State v. Lee

• Decision Date: 23 April 2003
• Docket Number: No. 81,81
• Citation: 821 A.2d 922,374 Md. 275
• Parties: STATE of Maryland v. Kai Ruchell LEE.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

821 A.2d 922

374 Md. 275

STATE of Maryland v. Kai Ruchell LEE.

No. 81, Sept. Term, 2001.

Court of Appeals of Maryland.

April 23, 2003.

Rachel Marblestone Kamins. Asst. Atty. Gen. (J. Joseph Curran, Jr., Atty. Gen., on brief), Baltimore, for petitioner.

Geraldine K. Sweeney, Asst. Public Defender (Stephen E. Harris, Public Defender, on brief), Baltimore, for respondent.

Argued before BELL, C.J., ELDRIDGE, RAKER, WILNER, CATHELL, HARRELL, BATTAGLIA, JJ.

BELL, C.J.

The sole issue, which the State of Maryland, the petitioner, raises in this Court is whether evidence seized pursuant to a warrant, executed without knocking and announcing the police presence prior to forcing the door to the premises, is admissible pursuant to the inevitable discovery exception to the exclusionary rule. The Circuit Court for Harford County denied the motion to suppress, filed by the respondent, Kai Ruchell Lee, ruling that the possibility of the destruction of the cocaine recovered was an exigent circumstance that justified the unannounced entry. The Court of Special Appeals reversed. Lee v. State, 139 Md.App. 79, 774 A.2d 1183 (2001). It held that the failure to knock and announce, without justification, rendered the entry, albeit with a valid warrant, unreasonable and requires exclusion of the evidence seized. Id. at 94, 774 A.2d at 1192. Application of the doctrine of inevitable discovery under the circumstances of this case, the intermediate appellate court concluded in response to the State's motion for reconsideration, "would render the knock-and-announce provision of the Fourth Amendment meaningless." Id. We granted the writ of certiorari at the petitioner's request and, for the reasons that follow, we shall affirm the judgment of the intermediate appellate court.

I.

During the month of August, 1998, the respondent made two separate sales of cocaine to a confidential informant, acting at the direction of the Baltimore County Police. After subsequent police surveillance, a warrant to search the respondent's home in Harford County was obtained from a District Court judge. The warrant did not contain a "no-knock clause;" authorizing entry, even by force, without first knocking and announcing police presence.¹

The Court of Special Appeals described the search as follows:

"Early on a weekday morning late in September 1998, a large combined task force of law enforcement officers from the Baltimore County Police Department, the Harford County Sheriff's Office, the Harford County Police Department, and the Maryland State Police, assembled in front of a single-family, colonial style home in a residential area of Harford County. The task force, which arrived in several cars and trucks, surrounded the home, while eight Harford County deputy sheriffs, wearing black hoods and fatigue style uniforms, battered down the door of Lee's home with a two handled `ram,' which is essentially a pipe filled with concrete. Once inside, the task force `secured the premises' by dispersing throughout the house. Task force officers handcuffed two adults found upstairs in the master bedroom, gathered three small children from other bedrooms, and then herded all five members of the household together in the downstairs family room. The task force leader, a Maryland State Police trooper, and the Harford County deputy sheriffs then summonsed the remaining task force officers to enter and search the entire house."

Lee, 139 Md.App. at 81-82, 774 A.2d at 1185. Seized in the search were a clear plastic bag containing 26 grams of cocaine²; four smaller baggies containing a total of 6.6 grams of cocaine; $1,369 dollars in U.S. currency; a rental agreement; and a 1986 white Chevy Astro Van. The respondent, who acknowledged that the cocaine seized was his, was arrested and charged with possession with the intent to distribute a controlled dangerous substance.

Before trial, the respondent moved to suppress the evidence seized during the search. He asserted that the search was invalid because the task force, lacking a reasonable suspicion to believe exigent circumstances existed to permit its doing so, failed to knock and announce its presence before entering his home. The motion was denied by the Circuit Court for Harford County. The court reasoned:

"[The police] make a determination that they are going to enter without first knocking. They make that determination based on the hand-to-hand buys that were known.... They make that determination based on the ease with which evidence may be destroyed. They make that determination on the basis of the fact that they had a reasonable expectation they would find cocaine in that location and that Mr. Lee was known to them.

