About a year ago I posted footage of Denver Police SWAT raiding the home of a 78 year old grandmother, based solely on a guy claiming that his “Find My iPhone” app showed his stolen truck at her home. Since then, the lawsuit went to trial, and the jury awarded $3.7 Million.
Media report here.
My original video here.
This footage was submitted by Bubba, from Wichita, Kansas. He says that his go cart was stolen, and apparently someone crashed it down the street, causing injury. Bubba recovered the go cart and returned home. But then the cops showed up, demanding information. Without a warrant, a police officer entered his home, tased him multiple times and arrested him. Can they do that without a warrant?
Ring doorbell video surfaced showing the arrest of a man at his own front door, after he refused to provide identification to police officers in Clayton County, Georgia. The footage showed officers arresting the man without a warrant. After the footage went viral, the police department then made their own Youtube video responding to the footage, as well as the allegations. But the issue remains: can cops constitutionally arrest a homeowner at his own front door without a warrant?
The Fourth Amendment guarantees the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” The constitutional protection of people in their houses extends to the “curtilage” of the home, which is “the area ‘immediately surrounding and associated with the home.'” Collins v. Virginia, 138 S. Ct. 1663, 1670 (2018) (quoting Florida v. Jardines, 569 U.S. 1, 6 (2013)).
Subject to a few exceptions, the Fourth Amendment prohibits law enforcement from entering a home or its curtilage to conduct a search without a warrant. United States v. Walker, 799 F.3d 1361, 1363 (11th Cir. 2015). United States v. Stephen, No. 19-12172 (11th Cir. Aug 06, 2020)
The original video used by the “We The People” Youtube channel here.
Here’s yet another video of police officers detaining or arresting a man’s wife, in order to coerce him into complying with their demands – whether legal or not. Last time, this happened in Georgia. But this time, we’re in Shawnee, Oklahoma. The Oklahoman originally reported on this incident and provided the video footage. Once again, most people misunderstand the application of the Fourth Amendment in and around the “curtilage” of a home.
On March 18 at 1:15 a.m., the Calloway County Sheriff’s Department, in Kentucky, arrived at a private residence with an arrest warrant for a guy who did not reside at the residence, but whose vehicle was parked in the yard, undergoing maintenance by the homeowner. When the footage turns on, you’ll see police walking towards the husband slash homeowner. Then you’ll see the man’s wife come outside and ask for a warrant and also for the officers to leave the property.
This raises constitutional issues about whether law enforcement can enter and remain in someone’s front yard under these circumstances, where the home’s residents are present and asking them to leave. And where there is no arrest warrant for the home’s residents – nor a search warrant for that home? This also raises issues about whether police can detain those residents, including their guests, without their consent and in the absence of a search warrant? This is a common issue that most people misunderstand – especially police. Let’s look at this footage, which you haven’t seen anywhere else, and clear up the legal rights at issue.
NOTE: This footage was submitted anonymously and I really have no idea what the outcome was in the criminal case, or otherwise. One would hope that no convictions resulted from this, for reasons I explain in the video, as well as below….
Some of the applicable law discussed in the video:
According to the 1980 Supreme Court opinion in Payton v. New York, in order to legally arrest someone in a home, rather than in a public place, absent consent or exigent circumstances, police officers must have a warrant.
According to the 1984 Supreme Court opinion in Oliver v. United States, the heightened Fourth Amendment protections of the home extend beyond just the interior of the home itself into what’s called the “curtilage” of the home, which is the land immediately surrounding and associated with the home. Why? Because according to the Supreme Court, the curtilage is considered part of the home itself for Fourth Amendment purposes.
In the 2013 Supreme Court opinion of Florida v. Jardines, the Court held that a search undoubtedly occurs when the government, without a warrant, obtains information by physically intruding within the curtilage of a house, which in that actual case involved a home’s front porch. The Court cautioned that a search occurs unless a homeowner has explicitly or implicitly sanctioned the government’s physical intrusion into the constitutionally protected area, i.e., the yard and/or porch of the home.
Under the “knock and talk” exception to the warrant requirement, a police officer not armed with a warrant may approach a home and knock, precisely because that is “no more than any private citizen might do.” This means there is an “implicit license . . . to approach the home by the front path, knock promptly, wait briefly to be received, and then (absent invitation to linger longer) leave.” An officer may also bypass the front door (or another entry point usually used by visitors) when circumstances reasonably indicate that the officer might find the homeowner elsewhere on the property. “Critically, however, the right to knock and talk does not entail a right to conduct a general investigation of the home’s curtilage.”
The obvious difference between a police officer and a young girl selling girl scout cookies, is that many, if not most, homeowners have no idea whether they have any right to refuse to answer the door, or to ask the person to leave. Police like it this way. They don’t inform people of these rights, and the courts have ruled that they have no legal obligation to do so. You have to inform yourself and spread the word.
