Unreasonable warrantless intrusion into home in violation of Fourth Amendment may occur by conduct other than physical entry

SEARCH & SEIZURE United States v. Reeves, No. 07-8028, ___ F.3d ___ (10th Cir. May 7, 2008)(Wyoming). Appeal of conviction based on conditional guilty plea to charge of being felon in possession of firearm and ammunition in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1) and 924(a)(2). HELD: District court erred in denying defendant’s motion to suppress evidence based on claim of unreasonable search and seizure resulting from warrantless doorstep arrest. Specifically, Court of Appeals held: (1) Warrantless intrusion into home in violation of Fourth Amendment may occur by conduct other than physical entry. (2) It is location of arrested person, not location of arresting officers that determines whether arrest occurs in home. Accordingly, arrest occurred in defendant's home where officers were positioned outside of door but defendant was still standing inside room when he opened door. (3) When defendant opened motel room door at 3:00 a.m. after police officers pounded on it and window for twenty minutes while loudly identifying themselves as police, defendant opened door in response to show of authority by police and was therefore seized inside his home. Seizure occurred because a reasonable person under these circumstances would not feel free to ignore the officers’ implicit command to open the door. (4) Where unlawful arrest occurs and consent to search is coerced, government bears burden of demonstrating voluntariness of later-obtained consent as well as break in causal connection in order to remove taint of illegality from seized evidence. In case where district court did not address taint issue when ruling on suppression motion and government neither seeks remand for additional fact finding nor argues facts bearing on question nor addresses question of whether there was break in causal relationship between unlawful arrest and the subsequent search, court of appeals cannot find that government met burden of showing that connection between illegality and consent was broken sufficient to avoid suppression of evidence under exclusionary rule. Read the opinion here.