U.S. v. Gonzalez

• Decision Date: 24 August 2001
• Docket Number: No. 96-30014-MAP.,96-30014-MAP.
• Citation: 164 F.Supp.2d 119
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America v. Antonio T. GONZALEZ
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts

164 F.Supp.2d 119

UNITED STATES of America v. Antonio T. GONZALEZ

No. 96-30014-MAP.

United States District Court, D. Massachusetts.

August 24, 2001.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Ariane D. Vuono, United States Attorney's Office, Todd E. Newhouse, United States Attorney's Office, Springfield, MA, for U.S.

Lori Levinson, Cain, Hibbard, Myers & Cook, Pittsfield, Mark G. Mastroianni, Springfield, MA, for Antonio T. Gonzalez.

MEMORANDUM REGARDING DEFENDANT'S MOTION TO SUPPRESS PHYSICAL EVIDENCE (Docket No. 25)

PONSOR, District Judge.

I. INTRODUCTION

Defendant Antonio Gonzalez, who has been indicted on gun possession charges, has moved to suppress physical evidence found at his home during the execution of a search warrant in the evening of September 30, 1995. He argues that the clerk-magistrate who issued the warrant did not have a sufficient basis upon which to allow the officers to break down his door unannounced, and that the officers' reliance on that authorization was unreasonable.

With some reluctance, the court will deny defendant's motion to suppress. Although there was insufficient justification for a "no-knock" entry under the circumstances, the officers reasonably relied on the warrant they received. Suppression is therefore not appropriate.

II. BACKGROUND

In January, 1995, defendant Antonio Gonzalez became a target of the Eastern Hampden County Narcotics Task Force, a local police collaborative directed at drug dealing in Western Massachusetts. The investigation, which lasted about nine months, gathered information from informants about suspicious behavior by defendant and included surveillance of possible drug-related activity at his home, 450 Monson Road in Wilbraham, Massachusetts.

In September 1995, Sergeant Roger Tucker, a member of the Task Force, applied for a warrant to search defendant's home. The affidavit accompanying the application included detailed evidence that defendant was dealing cocaine. Sergeant Tucker described a series of "trash pulls"—searches of trash bags from the house—that turned up torn portions of small plastic baggies with cocaine residue inside. He also reported suspicious behavior by defendant that had been reported to police by informants.

The warrant application included a request for permission to enter the premises unannounced—what is known as a "no-knock" entry. This section of the affidavit relied heavily on what the officer believed to be "the common practice[s] of narcotic dealers," namely, their tendency to destroy narcotics when the police announce themselves, to keep weapons along with their drugs, to hide drugs on individuals unlikely to be searched, such as children, and to use lookouts or "police scanning devices" to forewarn them of officers' presence. See Docket No. 30, Ex. A (Tucker Aff.) at 4. Sergeant Tucker also stated that because the Monson Road address had a "lengthy driveway" with windows facing the street, no-knock entry was required to ensure the "element of surprise." See id. In another section of the affidavit, Tucker mentioned in passing that Gonzalez owned a Rottweiler dog.

The clerk-magistrate of the Palmer District Court approved the warrant application and the request for no-knock entry. Although the warrant allowed seizure of all weapons at the address, Sergeant Tucker testified that at the time of the application he had no knowledge of any weapons there and did not expect to find any. The focus of the search was drugs.

On the evening of September 30, 1995, the Task Force executed the warrant on 450 Monson Road, breaking down the front door and entering with guns drawn. After arresting defendant and his girl-friend, they found a 9 mm handgun, ammunition, small amounts of marijuana, and other evidence of drug dealing. The handgun and ammunition form the basis of the current charges against defendant: possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number and being a felon in possession of a firearm. Defendant was taken into custody and, while he was held at the Wilbraham Police Department, made certain arguably inculpatory statements about drug dealing and the gun.¹

III. DISCUSSION

It is by now beyond dispute that "[a]s a general rule, officers must give notice of their authority and purpose before entering private premises to make an arrest." United States v. Collazo-Aponte, 216 F.3d 163, 186 (1st Cir.2000), rev'd on other grounds, ___ U.S. ___, 121 S.Ct. 1996, 149 L.Ed.2d 1000 (2001). Police officers may enter a home unannounced only upon reasonable suspicion that knocking and announcing their presence would be dangerous or futile, or would inhibit the effective investigation of the crime. See Richards v. Wisconsin, 520 U.S. 385, 394, 117 S.Ct. 1416, 137 L.Ed.2d 615 (1997). This rule is no recent judicial innovation— it has been "embedded in Anglo-American law" for centuries, held in place by "the ancient adage that a man's house is his castle." Miller v. United States, 357 U.S. 301, 307, 313, 78 S.Ct. 1190, 2 L.Ed.2d 1332 (1958). As early as 1603, the King's Bench had held that before the sheriff may break into a person's home,

he ought to signify the cause of his coming, and to make request to open doors ... for the law without a default in the owner abhors the destruction or breaking of any house (which is for the habitation and safety of man) by which great damage and inconvenience might ensue to the party, when no default is in him ....