Police officers, and anyone else really, have an implied license to come onto your property and knock on your door. This implied license can be revoked. Homeowners can prevent ordinary citizens and police officers alike from conducting a knock and talk by revoking their implied license to be there. However, few citizens know that an implied license exists. Generally, the courts require that a homeowner do so by clear demonstrations or express orders. For instance, asking someone to leave or refusing to answer questions.
A couple of days ago I put up a video of my interview with Patrick Jaicomo from the Institute for Justice about the Kansas newspaper raid. Now we have surveillance footage of the simultaneous raid of the newspaper owner’s home, showing the owner’s 98 year old mother confronting police officers while they were searching her home.
On a public bike and pedestrian pathway, police in Chicago set up a checkpoint at the exit of a pedestrian bridge and tunnel and subject everyone to search of their bags for alcohol or weapons, without reasonable suspicion, probable cause, or a search warrant. Is that legal? This fantastic submission video was sent in by Cynical Zombie and it’s very well done. The footage is great. But the question is better. Here’s what he filmed Chicago police doing earlier this week:
The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution generally requires a search of a person or property by the government be reasonable. A governmental search lacking a particularized warrant issued by a neutral and detached magistrate upon a showing of probable cause, is presumed unreasonable and therefore unconstitutional. Katz v. United States , 389 U.S. 347, 357, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967).
However, a warrantless “administrative search” can be held reasonable and constitutional. The burden is on the Government to show that such a search is in furtherance of a specific and legitimate non-criminal goal, is no more extensive nor invasive than necessary to address that goal, does not give discretion to the searching individual, and does not have as a collateral purpose collection of criminal evidence. United States v. Stafford , 416 F.3d 1068, 1074 (9th Cir. 2005) ; United States v. Bulacan , 156 F.3d 963, 967 (9th Cir. 1998) ; United States v. Davis , 482 F.2d 893, 908 (9th Cir. 1973).
For instance, without a warrant, people can be lawfully stopped at road checkpoints for detecting drunk driving, driving without a license, and illegal hunting; government employees and students can be lawfully searched, including through drug testing; closely regulated businesses can be subject to periodic inspection; and airplane passengers can have their luggage opened and their bodies patted down. People can also be detained based only on reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing (“not a particularly high threshold to reach”), United States v. Valdes-Vega , 738 F.3d 1074, 1078 (9th Cir. 2013) (en banc), and can be arrested based only on probable cause (“not a high bar”). Kaley v. United States , 571 U.S. 320, 338, 134 S.Ct. 1090, 188 L.Ed.2d 46 (2014). Verdun v. City of San Diego, 51 F.4th 1033 (9th Cir. 2022).
Case law conditions administrative searches on being no more intrusive than necessary, and “consistent with current technology. ” It is only rational to interpret the term “consistent with current technology” to apply to both the object of the search and the means of the search (pat-down, x-ray, etc.). An airport security screening search is constitutionally reasonable provided it “is no more extensive or intensive than necessary, in the light of current technology, to detect the presence of weapons or explosives … [and] is confined in good faith to that purpose. United States v. Aukai , 497 F.3d 955 (9th Cir. 2007) quoting Davis , 482 F.2d at 913.
Where the checkpoint search is intended to detect ordinary criminal wrongdoing, however, the administrative search exception does not apply. Edmond, 531 U.S. at 41; Al-Kidd, 131 S.Ct. at 2081 (“[The] exception [does] not apply where the officer’s purpose is not to attend to the special needs or to the investigation for which the administrative inspection is justified.”). Checkpoint searches that are designed “primarily to serve the general interest in crime control” require a warrant or probable cause. Edmond, 531 U.S. at 42. Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 811-12 (1996) (“[T]he exemption from the need for probable cause (and warrant), which is accorded to searches made for the purpose of inventory or administrative regulation, is not accorded to searches that are not made for those purposes.”) (emphasis in original). On this point, the Supreme Court was emphatic: “We have never approved a checkpoint program whose primary purpose was to detect evidence of ordinary criminal wrongdoing.” Edmond, 531 U.S. at 41 (emphasis added).
The LA County Sheriff’s Department recently showed up at a family’s home, entered without a warrant and then placed the teenage kids in handcuffs. No crime had been committed. No explanation was given. The family posted the surveillance footage on Tik Tok and it went viral. The sheriff’s department then responded, claiming that they received a call from a concerned citizen, and that upon arrival, the door was open.
Imagine it’s winter time. You’re at home in Erie, Pennsylvania. There’s snow everywhere. Your Ring Doorbell alerts you to movement at your front door. It’s a SWAT team. They grab your doorbell camera and chuck it into the snow and then start to bust down your door. You’ve done nothing wrong. You’ve broken no law. You have no idea why they’re there. And neither do they apparently. What do you do? What is the law?
It was March 12, 2023.Officers approach the house and notice the Ring doorbell and then they remove or destroy it. The homeowner got to the front door and confronted the officers. They told him to come outside, which he did.
