Howes v. Hitchcock
| Decision Date | 09 September 1999 |
| Docket Number | No. Civ.A. 98-10546-PBS.,Civ.A. 98-10546-PBS. |
| Citation | 66 F.Supp.2d 203 |
| Parties | Pauline HOWES and Alexander Howes, Plaintiffs, v. Brian HITCHCOCK, Donald Decker, Keith McLellan, and the Town of Marblehead, Massachusetts, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts |
Daniel S. Sharp, Whitfield Sharp & Sharp, Marblehead, MA, Daniel S. Sharp, Marblehead, MA, for Pauline Howes, plaintiffs.
Leonard H. Kesten, Brody, Hardoon, Perkins & Kesten, Boston, MA, Kurt B. Fliegauf, Brody, Hardoon, Perkins & Kesten, Boston, MA, for Brian Hitchcock, individually and as an Officer of the Marblehead Police Department, defendants.
This case arises out of the warrantless police entry of a private residence to end an underage, unsupervised drinking party. In March 1998, plaintiffs Pauline Howes and her son Alexander Howes brought suit against three police officers and their employer, the Town of Marblehead, Massachusetts, under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violation of their Fourth Amendment rights to be free from unreasonable entries into their home. At the close of the trial against the individual defendants, the jury returned a verdict for the police officers.
Plaintiffs now press a motion for judgment as a matter of law pursuant to Fed. R.Civ.P. 50(b) or, in the alternative, move for a new trial. Although the Framers of the Constitution did not carve teenage drinking parties out of the Fourth Amendment's protection against warrantless home entries, the potential threat to life and safety posed by a large underage drinking party with no parent home, and concerns for destruction of evidence, were exigent circumstances permitting the warrantless entry here. After hearing, plaintiffs' motion for judgment as a matter of law, or for a new trial, is DENIED.
The following account states the facts in the light most favorable to the verdict. See O'Connor v. Huard, 117 F.3d 12, 14-15 (1st Cir.1997) (citing Ferragamo v. Chubb Life Ins. Co., 94 F.3d 26, 27 n. 1 (1st Cir.1996)), cert. denied, 522 U.S. 1047, 118 S.Ct. 691, 139 L.Ed.2d 636 (1998).
At approximately 8 p.m. on July 3, 1996, defendant Sargent Brian Hitchcock began surveillance of the Howes residence in Marblehead, where plaintiff Pauline Howes lived with her two sons, Alex and William. At the time, both boys were under the age of twenty-one. Sargent Hitchcock suspected that an underage drinking party might be taking place at the house that night. Under Massachusetts law, it is a misdemeanor for a person "under twenty-one years of age and not accompanied by a parent or legal guardian ... knowingly [to] possess[], transport[] or carr[y] on his person ... any alcohol or alcoholic beverages." Mass.Gen.L. ch. 138, § 34C (West Supp.1999).
Sargent Hitchcock based his suspicion in part on the numerous complaints that the Marblehead Police Department had received over the past several years — including at least one received just a few days earlier — from neighbors concerned about noise, traffic, and possible illegal activity associated with the home. According to the neighbors, Pauline Howes frequently left her sons alone, and the boys, unsupervised, threw wild parties. In addition, Bill Howes, the boys' father and Pauline's exhusband, had expressed to Sargent Hitchcock his belief that drinking and drug abuse were occurring on a regular basis at the home. Sargent Hitchcock also knew that police in Swampscott, Massachusetts, had arrested Alex in 1995 in connection with the purchase of marijuana. Finally, Sargent Hitchcock had had a conversation with Pauline Howes prior to July 3, 1996, about Alex's alleged drug problems, and he had told her that he was concerned, based on her physical appearance at the time, that she herself was using narcotics.
From the time Sargent Hitchcock arrived at the residence at 8 p.m., he observed large numbers of teenagers pulling up in cars and entering or exiting the house carrying bottles and cans of beer. He also saw cases of beer being transported to the garage. He continued to observe the house for the next two-and-a-half hours. Although he left the scene at least once during this time, he did not attempt to obtain a search warrant. By 9 p.m., Sargent Hitchcock had probable cause to conclude there was underage drinking in the house.