* * * * * *

"So when I look at the fact that they arrived there, [the officer] brings the warrant, they have a discussion about what they are going to do and they make a decision, at that time, based on those factors, that they are going to enter without first knocking and the reason is ... because of the ease with which the evidence could be destroyed. When I look at the totality of the circumstances in this case I have no reason to doubt that that was a tactical decision they made and based on the totality of the circumstances it was an appropriate one."

The respondent noted an appeal of that judgment to the Court of Special Appeals, which, as we have seen, reversed. The intermediate appellate court held that the failure of the police to knock and announce their presence prior to entering the respondent's residence was not justified by exigent circumstances:

"It is clear that, although Maryland law and the opinions of the Supreme Court of the United States presumptively require knocking and announcing before entry when searching with a proper warrant, the law also forgives the failure to do so when there are legally sufficient exigent circumstances. It is equally clear that there is no blanket or per se exception for drug searches. Rather, in each case, the police must articulate a reasonable suspicion, based upon, particularized facts, that exigent circumstances exists which justify not knocking and announcing.

* * * * * *

"At the suppression hearing, the only witnesses to testify were two Maryland State Police troopers called by the State, one of whom testified primarily about having taken a statement from the appellant and not about the conduct of the search. The other trooper, who led the task force, candidly admitted that the only reason he had for not knocking and announcing was that this was a cocaine case, and he always battered down the doors in cases where the object to be seized was narcotics, such as cocaine, that could be easily `flushed down the toilet.' The trooper testified that the only exceptions would occur, hypothetically, if the quantity of drugs exceeded the occupant's ability to dispose of them, or the occupants were not at home. The State was unable to elicit from the task force leader any particularized evidence about Lee, Lee's home, or anything else that would qualify as exigent circumstances, as contemplated by Wilson³ and Richards."⁴

Lee, at 89-90, 774 A.2d at 1189-90.

The State filed a motion for reconsideration, asking the court to address whether exclusion of the evidence was required in view of the inevitable discovery doctrine, arguing that, in any event, it would have been discovered inevitably pursuant to the validly issued search warrant. Although the Court of Special Appeals granted the motion for reconsideration, it rejected the inevitable discovery argument. That exception should not be applied in the case sub judice, the intermediate appellate court opined, because:

"To apply the inevitable discovery exception to the exclusionary rule in this instance would render the knock-and-announce provision of the Fourth Amendment meaningless. The application of inevitable discovery in such cases negates the rule against per se exceptions to the knock-and-announce requirement. The United States Supreme Court has twice unanimously affirmed the requirement to knock and announce. In light of two rulings from the nation's highest court, finding this requirement to exist in both our common law and the Constitution, it would be wrong and utterly inconsistent for Maryland, in effect, to expunge this requirement and establish such an exception as was created in Michigan,⁵ by attaching the doctrine of inevitable discovery to violations of the well established knock-and-announce requirement."

Id. at 94, 774 A.2d at 1192.

We granted the State's Petition for Writ of Certiorari, State v. Lee, 366 Md. 246, 783 A.2d 221 (2001), to address this case of first impression. In its petition, the State did not challenge the determination by the intermediate appellate court that there were no exigent circumstances at the time of the unannounced entry. Thus, we will address only whether the doctrine of inevitable discovery applies under the facts of this case. Stated differently, all we shall decide is the correctness of the Court of Special Appeals' holding that the evidence seized should have been suppressed.

II.

A. The Knock and Announce Rule

It is well settled in Maryland, and long has been so, that a police officer executing a search warrant "must give proper notice of his purpose and authority and be denied admittance before he can use force to break and enter" the premises to be searched. Henson v. State, 236 Md. 518, 521-22, 204 A.2d 516, 518-19 (1964); Goodman v. State, 178 Md. 1, 8, 11 A.2d 635, 639 (1940) ("A demand is necessary prior to the breaking in of the doors only where some person is found in charge of the building to be searched."); Frankel v. State, 178 Md. 553, 561, 16 A.2d 93, 97 (1940) (citing Cornelius on Search and Seizure, 2nd Ed., sec. 218, for "the rule that an officer, in executing a warrant to enter a house, which warrant is valid on its face, may break open the doors if denied admittance, but a demand is necessary prior to breaking doors when the...