Sadly, Lance, who submitted the footage, has early onset dementia. He explained this to the officers. He decided to take out his cell phone and begin filming their interaction – for his safety and theirs, of course. That’s when Lance’s cell phone footage begins. The cops absolutely did not want to be filmed, even though they were on Lance’s property, without a search warrant and without probable cause, or even reasonable suspicion, to believe that Lance had committed any crime at all.
Searches and seizures which take place in a person’s home are presumptively unreasonable, which means they are illegal by default according to the Fourth Amendment. The only exceptions are consent and exigent circumstances. Here, the officers had no search warrant for this house. It also appears that they had no legitimate reason to believe that the fugitive they were looking for was inside the house.
According to their own words, they received an anonymous tip that the fugitive could be inside the home. In reality, the fugitive had no connection whatsoever to the home. Anonymous tips cannot form the basis of probable cause. Which is why they didn’t have a warrant. They should have investigated the anonymous tip, in which case the officers would have discovered that it was not credible. Instead, they just got the boys together, rolled up on the house, destroyed private property and then commenced an illegal search.
While the homeowner gave the officers consent to go inside the house, he subsequently revoked that consent after finding out that the officers were acting off a bogus anonymous tip. Moreover, they had already invaded the curtilage of the home and destroyed private property prior to obtaining that consent. They had no legal justification to do so and therein violated the Fourth Amendment.
Lance is looking to file a lawsuit, if any Pennsylvania lawyers are interested in helping him.
UPDATE: Since I made the video on this, Lance found out that the officers had first applied for a search warrant, based on the anonymous tip. That warrant was apparently denied by a judge as lacking probable cause. Then the officers showed up anyways. In the end, they were apparently at the wrong house. Not surprisingly…. Lance’s home had no connection to the fugitive they were looking for.
This footage was submitted by a homeowner in Loraine, Ohio, showing police officers enter onto a woman’s private property and refusing to leave. They demand that she send her kids outside, because the officers allege that they observed them jaywalking. Her doorbell footage shows otherwise. I’ve previously discussed what you need to know when police are at your door.
Under the “knock and talk” exception to the warrant requirement, a police officer not armed with a warrant may approach a home and knock, precisely because that is “no more than any private citizen might do.” This means there is an “implicit license . . . to approach the home by the front path, knock promptly, wait briefly to be received, and then (absent invitation to linger longer) leave.” An officer may also bypass the front door (or another entry point usually used by visitors) when circumstances reasonably indicate that the officer might find the homeowner elsewhere on the property. “Critically, however, the right to knock and talk does not entail a right to conduct a general investigation of the home’s curtilage.”
Police officers, and anyone else really, have an implied license to come onto your property and knock on your door. This implied license can be revoked. Homeowners can prevent ordinary citizens and police officers alike from conducting a knock and talk by revoking their implied license to be there. However, few citizens know that an implied license exists. Generally, the courts require that a homeowner do so by clear demonstrations or express orders. For instance, asking someone to leave or refusing to answer questions.
Here’s an excerpt of the police report in this particular case, posted with the original video:
On February 15th, 2023 I was operating as a member of the Lorain Patrol Impact Team targeting high crime areas throughout the City of Lorain, Ohio. I was driving an unmarked Ford Taurus equipped with emergency lights and sirens. I was also dressed in plain clothes with “Police” identifiers displayed on the exterior of my vest, making myself readily identifiable as a Police Officer. It should be known that ATF Special Agent Fabrizio was also in my patrol vehicle at this time. On this date at approximately 1539 hours, we were patrolling the intersection of W. 27th Street and Reid Avenue. It should be noted that on 7/26/2022 a shooting had occurred between a group of juveniles in the area of 126 W. 27th Street and the surrounding area is a known hot spot for shots fired incidents and weapons violation complaints. While patrolling this intersection, S.A. Fabrizio and I observed three males who appeared to be juveniles with there hands in both hooded sweatshirt pockets and their waistbands while looking around their immediate area. Through my prior training and experience, this type of behavior is an indicator that the person may be both armed and checking their surroundings.
S.A. Fabrizio and went around the block to the intersection of W. 27th Street and Broadway Avenue and observed the males illegally cross the road not in a posted cross walk and began approaching the residence of 126 W. 27th Street. Due to this observed traffic violation, I approached the above listed residence and activated my emergency lights and sirens in an attempt to initiate a traffic stop for this violation on the three individuals while they were approaching the house in the front yard. S.A. Fabrizio exited the passenger side and advised the males to stop and to come back to our patrol vehicle. The males acknowledged our presence by looking back at our patrol vehicle and quickly made their way up the front steps to the residence and entered and refused to exit. A female (later identified as Mary Hildreth) came to the front door and began yelling at both S.A. Fabrizio and I as well as asking what we were doing and what the problem was.