U.S. v. Schmidt

• Citation: 403 F.3d 1009
• Decision Date: 13 April 2005
• Docket Number: No. 04-2724.,04-2724.
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Appellant, v. Vernon R. SCHMIDT, Jr., Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

403 F.3d 1009

UNITED STATES of America, Appellant, v. Vernon R. SCHMIDT, Jr., Appellee.

No. 04-2724.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

Submitted: December 14, 2004.

Filed: April 13, 2005.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Mark E. Salter, argued, Asst. U.S. Atty., Sioux Falls, SD (Randy Seiler, Asst. U.S. Atty., Pierre, SD, and Kathryn E. Ford, Asst. U.S. Atty., Sioux Falls, SD), for appellant.

Edward G. Albright, argued, Asst. Federal Public Defender, Pierre, SD, for appellee.

Before MORRIS SHEPPARD ARNOLD, BEAM, and RILEY, Circuit Judges.

MORRIS SHEPPARD ARNOLD, Circuit Judge.

The United States appeals the district court's order granting Vernon Schmidt, Jr.'s motion to suppress all the evidence obtained after an officer of the Rosebud Sioux Tribal Police entered his home without a warrant. The government contends that the district court erred both because exigent circumstances justified the entry and because Mr. Schmidt committed a new and distinct crime after the entry. We reverse and remand the case to the district court for further proceedings.

I.

In the early morning hours, Rosebud Sioux Tribal Police Officer Andrew Martinez observed four cars that he believed were exceeding the speed limit. He followed the vehicles and saw two of them pass the others and speed off. Officer Martinez followed the remaining two cars until they pulled into the driveway of the house that Mr. Schmidt shares with his grandmother on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation. Officer Martinez parked his patrol car behind the vehicles and approached three teenage boys, including Mr. Schmidt, who were standing in the front yard of the house; two other teenage boys remained in one of the vehicles. As Officer Martinez approached Mr. Schmidt, he made observations that led him to believe that Mr. Schmidt, who was eighteen years old, had been consuming alcohol. The exact nature of the exchange that ensued between Officer Martinez and Mr. Schmidt is in dispute, but it is clear that Mr. Schmidt insisted that Officer Martinez had no right to be on his property.

Officer Martinez attempted to arrest Mr. Schmidt for underage drinking. As Officer Martinez reached for his handcuffs, Mr. Schmidt kicked him in his left knee. Mr. Schmidt then escaped and Officer Martinez tackled him but was unable to secure him before he escaped again, running into his residence and closing the door. At that point, Officer Martinez turned his attention to the other teenagers in the driveway and arrested them for curfew violations. The arrest and detention of these individuals took between five and ten minutes.

While Officer Martinez was effecting these arrests, Mr. Schmidt emerged from his house and began yelling at Officer Martinez from the doorstep. Mr. Schmidt again insisted that Officer Martinez had no right to be on his property or to arrest him there. This prompted Officer Martinez to approach the defendant. As he approached, Mr. Schmidt once again retreated into his house and locked the door. Officer Martinez then knocked on the door, announced his presence, and, when there was no response, kicked in the door and entered. At no point did Officer Martinez try to secure a warrant.

Once inside the house, Officer Martinez tried to gain control of Mr. Schmidt in the hallway, but he escaped to the bedroom and began jumping on the bed while yelling for his grandmother and throwing pillows and other objects at Officer Martinez, causing him to lose his flashlight briefly. Mr. Schmidt then ran from the bedroom and into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. After struggling to open the bathroom door, Officer Martinez grabbed Mr. Schmidt by the belt as he was attempting to escape out a window; but Mr. Schmidt wriggled free as Officer Martinez was escorting him to the living room. Officer Martinez again gave chase, and again he caught Mr. Schmidt, this time just a few feet outside the front door of the residence. As they wrestled, Mr. Schmidt leaned his weight against Officer Martinez's injured knee and Officer Martinez lost control of Mr. Schmidt, who then ran away. The defendant was not arrested until weeks after the incident.

Following the arrest, a grand jury returned a three-count indictment against Mr. Schmidt for assaulting, resisting, or impeding a federal officer with a dangerous weapon (shod feet), see 18 U.S.C. § 111; assaulting, resisting, or impeding a federal officer resulting in bodily injury, see id.; and assault with a dangerous weapon (shod feet), see 18 U.S.C. §§ 113(a)(3), 1153.

