Spradley v. State
| Decision Date | 19 May 2006 |
| Docket Number | No. 2D04-4356.,2D04-4356. |
| Citation | 933 So.2d 51 |
| Parties | James SPRADLEY, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
James Marion Moorman, Public Defender, and Alisa Smith, Assistant Public Defender, Bartow, for Appellant.
Charles J. Crist, Jr., Attorney General, Tallahassee, and William I. Munsey, Jr., Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, for Appellee.
James Spradley appeals his judgment and sentence for armed trafficking in cocaine, operating a crack house, and possession of marijuana. Mr. Spradley pleaded no contest to the charges after the trial court denied his dispositive motion to suppress the evidence seized at his home that supported the charges. Mr. Spradley argues on appeal that the police violated Florida's knock-and-announce statute by failing to wait a reasonable time before entering his residence to execute a search warrant. See § 933.09, Fla. Stat. (2003). Because the officers intentionally detonated an explosive "distraction device" during the fifteen seconds between knocking and announcing their presence and breaking down Mr. Spradley's front door to gain entry into the residence, we reverse. Although in some circumstances a fifteen-second wait may be sufficient to satisfy the knock-and-announce requirement, the use of a "distraction device" during the fifteen seconds, as its name suggests, dramatically diminishes the ability of the occupants of a home to permit peaceable entry within the allotted time.
On the evening of March 20, 2003, at 9:41 p.m., Mr. Spradley was at home. He was working on a car in his backyard with the help of a man who is unidentified in our record. There were two other unidentified people in the fenced-in backyard. Mr. Spradley's girlfriend was inside their home. She was upstairs putting their five-year-old daughter to bed.
St. Petersburg police officers had a search warrant to enter this home. There is no dispute that they did not have exigent circumstances to enter this home without knocking and announcing. See, e.g., State v. Bamber, 630 So.2d 1048 (Fla. 1994); Wilson v. State, 673 So.2d 505 (Fla. 1st DCA 1996). The officers arrived at 9:41 p.m. The testimony by the officers varied, but there were no fewer than eight officers and there could have been as many as sixteen. There were three supervising officers. This was a team trained to execute warrants. Mr. Spradley's girlfriend testified that the officers wore dark paramilitary uniforms like a SWAT team and at least some of them had masks or covers over their faces.
Several officers were deployed to the rear of the house. They immediately confronted Mr. Spradley and the other man and ordered them to the ground. It is unclear from the record whether the officers knew at that time that one of the men was Mr. Spradley or that he was a primary resident of the home. Other officers observed and detained two more unidentified people who were attempting to leave the backyard.
The officers organized an entry team in a line at the front of the house. There are two doors at the front entrance of the home. The first door is a standard wood or metal door to an enclosed porch. The second door is an iron-bar security door between the porch and living room.1 It appears that the officers performed the knock and announce at the first door and were unaware of the second door until they entered the home. The officer in charge of this team testified that he was the officer who began knocking and announcing. He explained that he yelled as loudly as he could and banged on the first door. As soon as he finished knocking and announcing, he had the officers set off an explosive detonation device, which makes a very loud noise and apparently produces a flash of light if set off during evening hours. He then ordered the officers with the battering ram to break the door open. He testified that he waited about ten seconds before he gave this order and that it took a few more seconds to break through the second door. Thus, counting the time that the officers were actually using the battering ram to break down the two doors, the time between the initial knock and announce and entry was approximately fifteen seconds.
When the officers entered the home, they found evidence of drugs that all agree was dispositive as to the charges filed against Mr. Spradley. They also found his girlfriend and daughter upstairs. There were no other occupants of this home. Mr. Spradley's girlfriend testified that she heard the distraction device but did not hear the officer knock and announce.
Section 933.09 provides:
The officer may break open any outer door, inner door or window of a house, or any part of a house or anything therein, to execute the warrant, if after due notice of the officer's authority and purpose he or she is refused admittance to said house or access to anything therein.
Section 933.09 thus requires law enforcement to provide due notice of their authority and purpose and to be "refused admittance" before they are authorized to forcibly enter a home. Kellom v. State, 849 So.2d 391, 394 (Fla. 1st DCA 2003). The refusal can be express or implied by a lack of response. Id. Where officers knock, announce their authority and purpose, and enter with such haste that the occupant does not have a reasonable opportunity to respond, the search violates section 933.09. See Richardson v. State, 787 So.2d 906, 908 (Fla. 2d DCA 2001).
The knock-and-announce rule has been described as fulfilling "a number of most worthwhile purposes." Bamber, 630 So.2d at 1052 (Fla.1994) (quoting 2 Wayne R. LaFave, Search and Seizure § 4.8(a) (2d ed.1987)). Primarily, it is described as a rule that decreases the potential for violence during the execution of the warrant and one that protects the privacy of the occupants of the home, keeping them from being terrified by a forceful entry. Id.; see also Benefield v. State, 160 So.2d 706, 709 (Fla.1964) ( ). The knock-and-announce rule is also described as fulfilling the purpose of preventing destruction of private property. Bamber, 630 So.2d at 1052.
The statute does not state that evidence must be suppressed when the police violate its terms, but the United States Supreme Court has treated this knock-and-announce rule as an element of the reasonableness inquiry under the Fourth Amendment, Wilson v. Arkansas, 514 U.S. 927, 933, 115 S.Ct. 1914, 131 L.Ed.2d 976 (1995), and courts have regularly enforced this statute by invoking the exclusionary rule, see, e.g., Richardson, 787 So.2d 906; State v. Robinson, 565 So.2d 730, 732 (Fla. 2d DCA 1990).
Although neither party has raised the issue, a careful reader of the facts will notice that Mr. Spradley was not inside the home at the time of the knock and announce. Thus Mr. Spradley's standing to challenge a violation of this statute and to demand the remedy of exclusion of evidence due to the violation may be questioned.
Section 933.09 does not state that a defendant must be present inside the house in order to have standing to enforce this right or to obtain the remedy of the exclusionary rule. The District of Columbia Court of Appeals, in what it described as a nationwide case of first impression, held that such a statute could be enforced under circumstances "[w]here the resident, being within earshot, could have effectuated a peaceful entrance had the statute been complied with and where, being within eyeshot, may witness the violation as it takes place." District of Columbia v. Mancouso, 778 A.2d 270, 274 (D.C.2001). No court in Florida has adopted this "earshot-eyeshot" rule, but at least one case has been resolved consistently with such a rule. See Ealey v. State, 714 So.2d 1162 (Fla. 1st DCA 1998) ().
Because the State has not challenged Mr. Spradley's standing, we simply assume that Mr. Spradley had...
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...such haste that the occupant does not have a reasonable opportunity to respond, the search violates section 933.09.” Spradley v. State, 933 So.2d 51, 53 (Fla. 2d DCA 2006) (citing Richardson v. State, 787 So.2d 906, 908 (Fla. 2d DCA 2001)). Section 933.09 does not set forth a certain period......