State v. Maddox , 2013 Ohio 1544 ( 2013 )

[Cite as State v. Maddox, 2013-Ohio-1544.]
Court of Appeals of Ohio
EIGHTH APPELLATE DISTRICT
COUNTY OF CUYAHOGA
JOURNAL ENTRY AND OPINION
No. 98484
STATE OF OHIO
PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE
vs.
ADRIAN D. MADDOX
DEFENDANT-APPELLANT
JUDGMENT:
REVERSED AND REMANDED
Criminal Appeal from the
Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas
Case No. CR-558633
BEFORE: Stewart, A.J., Kilbane, J., and Blackmon, J.
RELEASED AND JOURNALIZED: April 18, 2013
ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLANT
Robert L. Tobik
Cuyahoga County Public Defender
BY: John T. Martin
Assistant Public Defender
310 Lakeside Avenue, Suite 200
Cleveland, OH 44113
ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE
Timothy J. McGinty
Cuyahoga County Prosecutor
BY: Marcus A. Henry
Assistant County Prosecutor
The Justice Center
1200 Ontario Street, 8th Floor
Cleveland, OH 44113
MELODY J. STEWART, A.J.:
{¶1} When the Shaker Heights police arrested defendant-appellant Adrian Maddox
in his apartment on charges of breaking and entering into a convenience store and stealing
cigarettes and other tobacco products, they found incriminating evidence during a sweep
of the apartment. Maddox asked the trial court to suppress this evidence on three
grounds: that the police entered his apartment building without a warrant; that they
arrested him without a warrant; and that they were unjustified in conducting a protective
sweep of the apartment. The court rejected all three grounds and denied the motion,
finding that there was probable cause and exigent circumstances. Maddox then pleaded
no contest and the court found him guilty of breaking and entering, petty theft, vandalism,
and possession of criminal tools. We find dispositive the argument that the police could
not validly arrest Maddox without a warrant and reverse.
I
{¶2} The evidence at the suppression hearing showed that Maddox, wearing a tan
coat and carrying a duffel bag, was spotted in the area of the store shortly after the
break-in had been reported. A police officer stopped him and asked him to provide
identification. At that time, the officer lacked grounds to arrest Maddox so he was
allowed to leave. Afterward, other police officers viewed video surveillance of the crime
and discovered that the intruder wore clothes similar to those worn by Maddox.
{¶3} Three days after the break-in, police detectives went to the multi-level
apartment building where Maddox lived in order to arrest him. They did not have an
arrest warrant. The detectives gained entry to the common area of the building,
proceeded to Maddox’s apartment, and knocked on his door. The detectives testified that
Maddox opened the door and the police identified themselves. When they asked
Maddox if anyone else was in the apartment, he did not answer, but twice looked over his
shoulder. Thinking that someone else could be in the apartment, one detective placed
Maddox under arrest while others entered and conducted a protective sweep. The arrest
occurred inside the apartment because Maddox stepped back into the apartment.1 During
the sweep the detectives discovered a jacket that matched the one worn by the perpetrator
in video surveillance footage of the theft and an open duffel bag containing cigarettes and
tobacco products. The police did not take these items, but obtained a search warrant and
then seized the jacket and duffel bag.
II
{¶4} The police are not always required to obtain a warrant to arrest and may
conduct a warrantless arrest if (1) the arrestee has committed an offense in the officer’s
presence, United States v. Watson, 423 U.S. 411, 418, 96 S.Ct. 820, 46 L.Ed.2d 598(1976); (2) the officer has probable cause to believe the arrestee has committed a felony
and the arrest occurs in a public place, Devenpeck v. Alford, 543 U.S. 146, 152, 125
Maddox testified that while he was unlocking his door in response to the knock, the police
1
pushed their way into his apartment with guns drawn. The trial court did not accept this version of
the events.
S.Ct. 588, 160 L.Ed.2d 537 (2004); or (3) the officer has probable cause for an arrest and
the circumstances are “exigent.” Michigan v. Tyler, 436 U.S. 499, 509, 98 S.Ct. 1942,
56 L.Ed.2d 486 (1978).
{¶5} Warrantless arrests in suspects’ dwellings, even if supported by probable
cause as is the case here, are presumptively unreasonable because they do not occur in a
public place. Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 590, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 63 L.Ed.2d 639(1980). It would be difficult to overstate the degree to which the courts have extended
Fourth Amendment protections to the “sanctity” of the home. The United States
Supreme Court has stated that “searches and seizures inside a home without a warrant are
presumptively unreasonable.” Id. at 586. This is because “‘the right of a man to retreat
into his own home and there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion’” stands
“‘[a]t the very core’ of the Fourth Amendment.” Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27, 31,
150 L.Ed.2d 94, 121 S.Ct. 2038 (2001), quoting Silverman v. United States, 365 U.S. 505,
511, 5 L.Ed.2d 734, 81 S.Ct. 679 (1961).
{¶6} However, not all parts of the house constitute areas where a person has an
expectation of privacy. In United States v. Santana, 427 U.S. 38, 96 S.Ct. 2406, 49
L.Ed.2d 300 (1976), the United States Supreme Court found that a person standing in the
doorway of a house had no expectation of privacy when police arrived at the home to
arrest Santana because “[w]hat a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own
house or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection.” Id. at 42, citing Katz
v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 351, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967). The court
reasoned that an individual voluntarily standing in an open doorway has knowingly
exposed himself to “public view, speech, hearing, and touch” just as if he were standing
in a public place. Id.{¶7} The uncontested facts of this case, however, show that the detectives arrested
Maddox inside the apartment in his hallway, so Santana has no application here.
