions, and his veracity
is supported through the very specificity and detail of his
statement"). The caller did not describe who was involved in the
alleged events, when these events took place, how the alleged death
occurred, how many people could be found inside the motel room, or
how he knew about the information he proffered. In essence, the
call consisted of a "bare report of an unknown, unaccountable
informant" who provided little detail or predictive information and
did not "suppl[y] any basis for believing he had inside
-52-
information" about the defendants or the alleged events at the Kozy
7 motel. See J.L., 529 U.S. at 271.
It is true that an anonymous tip with predictive detail that
is then supported by corroborating facts may demonstrate sufficient
reliability to give rise to a reasonable suspicion or, potentially,
probable cause, of criminal activity. See J.L., 529 U.S. at 270;
Wood v. Clemons, 89 F.3d 922 (1st Cir. 1996). However, there was
precious little detail or corroboration at the time that the
Hooksett police officers knocked on the defendants' motel room door
and ordered Beaudoin to step outside. Arriving at the motel at
about 5:30 a.m., the officers observed that a light was on inside
Room 10, in contrast to the other darkened rooms of the motel.
Sergeant Chamberlain noticed movement inside the room and
subsequently observed Beaudoin pull back the curtain and look
outside in response to the officers' knock on the door. When
Beaudoin opened the door at the request or instruction of the
officers, he did so only far enough to reveal his face.
I do not find it out of the ordinary that two individuals
would be awake at 5:30 a.m. on a July morning when the sun had
already begun to rise. As Officer Pinardi acknowledged at the
suppression hearing, it was "not very dark in July" at that time of
morning. Nor do I think that Beaudoin's decision to look outside
the window before answering an early morning knock on his motel
room door provides any corroboration of the anonymous and
-53-
unidentified tip alleging a homicide or drug deal. As noted, he
had no obligation to open the door at all. His hesitancy to
voluntarily expose himself and the room to full public view when
opening the door in response to a request from police officers
visible in their uniforms could provide some indication of a guilty
conscience. On the other hand, it could suggest a reasonable
concern for safety, or for modesty, when strangers, even uniformed
ones, unexpectedly knock on one's motel room door in the early
hours of the morning. In any event, considered together, these
facts were insufficient to corroborate an anonymous call devoid of
details and to provide sufficient indicia of reliability to
"warrant a prudent policeman in believing" that Beaudoin and
Champagne had committed or were committing an offense inside the
motel room. Tibolt, 72 F.3d at 969; see J.L., 529 U.S. at 271(holding that anonymous call alleging unlawful carriage of gun was
not sufficiently corroborated by police observation of suspect
matching the description and standing at the location reported by
the caller to establish reasonable suspicion justifying a Terry
investigative stop of that individual). Hence, under a traditional
Fourth Amendment analysis relating to the investigation of criminal
activity, there was no probable cause basis for ordering Beaudoin
to leave his room.
B. Emergency Exception Doctrine
The question here is whether the Hooksett police officers
-54-
lawfully ordered Beaudoin to step outside of his motel room under
an emergency doctrine that incorporates the Fourth Amendment's
requirements for warrantless residential searches and seizures. In
addressing this question, I consider whether there existed an
objective probability that an individual's life or safety was in
danger inside the motel room at the time that the officers ordered
Beaudoin to step outside — in other words, whether the risk of an
emergency rose to the level of probable cause.
The government claims that emergency circumstances were
created by the anonymous 911 call that reported a possible dead
body inside a motel room. As several circuit courts have
recognized, 911 calls are among the most frequent and widely
recognized means of reporting emergencies. See, e.g., Holloway,
290 F.3d at 1339 ("Not surprisingly, 911 calls are the predominant
means of communicating emergency situations."); United States v.
Richardson, 208 F.3d 626, 630 (7th Cir. 2000) ("A 911 call is one
of the most common — and universally recognized — means through
which police and other emergency personnel learn that there is
someone in a dangerous situation who urgently needs help."). When
confronted with an emergency situation, police officers generally
must act swiftly to investigate and respond to information that
someone may be in need of urgent assistance.
