U.S.A. v. Espinoza

Decision Date11 July 2001
Docket NumberNo. 00-3090,00-3090
Parties(7th Cir. 2001) UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. MIGUEL A. ESPINOZA, Defendant-Appellee
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin. No. 00 CR 73--Lynn Adelman, Judge. [Copyrighted Material Omitted] Before COFFEY, RIPPLE and DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judges.

COFFEY, Circuit Judge.

On March 27, 2000, law enforcement officers in Racine, Wisconsin, executed a search warrant on Defendant-Appellee Miguel Espinoza's residence. The search yielded large quantities of cocaine, marijuana, and cash. Espinoza was arrested and subsequently charged in an indictment with possession with intent to distribute in excess of 500 grams of cocaine. Thereafter, Espinoza filed a motion to suppress all the evidence obtained in the search of his apartment. After an evidentiary hearing was conducted, the district court held that the officers, in the course of entering the outer door of Espinoza's apartment building, failed to comply with the timing element of the "knock and announce" requirement as described in Wilson v. Arkansas, 514 U.S. 924 (1995). The district court ordered all the evidence obtained in the search excluded. We reverse the district court's decision to exclude evidence obtained in the search of Espinoza's apartment and remand for proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I. BACKGROUND

On March 27, 2000, a Racine County, Wisconsin circuit judge issued a search warrant authorizing the search of Espinoza's residence, the lower unit of a two-story duplex in the city of Racine. Issuance of the warrant was based upon information obtained from a confidential informant that an individual in the residence was in possession of 50-60 pounds of marijuana and a large quantity of cash.

Zachary Wright lived in the second-floor unit of the duplex while Espinoza occupied the ground-floor apartment. The residence had a single exterior entrance door that opened onto a common area. The common area consisted of a hallway, the front door to Espinoza's residence, and a set of stairs leading to Wright's upstairs apartment. Shortly before midnight on March 27, 2000, officers assigned to the Racine County Metro Drug Unit arrived at the residence. One officer knocked on the common exterior door to the duplex and announced "Sheriff's Department, search warrant." Officers then waited approximately five seconds before using a battering ram on the locked exterior door.

After gaining entry into the common area (hallway), officers saw Wright coming down the stairs. Observing Wright in descent, Racine County Sheriff's Department Investigator Thomas Bauer again announced "Sheriff's Department, search warrant," and other officers shouted at Wright to lie down on the floor. The officers then proceeded to the door of Espinoza's residence (the second door), knocked, and once again announced "Sheriff's Department, search warrant." After this announcement, the officers waited another five seconds without receiving a response from anyone inside. Investigator Bauer then attempted to kick the door open, breaking his foot in the process. This attempt to gain entry was unsuccessful, and another five to ten additional seconds elapsed while the officers positioned themselves to use the battering ram on the door of Espinoza's residence.

When the officers hit the inner apartment door with the battering ram, the door opened approximately six inches and immediately closed. While the door was briefly open, the officers observed Espinoza attempting to hold the door shut in an effort to prevent them from gaining entry. At the evidentiary hearing on Espinoza's motion to suppress evidence, Deputy Brian Zimmermann testified that Espinoza had his back "wedged against the door with his feet propped up against the wall trying to keep us from entering." After Deputy Zimmermann hit the inner door with the battering ram an additional two times without success, he and Investigator Bauer placed their weight against the door and were able to force it open. The officers entered the apartment and proceeded to perform a search of the residence without further incident. Espinoza was the only person present in the apartment. As a result of the search, the officers recovered in excess of two kilograms of cocaine, 50 pounds of marijuana, $108,000 in cash, and other drug paraphernalia.

On April 11, 2000, a federal grand jury returned a one count indictment charging Espinoza with possession with intent to distribute in excess of 500 grams of cocaine. 21 U.S.C. sec. 841. Espinoza filed a motion seeking suppression of the evidence found in the search of his apartment. In this motion Espinoza argued that the officers had failed to wait a reasonable amount of time after announcing their presence before forcing entry into his home, in violation of the Fourth Amendment's proscription of unreasonable searches and seizures as discussed in Wilson, 514 U.S. at 930.

