State v. Smith

• Decision Date: 27 May 2004
• Docket Number: No. 2 CA-CR 2003-0254.,2 CA-CR 2003-0254.
• Citation: 90 P.3d 221,208 Ariz. 20
• Parties: The STATE of Arizona, Appellee, v. Tony Dewayne SMITH, Appellant.
• Court: Arizona Court of Appeals

90 P.3d 221

208 Ariz. 20

The STATE of Arizona, Appellee, v. Tony Dewayne SMITH, Appellant.

No. -0254.

Court of Appeals of Arizona, Division Two, Department B.

May 27, 2004.

Terry Goddard, Arizona Attorney General, By Randall M. Howe and David Wood, Phoenix, for Appellee.

Isabel G. Garcia, Pima County Legal Defender, By Stephan J. McCaffery, Tucson, for Appellant.

OPINION

ECKERSTROM, J.

¶ 1 After a bench trial, the trial court found appellant Tony Dewayne Smith guilty of possessing a deadly weapon as a prohibited possessor in violation of A.R.S. § 13-3102 and sentenced him to a presumptive term of 4.5 years in prison. On appeal, Smith contends the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress the handgun, asserting that law enforcement officers unlawfully entered his home and conducted a search. We conclude the trial court failed to apply the correct standard in determining whether the officers had lawfully entered Smith's residence, and we remand the case to permit a redetermination of the issue under the proper standard.

BACKGROUND

¶ 2 We view the evidence presented at the suppression hearing and the reasonable inferences therefrom in the light most favorable to upholding the ruling. State v. Rodriguez, 205 Ariz. 392, ¶ 34, 71 P.3d 919, 929 (App.2003). At that hearing, the parties stipulated that Pima County Sheriff's Department officers, Sergeant Murphy and Deputy Heath, had possessed a valid warrant to arrest Smith when they approached his residence, a trailer located on rugged, isolated, desert terrain near Arivaca. Because they knew Smith had evaded arrest in the past, the officers watched the trailer for approximately fifteen minutes from a nearby hillside to assure that he was present. When they saw Smith carrying grocery bags into the trailer, the officers approached the trailer in two separate squad cars from different directions. As soon as Smith saw one of the officers, he fled from the trailer into the desert, leaving "drag marks" in the soil so Deputy Heath was able to follow his path.

¶ 3 While Heath pursued Smith, Murphy handcuffed and interviewed three people who were standing in the area of Smith's trailer.¹ Sergeant Murphy then joined the search for Smith. The officers pursued Smith on foot separately for about forty-five minutes, leaving their patrol cars at his trailer. Deputy Heath testified that he had followed footprints in a sandy wash that began in the same location where the drag marks ended. He followed the footprints for about one hundred fifty yards before losing them after the tracks circled back toward the area of the trailer. Unable to locate Smith in the desert, the officers returned to his trailer, knocked on the door, and announced their presence. When they received no response, they entered the trailer and found the prohibited weapon and other contraband.

¶ 4 According to Heath, the general direction of the last visible footprints, coupled with the fact that Murphy had not been watching the trailer the entire time, had caused the officers to enter the trailer to "make sure Smith had not re-entered" it. According to Murphy, the officers had entered the trailer because they had believed Smith "may have circled back" and, therefore, had "reason to believe he may have" returned to the trailer.

¶ 5 Smith moved to suppress the evidence, arguing that the officers could not lawfully enter his residence, even though they possessed an arrest warrant, without probable cause to believe he was within the trailer. Smith asserted they had lacked such cause. In a terse ruling, the trial judge denied Smith's motion, stating: "The deputies had a valid arrest warrant for the Defendant and they believed he may have returned to his trailer home. Therefore, their entry was lawful." The court did not provide any further factual findings or conclusions of law. Smith now challenges that ruling.

DISCUSSION

¶ 6 In reviewing the denial of a motion to suppress evidence, we defer to the trial court's factual determinations, but the ultimate ruling is a conclusion of law we review de novo. State v. Gonzalez-Gutierrez, 187 Ariz. 116, 118, 927 P.2d 776, 778 (1996). The United States Supreme Court has "consistently held that the entry into a home to conduct a search or make an arrest is unreasonable ... unless done pursuant to a warrant" or exigent circumstances are present. Steagald v. United States, 451 U.S. 204, 211-12, 101 S.Ct. 1642, 1647, 68 L.Ed.2d 38, 45 (1981).