Semayne's Case, 5 Co. Rep. 91a, 91b, 77 Eng.Repr. 194, 195 (K.B.1603). The rule was incorporated into the common law of most states at their founding, and has been consistently followed throughout the history of the republic. See Wilson v. Arkansas, 514 U.S. 927, 931-934, 115 S.Ct. 1914, 131 L.Ed.2d 976 (1995) (describing history of common law announcement principle). It is now considered "an element of the reasonableness inquiry under the Fourth Amendment." Id. at 934, 115 S.Ct. 1914. Considering the profound invasion of privacy that such entry involves, the law could hardly be otherwise.

Apart from its Constitutional dimension, the knock-and-announce rule serves important practical interests. In many cases, announcement reduces the potential for violence by informing occupants of the home that the person seeking entrance is not a burglar or an invader, but a police officer acting on lawful authority. The rule also curbs the needless destruction of private property — if the occupant would have opened the door upon a simple request to do so, breaking it down is an unwarranted injury to a presumptively innocent person. Finally, like all protections of privacy, it serves basic interests of human dignity. "The brief interlude between announcement and entry with a warrant may be the opportunity that an individual has to pull on his clothes or get out of bed." Richards, 520 U.S. at 393 n. 5, 117 S.Ct. 1416.

The knock-and-announce rule, of course, is not so rigid that it "ignores countervailing law enforcement interests." Wilson, 514 U.S. at 934, 115 S.Ct. 1914. Rather, the "presumption in favor of announcement" will yield in "exigent circumstances," including those "where compliance would expose officers to the threat of physical violence or where police officers have reason to believe that evidence would be destroyed if advance notice were given." United States v. Brown, 251 F.3d 286, 290-91 (1st Cir. 2001) (internal quotations omitted). The standard for determining whether such exigent circumstances exist is one of "reasonable suspicion," based on the particular circumstances of the case. See id. at 291, citing Richards, 520 U.S. at 394, 117 S.Ct. 1416.

This motion presents two questions: (1) was the clerk-magistrate justified in permitting the police to execute an unannounced entry; and (2) if not, should the evidence be admitted because of the "good faith" exception to the exclusionary rule?²

A. The No-Knock Warrant.

Defendant argues that there was no justification for the clerk-magistrate to approve unannounced entry. He points out that the relevant section of the affidavit rests almost entirely on generalities about the practices of drug dealers; the only case-specific facts simply point out that defendant had a "lengthy driveway," and that his "windows face the street," characteristics common to many homes. See Docket No. 30, Ex. A (Tucker Aff.) at 4. The approval of the warrant on this thin factual basis, defendant argues, shows that the clerk-magistrate did not engage in a specific inquiry into whether "the facts and circumstances of the particular entry justified dispensing with the knock-and-announce requirement." Richards, 520 U.S. at 394, 117 S.Ct. 1416. Rather, the approval comes close to a blanket rubber-stamp of no-knock entry in drug searches, an approach the Supreme Court has expressly rejected. See id. at 393, 117 S.Ct. 1416.

The Government responds by emphasizing the low quantum of proof needed by the police and the clerk-magistrate: "reasonable suspicion." The small, torn-off baggie remnants found in the trash pulls, it argues, gave the police evidence that drugs were being packaged in small quantities in the house, quantities easily flushed down a toilet. There were also two people in the house at the time of the search, creating the possibility that one person could flush the drugs down the toilet, the other down the sink. This, the Government argues, gave the police a reasonable suspicion that knocking and announcing their presence would give the defendant and his girlfriend time enough to destroy the drugs before the police could seize them. Finally, although the defendant had no record of violence, the Government argues that the known presence of defendant's Rottweiler dog made the officers' safety a concern favoring no-knock entry. See United States v. Jewell, 60 F.3d, 20, 23-24 (1st Cir.1995).

Defendant has the far stronger argument here. The facts known to the police at the time of the warrant were plainly insufficient to justify an unannounced...