Although a homicide scene does not automatically present an
exigent circumstance that justifies a warrantless search, see
-55-
Mincey, 437 U.S. at 393-94,15 a 911 report of a dead body may in
some circumstances create a reasonable assumption that the reported
victim might be alive and in need of immediate aid. See
Richardson, 208 F.3d at 631 (concluding that "it was objectively
reasonable for the officers to conclude that the situation
presented exigent circumstances" based on a 911 report that a woman
had been raped and murdered in an apartment). As then-Judge Burger
explained in Wayne v. United States:
[A] warrant is not required to break down a door to enter
a burning home to rescue occupants or extinguish a fire,
to prevent a shooting or to bring emergency aid to an
injured person. The need to protect or preserve life or
avoid serious injury is justification for what would be
otherwise illegal absent an exigency or emergency. . . .
[T]he business of policemen and firemen is to act, not to
speculate or meditate on whether the report is correct.
People could well die in emergencies if the police tried
to act with the calm deliberation associated with the
judicial process. Even the apparently dead often are
saved by swift police response.
318 F.2d 205, 212 (D.C. Cir. 1963)(dicta). In this case, the 911
call suggested that someone may have been killed as the result of
a drug deal. I agree with the district court that a 911 call
reporting a potential victim of a drug-related homicide may present
an exigency that compels immediate action and justifies forgoing
the delay of obtaining a warrant.
15
In Mincey, the Supreme Court found that a four-day search of
an apartment after the victims of a shooting had been found
violated the Fourth Amendment, explaining that "the warrantless
search of [the defendant's] apartment was not constitutionally
permissible simply because a homicide had occurred there." Id. at
395.
-56-
The analysis does not end there, however. Again, the
government must establish that the suspicion of emergency
circumstances rises to the level of probable cause in order to
validate a warrantless search or seizure within a private
residence. The district court concluded that the anonymous 911
call that reported a dead body inside Room 10 of the Kozy 7 Motel
"provided both reasonable grounds for effectuating a warrantless
attempted rescue of the putative victim and a reasonable basis for
doing so within the room specified." The majority apparently does
not agree with that conclusion, nor do I.
The relevant facts on this issue are not in dispute. The
government agrees that the anonymous 911 call alleging a "drug deal
gone bad" and possible dead body provided the basis for the police
officers' seizure of Beaudoin. The officers acknowledge that they
did not know the identity of the caller or the origin of the call.
There is no evidence in the record suggesting that the officers
tried to trace the call or conducted any other investigation to
corroborate the information that they received or the identity of
the caller prior to appearing at the defendants' door.
The concerns with anonymous and uncorroborated tips expressed
by the Supreme Court in J.L. under a traditional Fourth Amendment
analysis are also relevant in the emergency context. It is true
that the J.L. Court recognized that certain emergency situations
might justify a reduced showing of reliability regarding anonymous
-57-
tips, explaining that "[w]e do not say, for example, that a report
of a person carrying a bomb need bear the indicia of reliability we
demand for a person carrying a firearm before the police can
constitutionally conduct a frisk." 529 U.S. at 273-74. I
recognize that unusually severe and time-sensitive emergencies,
such as the report of a bomb, may validate a protective, on-the-
street, stop and frisk, even without a showing of reliability.
Such an emergency might also justify a search or seizure within a
private residence without a showing of probable cause,
notwithstanding the heightened privacy interest at stake in such
cases. However, an anonymous call alleging a possible dead body
inside a motel room does not present the same kind of clear and
immediate threat of harm as a report alleging that a person is
carrying a bomb. J.L. does not stand for the proposition that an
anonymous report of a dead body inside a private residence obviates
the need to verify the reliability of the caller or the call.
As in J.L., the caller in this case "provided no predictive
information and therefore left the police without means to test the
informant's knowledge or credibility." See J.L., 529 U.S. at 271.
Such a call presents a troubling possibility that someone may have
placed the call in order to "harass another [by] set[ting] in
motion an intrusive, embarrassing police search of the targeted
person." Id. at 272. Indeed, Beaudoin and Champagne were set up
-58-
by somebody who concocted a phony story about an emergency.16 There
was no dead body inside Room 10 of the Kozy 7 Motel. Instead, an
unknown person placed an anonymous and unreliable call reporting an
emergency that did not exist.
While several circuit courts have applied the emergency
doctrine to uphold a warrantless search or seizure in a private
residence based on a 911 emergency call, in each case the call at
issue was more reliable than the call in this case. In some cases,
the caller was not anonymous. See Richardson, 208 F.3d at 628(caller identified himself by name and explained that he lived at
the same address as the alleged murder); United States v.