¶ 7 Here, the officers had a valid warrant to arrest Smith but not to search his home. However, "an arrest warrant founded on probable cause implicitly carries with it the limited authority to enter a dwelling in which the suspect lives when there is reason to believe the suspect is within." Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 603, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 1388, 63 L.Ed.2d 639, 661 (1980) (emphasis added).² Smith contends this standard prohibits officers from entering a private residence to execute an arrest warrant unless they have probable cause, based on an objective assessment of the totality of the circumstances, to believe the suspect is within. Smith asserts the trial court erred because: (1) it implicitly upheld the search of his residence based on the mere possibility that he might be found therein, and (2) because it anchored its analysis on the subjective views of the officers rather than on an objective assessment of whether the officers had possessed adequate cause to enter his home, given the totality of the circumstances.³ ¶ 8 The state counters that, once in possession of an arrest warrant, the officers needed only a reason to believe that Smith "might be hiding inside" to lawfully enter his trailer. (Emphasis added.) In so doing, the state endorses the trial court's implied conclusion that the mere possibility of officers finding a suspect within his or her residence should be adequate to authorize the officers' entry when they possess an arrest warrant. See The Oxford Dictionary and Thesaurus 946 (Am. ed.1996) (defining "might" or "may" as "expressing possibility").

¶ 9 Although numerous state and federal appellate courts have addressed what level of cause officers must have to satisfy the reason-to-believe standard set forth in Payton, the United States Supreme Court has not amplified its analysis of the question. See 3 Wayne R. LaFave, Search and Seizure § 6.1(a), at 226 (3d ed. 1996) ("Just what [the reason-to-believe standard] means continues to be a matter of considerable uncertainty."); see also United States v. Magluta, 44 F.3d 1530, 1534 (11th Cir.1995) (noting that the Supreme Court has failed to further define the reasonable-belief standard set forth in Payton). Only one Arizona court has addressed the issue in a case that predated Payton by four years and that rested its analysis on an Arizona statute.⁴ State v. Hiralez, 27 Ariz.App. 393, 395, 555 P.2d 362, 364 (1976). There, Division One applied the same reason-to-believe standard that the Court would eventually adopt in Payton, but, as in Payton, did not define it further. Hiralez, 27 Ariz.App. at 395, 555 P.2d at 364.

¶ 10 Thus, neither the United States Supreme Court nor any Arizona court has squarely addressed the primary question presented by the trial court's order in this case: whether officers possess a reason to believe that a suspect is within his or her residence when circumstances suggest that the suspect "may" be found there, or whether that belief must be based instead on circumstances that demonstrate that the suspect is "probably" within the premises. We conclude that the explicit commands of the United States and Arizona Constitutions, the language of the Payton standard, and the weight of relevant case authority all compel the conclusion that the reason-to-believe standard requires a level of reasonable belief similar to that required to support probable cause.

¶ 11 Preliminarily, we observe that the standard the trial court applied in evaluating the lawfulness of the search departs from the wording of the standard set forth in Payton. As noted, Payton authorizes officers who possess a valid arrest warrant to enter a residence in which the suspect lives "when there is reason to believe the suspect is within." 445 U.S. at 603, 100 S.Ct. at 1389, 63 L.Ed.2d at 661. By contrast, the trial court found the officers' entry into Smith's residence lawful because "they believed he may have returned to his trailer home." (Emphasis added.) In support of that ruling, the state similarly argues that the reason-to-believe standard was met under the facts of this case because the officers had believed Smith "might be" hiding inside his trailer.⁵ (Emphasis added.) But the Payton standard contains no such conditional language. Rather, it requires that officers possess a reasonable belief that a suspect "is" within the residence before they enter. Id. at 603, 100 S.Ct. at 1388, 63 L.Ed.2d at 661.

¶ 12 Although the Court did not use the term "probable cause" in describing the condition precedent to entry of a suspect's residence, and although it clarified that officers need not acquire a separate magisterial finding that a suspect is likely within the residence, its reason-to-believe standard bears a striking parallel to the Court's own previous articulation of the probable-cause standard. Payton, 445 U.S. at 603,100 S.Ct. at 1389,63 L.Ed.2d at 661. In United States v. Watson, 423 U.S. 411, 422, 96 S.Ct. 820, 827, 46 L.Ed.2d 598, 608 (1976), a case specifically referred to in Payton, the Court defined probable cause to arrest as "reasonable cause to believe that the person to be arrested has committed a felony." (Emphasis added.) Our state supreme court has described probable cause in essentially the same fashion. State v. Spears, 184 Ariz. 277, 284, 908 P.2d 1062, 1069 (1996) ("`The police have probable cause to arrest when reasonably trustworthy information and circumstances would lead a person of reasonable caution to believe an offense ha...