Watkins v. State

Citation85 N.E.3d 597
Decision Date18 October 2017
Docket NumberNo. 82S01–1704–CR–191,82S01–1704–CR–191
Parties Mario WATKINS, Appellant (Defendant), v. STATE of Indiana, Appellee (Plaintiff).
CourtSupreme Court of Indiana

Attorney for Appellant : Matthew J. McGovern, Anderson, Indiana

Attorneys for Appellee : Curtis T. Hill, Jr., Attorney General of Indiana, James B. Martin, Monika Prekopa Talbot, Deputy Attorneys General, Indianapolis, Indiana

On Petition to Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals, No. 82A01–1510–CR–1624

Rush, Chief Justice.

Evansville police executed a search warrant at Mario Watkins's home with a flash-bang grenade, battering ram, and a dozen heavily armed SWAT officers. Once inside, they found cocaine, marijuana, and a gun. Watkins argues that the intrusive entry violated the Indiana Constitution and that the search warrant was unsupported by probable cause under the Federal Constitution.

For the state constitutional analysis, we apply our well-established Litchfield test and hold that Evansville police did not act unreasonably under the totality of the circumstances. And for the federal analysis, we uphold the search warrant because its supporting affidavit shows a substantial basis for finding probable cause. We therefore affirm the trial court.

Facts and Procedural History

A long-time confidential informant saw Mario Watkins in his Evansville home with a gun, cocaine, and marijuana. After receiving this tip, Evansville police got a search warrant, surveilled the house, and decided to send in the SWAT team. The team met to plan the warrant execution, taking into account the layout of the house, Watkins's violent criminal history, and the danger posed by four adults with narcotics and a gun.

Soon after, twelve SWAT officers arrived at Watkins's house in an armored vehicle. One officer bashed in the front door with a battering ram while another announced the team's presence over a loudspeaker. A third officer's job was to use a flash-bang grenade—a diversionary device that emits a loud noise and bright flash of light—to distract anyone inside. Following standard safety precautions, he did a "quick peek" into the front room to see whether the grenade was appropriate, then deployed it six inches inside the door.1 He did not know that a nine-month- old boy was lying under a blanket in a playpen in that room.

Officers discovered the child moments after the grenade went off, and took him outside. They then found four adults—including Watkins—in the rest of the house. When they arrested Watkins, he told them that everything in the house was his.

Searching the house, officers found a plate with crack cocaine residue, digital scales, 4.2 grams of crack cocaine, 706 grams of marijuana, 35 hydrocodone pills, 21 alprazolam pills, 25 oxycodone

pills, $263 in cash, and a .40 caliber Hi–Point handgun.

The State charged Watkins with multiple felonies. He filed a motion to suppress, arguing that the search warrant was unsupported by probable cause under the Fourth Amendment and that its execution violated the search-and-seizure protections of the Fourth Amendment and Article 1, Section 11 of the Indiana Constitution. The trial court denied the motion.

The trial court then severed the unlawful possession of a firearm charge, and the remaining counts went to trial. The jury deadlocked on a neglect of a dependent charge, but found Watkins guilty of possession of a schedule II controlled substance as a lesser-included Class A misdemeanor, possession of cocaine as a Level 6 felony, possession of a schedule IV controlled substance as a lesser-included Class A misdemeanor, possession of marijuana as a lesser-included Class B misdemeanor, and maintaining a common nuisance as a Level 6 felony.

Watkins appealed, arguing that the search warrant affidavit did not establish probable cause in violation of the Fourth Amendment and that the search warrant execution was unreasonable under Article 1, Section 11 of the Indiana Constitution. A split panel of the Court of Appeals reversed. The majority found the search unreasonable under Article 1, Section 11's Litchfield test because "the extent of law enforcement needs for a military-style assault was low and the degree of intrusion was unreasonably high." Watkins v. State, 67 N.E.3d 1092, 1102 (Ind. Ct. App. 2017). Judge May dissented, as she would have found the search reasonable under the totality of the circumstances. Id. at 1102 (May, J., dissenting).

The State petitioned for transfer, which we granted—thus vacating the Court of Appeals opinion. Ind. Appellate Rule 58(A).

Standard of Review

Watkins challenges the constitutionality of the warrant execution only under Article 1, Section 11 of the Indiana Constitution —an issue that we review de novo. Zanders v. State, 73 N.E.3d 178, 181 (Ind. 2017).

He then challenges the sufficiency of the search warrant affidavit only under the Fourth Amendment. We likewise review de novo the trial court's paper-record decision upholding the issuance of a search warrant. Houser v. State, 678 N.E.2d 95, 98 (Ind. 1997). But we give "great deference" to the prior judge's initial, underlying probable cause finding—affirming if a "substantial basis" supported it and resolving doubtful cases in favor of upholding the warrant. Id. at 98–99 (quoting Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 236–39, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983) ).

