Youngstown Daily Legal News

Appellate court: Police lacked evidence for unwarranted entry to house

ANNIE YAMSON
Special to the Legal News
Published: September 17, 2014

In a recent opinion from the 9th District Court of Appeals, a panel of three judges affirmed the judgment of the Summit County Court of Common Pleas, which granted a motion to suppress from two defendants who were growing marijuana in their home.

The lower court had ruled police did not have a reasonable belief that someone was in need of aid before entering the home of Andre Hendrix and Delisha Scott.

Case summary states that, on Oct. 31, 2011, at approximately 10:30 a.m., a neighbor called the police to report that a garage door of a house in the city of Stow had been open for several days and that that was unusual.

Officers David Hall and David Semonin of the Stow Police Department responded to the call and attempted to contact the neighbors but received no response.

Semonin testified that the concern, based upon the call, was that someone was inside and in need of help or that there had been a burglary.

Hall testified there had been about eight to 10 burglaries in the city within the past three months, but none in that particular neighborhood.

When Hall and Semonin arrived on scene they saw a garage with the door open and no car inside, but nothing else unusual.

They tried to peer inside windows but found drawn curtains and no evidence of a break-in.

Semonin spoke with the mail carrier who indicated that the mail had not been picked up from the day before but said there had been other occasions where the mail was not picked up everyday.

The officers proceeded to enter the home through the closed but unlocked garage door and search the house with guns drawn.

All of the rooms upstairs were cleared except for one with a closed door. The officers noticed that a bright light was coming from the room and they could hear the sound of a fan.

Concerned that there could be a person in need of help behind the door, they entered and found a marijuana grow operation.

Hendrix and Scott were subsequently indicted on one count of possession of marijuana, one count of illegal cultivation of marijuana, one count of trafficking in marijuana and one count of possessing criminal tools.

Hendrix was also charged with possessing weapons under disability.

The trial court granted their motion to suppress the evidence gathered from their home after it found that the police officers did not meet any exceptions that would authorize their warrantless entry into the home.

The state appealed, arguing that the officers’ entry fell under the emergency aid exception.

“We disagree,” wrote Judge Eve Belfance on behalf of the court of appeals. “We appreciate that the officers had a concern that it was possible there was someone in need of assistance in the house or that there had been a burglary, but we cannot say that the circumstances, when viewed objectively, would lead one to reasonably believe that anyone in the house was in immediate need of aid.”

At the time of the call and the police officers’ response, the court noted that the only thing that Hall and Semonin could confirm was that the garage door was open, not how long it had been that way.

The information from the mail carrier also provided no support that there was an emergency situation at hand.

“The mail carrier indicated that the mail had not been picked up from the day before, however, the mail carrier also stated that such behavior was not necessarily out of the ordinary,” wrote Judge Belfance.

The court of appeals noted that the officers did not notice any signs of a break-in or other emergency during their examination of the premises.

“We share the officers’ concern for the safety of area citizens, but those concerns must rise to the level of a reasonable belief that someone in the residence is in need of immediate aid in order to justify a warrantless intrusion into a private residence,” wrote Judge Belfance.

Given the record in this case, the appellate panel could not conclude that any exception applied to the officers’ actions.

“This is not to say that calls by concerned neighbors accompanied by the appropriate circumstances at the scene can never satisfy the emergency aid exception,” wrote Judge Belfance. “In other words, when objectively viewed, the exigencies of the situation were not so compelling as to render a warrantless entry and search reasonable under these circumstances.”

“Instead, their entry was based on the mere possibility that there might be someone inside who might be in need of assistance. Such is insufficient to warrant entry under the emergency aid exception.”

Judges Jennifer Hensal and Beth Whitmore joined Judge Belfance to uphold the judgment of the Summit County court.

The case is cited State v. Hendrix, 2014-Ohio-3577.

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