Mr. Schmidt moved to exclude any testimony as to events that occurred after Officer Martinez entered his house. The district court held that although Officer Martinez had a right to approach Mr. Schmidt in his driveway, and, after the initial scuffle in the driveway, had probable cause to believe that the defendant had committed at least one felony offense, Officer Martinez's warrantless entry into Mr. Schmidt's house violated the fourth amendment because it was not supported by exigent circumstances. The court concluded that the officer's entry was motivated by anger rather than exigency and that the officer abandoned his hot pursuit when he turned his attention to arresting the others in the driveway. The district court also held that the charges against Mr. Schmidt dealt only with what took place in the driveway before the entry into the home. For this reason, it refused to admit evidence of the events inside the home under the so-called "new and distinct crime" theory.

II.

The government first contends that the district court erred in holding that Officer Martinez's warrantless entry into Mr. Schmidt's home was not justified by exigent circumstances. (Although the fourth amendment does not apply to the conduct of Indian tribal officials in Indian territory, the same standards are applicable to their actions under the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968, see 25 U.S.C. § 1302(2); United States v. Clifford, 664 F.2d 1090, 1091-92 n. 3 (8th Cir.1981).) When reviewing a district court's conclusion regarding the presence of exigent circumstances, we "`review findings of historical fact only for clear error' and `give due weight to inferences drawn from those facts by resident judges and local law enforcement officers.'" United States v. Ball, 90 F.3d 260, 262 (8th Cir.1996) (quoting Ornelas v. United States, 517 U.S. 690, 699, 116 S.Ct. 1657, 134 L.Ed.2d 911 (1996)). We review de novo the ultimate conclusion that the historical facts amounted to exigent circumstances. Ball, 90 F.3d at 262.

An exception to the warrant requirement permits an officer to enter a home if he or she acts with probable cause in the presence of exigent circumstances. Radloff v. City of Oelwein, 380 F.3d 344, 348 (8th Cir.2004), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 125 S.Ct. 967, 160 L.Ed.2d 900 (2005). Mr. Schmidt does not dispute the district court's finding that Officer Martinez had probable cause to believe that he had committed a felony offense. In evaluating whether exigent circumstances justify a warrantless entry, we concern ourselves with "what an objectively reasonable officer on the scene could have believed." United States v. Leveringston, 397 F.3d 1112, 1116 (8th Cir.2005). "[I]f such an officer would have had sufficient grounds to believe there was an exigency, then the Fourth Amendment d[oes] not require a warrant." Id.

The Supreme Court reaffirmed the proposition that the hot pursuit of a fleeing suspect can be an exigent circumstance justifying a warrantless arrest in one's home in Minnesota v. Olson, 495 U.S. 91, 100-01, 110 S.Ct. 1684, 109 L.Ed.2d 85 (1990). See also United States v. Santana, 427 U.S. 38, 42-43, 96 S.Ct. 2406, 49 L.Ed.2d 300 (1976). Nevertheless, not all police pursuits will do so. In Welsh v. Wisconsin, 466 U.S. 740, 753, 104 S.Ct. 2091, 80 L.Ed.2d 732 (1984), the Supreme Court instructed courts to weigh the "gravity of the underlying offense" in determining the legality of the entry. The underlying offense here, assault with a dangerous weapon, is certainly a serious offense. The Court cautioned, however, that probable cause to believe that a serious crime has been committed does not, in and of itself, create an exigency. See id. The Court in Welsh also required that the government demonstrate an "immediate or continuous pursuit [of the suspect] from the scene of [the] crime," id., in order to fall within the hot-pursuit exception. As we noted previously, the district court held that Officer Martinez abandoned his pursuit of Mr. Schmidt when he took five to ten minutes to arrest the others in the driveway.

Against this legal background, we consider whether hot pursuit justified Officer Martinez's entry into Mr. Schmidt's house in the relevant circumstances. Though the question is close, we think that the answer is yes. Our conclusion is primarily driven by a comparison of the present circumstances with those in Santana, 427 U.S. at 39-41, 96 S.Ct. 2406. In Santana, the police set up a drug buy with marked money to investigate drug dealers who were dealing out of the defendant's house. An undercover officer drove to the defendant's residence with a target of the sting, who went into the house and purchased heroin with marked bills. As they drove away from the house, the officer obtained the drugs from the buyer; he then stopped the car, displayed his badge, arrested the buyer, and asked her who had the money. After the undercover officer notified other officers that the marked money was in the defendant's possession, they drove approximately two blocks back to the defendant's residence and spotted her standing in the doorway. Upon seeing the officers approach, she retreated into her house. The officers, acting without a warrant, followed her into the house and arrested her. At trial, the defendant moved to suppress the drugs and money found in her house. Id.

The Court in Santana stated that when the police sought to arrest the defendant, she was, much like...