Although one of the detectives testified that Maddox opened the door and stood in the
doorway, the evidence is undisputed that Maddox backed into the apartment and the
detectives followed him inside to arrest him. Maddox was therefore entitled to Fourth
Amendment protection from an unreasonable intrusion into his home.
{¶8} In reaching this conclusion, we note that Maddox’s act of answering a knock
on his door did not surrender his right to be free from a warrantless arrest. Some cases
have found that this constitutes a “voluntary” exposure to a warrantless arrest. See, e.g.,
United States v. Gori, 230 F.3d 44, 54 (2d Cir. 2000); United States v. Vaneaton, 49 F.3d
1423, 1427 (9th Cir. 1995). For example, in Vaneaton, the police knocked on the door of
Vaneaton’s motel room, he looked out a window, saw the uniformed police officers, and
nonetheless opened his door and stood “at the doorway but just inside the threshold.” 49
F.3d at 1425. The court, relying on Santana, found that Vaneaton voluntarily exposed
himself to warrantless arrest by freely opening the door of his room to the police. Id. at
1427.
{¶9} Santana was decided before Payton, and for that reason has been questioned
as being “inconsistent with the spirit of Payton v. New York.” Hadley v. Williams, 368
F.3d 747, 750 (7th Cir.2004). Some courts have held that an individual does not
“completely surrender or forfeit every reasonable expectation of privacy when he open[s]
the door, including, most notably, the right to be secure within his home from a
warrantless arrest.” McClish v. Nugent, 483 F.3d 1231, 1247 (11th Cir.2007).
{¶10} We agree with the view enunciated by Judge Posner in Hadley: “Since few
people will refuse to open the door to the police, the effect of the rule of Gori and
Vaneaton is to undermine, for no good reason that we can see, the principle that a warrant
is required for entry into the home, in the absence of consent or compelling
circumstances.” Hadley, 368 F.3d at 750. Indeed, the state’s argument in this appeal is
based on nothing more than a theory of “knock and arrest.” In United States v.
Berkowitz, 927 F.2d 1376 (7th Cir. 1991), the court stated:
A person does not abandon this privacy interest in his home by opening his
door from within to answer a knock. Answering a knock at the door is not
an invitation to come in the house. We think society would recognize a
person’s right to choose to close his door on and exclude people he does not
want within his home. This right to exclude is one of the most — if not the
most — important components of a person’s privacy expectation in his
home.
Id. at 1387.
{¶11} In short, if the Payton guarantee of privacy within the home is to have force
and effect, it follows that answering a knock on the door does not imply a right of entry.
{¶12} The facts of this case demonstrate the point. Maddox had no idea that the
police were outside his door when he opened it, so he could not be said to have
voluntarily exposed himself to view of the police. He lived on the fifth floor of a
multi-level, apartment building. What is more, the evidence showed that the doors to the
building were locked and that visitors had to be “buzzed in” for entry. The police
detectives gave conflicting testimony as to how they entered the building: one detective
said they were buzzed in; the other detective said that they walked into the building
without being buzzed in and that he could not recall if the building doors were locked. It
was clear, however, that Maddox did not admit them into the building. Maddox testified
that after hearing a knock on his door, he did not look through the peephole of the door
before opening it. But even if he did, the detectives were in plain clothes and did not
announce themselves as the police when they knocked. So unlike the facts in Vaneaton,
Maddox did not open his door and knowingly expose himself to view of the police.
{¶13} Furthermore, we are perplexed as to why the police did not obtain a warrant
to arrest Maddox. When one detective was asked during the suppression hearing “did
anyone on your strike force approach a jurist regarding obtaining an arrest warrant prior
to going over Mr. Maddox’s house?” the detective replied, “[t]hat’s not our policy.
That’s not how we do things.” “No we didn’t.” Taken at face value, these statements
show an appalling disregard of the law. In fairness to the detective, however, he may
have been suggesting that the detectives did not personally file for arrest warrants and that
it is someone else’s responsibility. But even if that is a reasonable interpretation of what
the detective meant, it does not aid the state’s argument.
{¶14} The state argued, and the trial court found, that the police had probable
cause to arrest Maddox and that exigent circumstances existed to justify the warrantless
arrest. While the matter of probable cause to arrest is not in dispute in this case, the law
is clear that probable cause alone does not justify a warrantless intrusion into the home
absent a few limited exceptions with exigent circumstances being one of them. There
were no exigent circumstances in this case. The undisputed facts show that three days
elapsed from the day of the break-in to when the police arrested Maddox: more than a
sufficient amount of time to obtain an arrest warrant.
{¶15} The occupant of a home is entitled to open a door for the sole purpose of
identifying who is at the door without waiving the right to privacy in the home. By
entering without an arrest warrant, the police violated the sanctity of the home and
violated the Fourth Amendment. The court erred by denying the motion to suppress.
{¶16} This cause is reversed and remanded to the trial court for further
proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is ordered that appellant recover of said appellee his costs herein taxed.
The court finds there were reasonable grounds for this appeal.
It is ordered that a special mandate issue out of this court directing the Cuyahoga
County Court of Common Pleas to carry this judgment into execution.
A certified copy of this entry shall constitute the mandate pursuant to Rule 27 of
the Rules of Appellate Procedure.
MELODY J. STEWART, ADMINISTRATIVE JUDGE
MARY EILEEN KILBANE, J., and
PATRICIA ANN BLACKMON, J., CONCUR