At about 10:30 p.m., Sargent Hitchcock convened briefly in a nearby parking lot with three other Marblehead police officers whom he had summoned to the residence: Officer Gregory Lapham, defendant Officer Donald Decker, and defendant Officer Keith McLellan. Sargent Hitchcock told the officers simply that an underage drinking party was in progress at the house. Sargent Hitchcock also indicated that he expected to make some arrests that evening. The officers then drove back to the Howes residence and parked their cars out of the partygoers' view.
Once there, Officer Lapham and Sargent Hitchcock went to the back of the house. Sargent Hitchcock stationed himself on the rear deck, inside the fenced-in backyard. Officers Decker and McLellan went to the front of the residence. Officer Decker knocked on the front door to determine the extent of the underage drinking that Hitchcock had observed and to ascertain whether an adult was present. Darryl Knight, a minor, answered the door. Through the open doorway, Officer Decker saw a number of teenagers drinking alcohol and milling about inside the living room. He asked to speak with the owner of the house. Knight shut the door and went to get Alex and William Howes. A few moments later, the two boys appeared at the door. Officer Decker told them that he thought people were drinking inside, and asked them if their parents were at home. They replied that their parents were not there and admitted that no one inside the house was twenty-one. Officer Decker then said that he wanted to go inside. The boys refused him entry. Officer Decker entered the house anyway.1
Meanwhile, at the back of the house, Officer Lapham heard the bedroom window open and saw some teenagers attempting to climb out. He told them to stay inside. From his vantage point on the deck, Sargent Hitchcock could see into the home through the kitchen window. He observed a number of people running through the house and downstairs. Sargent Hitchcock eventually entered the home through a back door.
Once inside the house, the officers arrested nineteen teenagers. After the arrests, at the station, the officers applied for, and within thirty minutes obtained,2 a search warrant for the home. Partly on the basis of the items seized pursuant to the warrant, Pauline Howes was charged with drug-related offenses and with contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Alex was also charged with a drug offense and with illegal possession of alcohol in violation of Mass.Gen.L. ch. 138, § 34C. The criminal charges against both Pauline and Alex were dismissed after the state court suppressed the evidence obtained on the ground that the officers had initially entered the Howes residence without consent or exigent circumstances.
Pauline and Alex Howes filed this civil rights action on March 27, 1998. In addition to their Fourth Amendment claims, the amended complaint also contained a § 1983 claim by Pauline Howes for malicious prosecution, which plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed before trial, and a claim under the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act, Mass.Gen.L. ch. 12, § 11I. The Court severed the § 1983 claim against the Town of Marblehead pending resolution of the case against the individual defendants. The Court also bifurcated liability and damages because plaintiffs' counsel, who also served as their attorney at the criminal proceedings, would have to be a witness with regard to damages. Plaintiffs moved for summary judgment, which the Court denied. The Court also denied defendants' motion for summary judgment, which was predicated solely on the issue of the availability of compensatory damages.
At trial, the parties did not dispute that, at the time of entry, the officers had probable cause to believe that illegal underage drinking was occurring inside the Howes residence.3 Rather, they focused the jury's attention on the issue of exigent circumstances, which in this case involved an assessment of when the officers reasonably could have believed that probable cause had arisen. The officers argued that two types of exigent circumstances existed to justify their warrantless entry: the threat of destruction of evidence and the danger to the public and the teenagers inside the house posed by the unsupervised consumption of alcohol by minors. After the Court reserved ruling on the parties' motions for directed verdict at the close of the evidence, the jury found for the officers on the Fourth Amendment claims.
In their motion for judgment as a matter of law, plaintiffs claim that probable cause arose early in the evening when Sargent Hitchcock first observed minors with alcohol at the scene and that the officers impermissibly created any exigency by unreasonably delaying in obtaining a warrant. The officers argue that probable cause did not arise until Officer Decker knocked on the front door and determined that no parent was at home, at which point there was no time to get a warrant. Plaintiffs also contend that, even if probable cause arose only at the front door, no court has accepted the safety justification offered by the officers as an exception to the warrant requirement in the context of an underage drinking party. To hold otherwise, plaintiffs maintain, would be to extend extraordinarily the law regarding legally cognizable exigent circumstances.
The officers assert qualified immunity, a defense that plaintiffs contend has been waived. As the parties agreed at oral argument on plaintiffs' motion, there are no longer any material factual disputes, and the motion raises only issues of law.
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