Discussion and Decision
I. Police Did Not Execute This Search Warrant Unreasonably Under Article 1, Section 11 of the Indiana Constitution.

The parties agree that the method of executing a search warrant triggers our State Constitution's protections, but they dispute the proper test for determining whether that method is reasonable. We hold that the totality-of-the-circumstances Litchfield test—a test applied hundreds of times in our courts—remains well-suited to assess reasonableness under Article 1, Section 11. See Simons v. Simons, 566 N.E.2d 551, 557 (Ind. Ct. App. 1991) ("If it ain't broke, don't fix it!"). Applying that test here, we find that the search warrant execution was not unreasonable.

A. The Litchfield test governs the reasonableness of search warrant executions.

Our Indiana Constitution safeguards the "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable search or seizure." Ind. Const. art. 1, § 11. As the parties agree, a search warrant's execution is axiomatically a "search," so it triggers Section 11's protection. See Lacey v. State, 946 N.E.2d 548, 550 (Ind. 2011).

The SWAT team's search of Watkins's home, then, must live up to our Constitution's expectations—it must not be "unreasonable." The parties disagree on how to determine reasonableness. Watkins asks us to stick with the totality-of-the-circumstances test we established in Litchfield v. State, 824 N.E.2d 356, 359–61 (Ind. 2005). The State argues that Litchfield shouldn't apply to search warrant executions and proposes a new test: search warrant executions should be unreasonable only if "no reasonable officer" would execute a search that way.

We agree with Watkins that the Litchfield test remains well-suited to assess the reasonableness of search warrant executions, making any new test unnecessary. This totality-of-the-circumstances test is our "faithful stand-by" to determine reasonableness under our Constitution, Zanders, 73 N.E.3d at 186, and is appropriate for a range of contexts, see Garcia v. State, 47 N.E.3d 1196, 1199 (Ind. 2016). As we held in Litchfield itself, the test applies broadly to "a governmental search." 824 N.E.2d at 359. Indeed, Litchfield governs the reasonableness of searches incident to arrest, Garcia, 47 N.E.3d at 1199 ; traffic stops, Robinson v. State, 5 N.E.3d 362, 368 (Ind. 2014) ; vehicle searches, State v. Hobbs, 933 N.E.2d 1281, 1287 (Ind. 2010) ; trash searches, Membres v. State, 889 N.E.2d 265, 269 (Ind. 2008) ; and protective sweeps, Weddle v. State, 989 N.E.2d 371, 378 (Ind. Ct. App. 2013), trans. denied. In short, its application is comprehensive.

Home searches are no different; we apply the Litchfield test "[t]o determine whether a residential entry violated Article 1, Section 11." Lacey, 946 N.E.2d at 550. Litchfield accordingly governs both warrantless home entries, Holder v. State, 847 N.E.2d 930, 940–41 (Ind. 2006), and the execution of arrest warrants at a home, Duran v. State, 930 N.E.2d 10, 19 (Ind. 2010). And in Lacey, we held that no-knock search warrants do not require prior judicial authorization because they are governed by the Litchfield test based on the "circumstances at the time the warrant was served." 946 N.E.2d at 550, 552–53. In line with Lacey, the Court of Appeals—both here and in its recent Ware opinion—applied Litchfield to search warrants. Ware v. State, 78 N.E.3d 1109, 1113–14 (Ind. Ct. App. 2017), trans. denied; Watkins, 67 N.E.3d at 1102. This totality-of-the-circumstances test thus governs the reasonableness of search warrant executions.

Even if our precedent did not cement Litchfield 's application here, we would still reject the State's "no reasonable officer" test. As we recently recognized, our Constitution grants homes its "highest protection."

Carpenter v. State, 18 N.E.3d 998, 1002 (Ind. 2014) (quoting Moran v. State, 644 N.E.2d 536, 540 (Ind. 1994) ). We cannot dial down that protection by isolating search warrant executions with a special, less protective test. In fact, the Litchfield test is well-suited for all searches—including warrant executions—because it looks to the totality of the circumstances.

Finally, the State's rationale for its test—that courts should not second-guess officers—implies that judges should defer to police when analyzing an Article 1, Section 11 claim. True, we refrain from "unrealistic second-guessing," especially when "police are acting in a swiftly developing situation." Browder v. State, 77 N.E.3d 1209, 1215 (Ind. Ct. App. 2017), trans. denied (quoting United States v. Sharpe, 470 U.S. 675, 686, 105 S.Ct. 1568, 84 L.Ed.2d 605 (1985) ). But a...

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