The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals recently heard an interesting case out
of Tennessee involving evidence that was uncovered during the search of
a house that occurred after executing an arrest warrant at the wrong address.
The case, U.S. v. Shaw, began when Memphis police officers were dispatched to to arrest Phyllis
Brown at her home. The problem was that the woman’s address, 3171
Hendricks Avenue, did not appear to exist. When the officers arrived on
the street they discovered that there were two houses across from one
another that both listed their address as 3170 Hendricks Avenue. Instead
of clarifying the problem through investigation, the police chose to simply
approach one of the two houses--the one that appeared to be occupied.
The police knocked on the door and were greeted by a woman. Rather than
asking about Phyllis Brown or checking about the confused addresses, they
only told the woman that they had a warrant for the address. It turns
out the house they had selected was actually 3170.
Unfortunately for the woman at home, she never bothered to question the
officers or demand to see the warrant. Instead, she let them in the house
where they discovered a substantial amount of cocaine and no Phyllis Brown.
Rather than admit the misidentification with the adress, the government
claimed that it had several really good reasons why the officers’
entry into the house was reasonable. They claimed that because it was
occupied, a woman answered the door, the officers saw scales inside the
house and finally, and because the odds were 50/50 that they had the right
house, the execution of the warrant should be deemed reasonable.
The Sixth Circuit disagreed with the government’s rationale, deciding
that none of the justifications were sufficient. Instead, the Court said
that the police lacked any reasonable basis for entering the house and
that the evidence gathered would be suppressed.
The Sixth Circuit took special care to address the false statements made
by the officers to gain entrance to the house. Not only did the officers
lie once, saying that they had a warrant to search “this address,”
but they continued their lie once inside, saying that they were there
looking for the house located at 3170 Hendricks. The officers said their
goal in misleading the woman was to then force her to admit that she was
actually in 3171 Hendricks. Regardless, the Court said the officers behaved
inappropriately and that all evidence derived from searches based on false
pretenses will be excluded at trial.
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