Cunningham, 133 F.3d 1070, 1071 (8th Cir. 1998) (caller identified
herself). In another case, the address from which the call was
placed was verified by caller identification, and the caller
described an immediate and deadly threat of harm to which she
herself was being exposed. Anthony v. City of New York, 339 F.3d
129, 136 (2d Cir. 2003). In still other cases, the police found
corroborating evidence of an emergency when they arrived at the
reported location. See United States v. Jenkins, 329 F.3d 579,
580-81 (7th Cir. 2003) (caller identified herself and called from
16
This observation does not suggest any sympathy for the plight
of the defendants. They were obviously up to no good. However,
their culpable conduct is not at issue here. The fact that they
were set up simply illustrates the reliability problems that are
presented by anonymous and uncorroborated tips that become the
basis for intrusive police actions.
-59-
the location of the alleged assault, and when police officer
arrived at that location, he observed that the front door was open
and heard sounds of someone standing up and falling down);
Holloway, 290 F.3d at 1332-33 (when investigating anonymous report
of a violent domestic dispute and gun shots inside a home, police
officers discovered individuals on the porch, a shotgun against the
house, and several expended and one live shotgun shells on the
picnic table and lawn). In none of these cases did the police rely
upon an anonymous and uncorroborated emergency call to justify a
warrantless search or seizure in a private residence. See Kerman,
261 F.3d at 238 (finding that search violated the Fourth Amendment
where it was based on an anonymous and unverified 911 call).
The government did not present the district court with
evidence that the Manchester or Hooksett police had any additional,
objective reason to believe in the reliability of the caller. See
J.L., 529 U.S. at 276 (Kennedy, J., concurring) (noting that
instant caller identification and voice recordings of telephone
calls may lend reliability to an otherwise unreliable anonymous
tip). When the police arrived at the motel, they discovered no
commotion, no sign of a disturbance, nothing to indicate that a
person had been shot or killed or was in need of emergency
assistance. They did not look for a manager or others on the
premises to ask if they had heard any disturbance in or around Room
10. Instead, the police seized Beaudoin on the basis of an
-60-
anonymous call and evidence of someone awake inside the reported
location at 5:30 a.m. and movement inside the room. These meager
observations did not provide sufficient corroboration of an
anonymous and unidentified call from an unknown location reporting
a possible dead body at that address to establish probable cause of
a danger to the life or safety of someone inside the motel room.
Therefore, when the Hooksett police ordered Beaudoin to step
outside of his motel room, they violated his Fourth Amendment right
to be free from unreasonable seizures and triggered subsequent
searches and seizures of Beaudoin, Champagne, and the room that
cannot escape the taint of this original violation.17
IV.
Conclusion
The seizure of Beaudoin was not supported by probable cause of
criminal activity or probable cause of a danger to human life or
safety. Indeed, it is questionable whether the police officers had
even a reasonable suspicion that there was criminal activity in the
17
Because the initial seizure of Beaudoin was unlawful, the
government's theory of inevitable discovery as a justification for
the ensuing searches and seizures unravels. See Nix v. Williams,
467 U.S. 431, 444 (1984) (holding that if the government "can
establish by a preponderance of the evidence that the information
ultimately or inevitably would have been discovered by lawful means
. . . the evidence should be received" even if it was obtained by
an unlawful search or seizure). Evidence seized under the
subsequently executed search warrant is also inadmissible as fruit
of the poisonous tree. See generally, Wong Sun v. United States,
371 U.S. 471, 487-88 (1963). It would have been impossible to
secure the warrant without the prior unlawful seizure of Beaudoin
and the subsequent entry into the motel room and the seizure of
Champagne.
-61-
room, or an emergency involving someone's life or safety. Yet one
of the officers testified that if Beaudoin had not come out of his
motel room the police were going to go in. That determination
reflects a failure on the part of the officers to understand the
constitutional principles that circumscribe their investigative
choices.
These constitutional principles do not make the difficult and
important job of police officers any easier. However, they cannot
be removed from the calculus of reasonableness. In this case, the
well-established proposition that the police cannot enter a private
residence without probable cause to do so means that the officers
made a constitutionally inappropriate choice when their concern for
their own safety induced them, with their order to Beaudoin to
leave his motel room, to cross the threshold into the protected
area instead of withdrawing from the scene to continue their
investigation in a manner that would comport with constitutional
requirements. Under both traditional Fourth Amendment analysis and
the emergency exception doctrine, the officers' conduct in this
case violated the Fourth Amendment's proscription against
unreasonable searches and seizures. The district court's order
denying the defendants' motion to suppress should be vacated, and
the motion to suppress granted.
-62-