At the evidentiary hearing on the defendant's motion to suppress evidence, officers from the Racine County Metro Drug Unit testified that prior to executing the warrant they had no information as to whether or not weapons might be located in Espinoza's residence. Officers also testified that a five second wait between announcing their presence and forcing entry into a home was standard procedure when serving "knock and announce" search warrants.

Also testifying at the suppression hearing was Zachary Wright, the resident of the upstairs apartment. Wright stated that at approximately midnight on March 27, 2000, he was in his residence watching television and awaiting the arrival of friends. When Wright heard the officers knock at the downstairs exterior door, he assumed it was his guests, got up to let them in, and made it as far as the door of his apartment when he heard the noises signifying the officers' use of the battering ram on the ground level exterior door. Wright then opened his door and stepped out onto the stairs where he was observed by the officers and ordered to lie on the floor.

The Magistrate Judge's recommendation to the district court found that the officers had failed to wait a reasonable amount of time after knocking and announcing before forcibly entering the outer door of Espinoza's building. The district court adopted the Magistrate's recommendation, holding that in the absence of exigent circumstances, the of ficers waited an unreasonably short amount of time (five seconds) between announcing their presence and attempting forcible entry through the first (common) door of the residence, contrary to the Fourth Amendment reasonableness inquiry mandated in Wilson, 514 U.S. at 929, and cases such as United States v. Anthony Jones, 208 F.3d 603, 609 (7th Cir. 2000).1 United States v. Espinoza, 105 F.Supp.2d 1015 (E.D. Wis. 2000).

Relying on our decision in United States v. Stefonek, 179 F.3d 1030 (7th Cir. 1999), cert. denied, 120 S.Ct. 1177 (2000), the district court judge also held that the exclusion of evidence obtained in the search was an appropriate sanction for the officers' violation of the timing element of the "knock and announce" rule. The court reasoned that Espinoza was entitled to the remedy of exclusion because the timing of the officers' entry through the exterior door caused harm to Espinoza's interests as protected by the knock and announce requirement. See Stefonek, 179 F.3d at 1036. The district court judge also relied on case law from the Sixth and Eighth circuits2 in rejecting the government's position that exclusion was inappropriate under the "independent source" or "inevitable discovery" exceptions to application of the exclusionary rule. Segura v. United States, 468 U.S. 796, 805 (1984); Nix v. Williams, 467 U.S. 431, 440-48 (1984).

The question concerning the timing of the officers' entry after their initial knock and announcement is not before us because the government has declined to raise it on appeal. Rather, the government's appeal attacks only the appropriateness of applying the exclusionary rule as a remedy for the district court's finding of a constitutional violation. Since the issue has not been raised, we do not deem it proper to make a formal holding regarding the district court's threshold determination that a Fourth Amendment violation occurred. With that said, however, two points merit brief commentary.

First, we reiterate our previous holding that in a case not involving exigent circumstances,3 there is no bright-line rule delineating the boundary between a reasonable and unreasonable amount of time for officers to wait after announcing their presence and before attempting forcible entry pursuant to a valid search warrant. Anthony Jones, 208 F.3d at 610; United States v. Kip Jones, 214 F.3d 836, 844 (7th Cir. 2000) (Coffey, J., concurring and dissenting). In each case where officers have allegedly not waited a sufficient amount of time before attempting forcible entry, the question must be evaluated on the basis of what time period is reasonable under the particular factual situation presented. Anthony Jones, 208 F.3d at 610; United States v. Markling, 7 F.3d 1309, 1318 (7th Cir. 1993). The point was well-stated by the Sixth Circuit as follows:

The Fourth Amendment's "knock and announce" principle, given its fact- sensitive nature, cannot be distilled into a constitutional stop-watch where a fraction of a second assumes controlling significance.

United States v. Spikes, 158 F.3d 913, 926 (6th Cir. 1998), cert. denied, 525 U.S. 1086 (1999) (emphasis added).

Second, because the government does not address the merits of Espinoza's constitutional claim, we do not do so either. However, we do not want our silence on this question to be deemed approval of the district court's ruling, and we wish to make clear that we accept the district court's ruling on the existence of...

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