Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> Tenth Circuit Blog

Criminal Law

: Tenth Circuit Blog

Search Following 911 Call Upheld

By Shari Allison

United States v. Porter, ___ F.3d ___ , 2010 WL 437337 (10th Cir. 2010) Denial of motion to suppress gun found in home upheld. Although there was no probable cause to arrest defendant at the time police entered his home, under Michigan v. Fisher, ___S. Ct. ___, 2009 WL 4544992 (December 2009), police entry into and sweep of the home did not violate the Fourth Amendment because it was under the reasonable belief that someone in the home was in danger. The test is an objective one: was there an objectively reasonable basis for believing someone was in danger, and was the manner and scope of the search reasonable. Here, police were responding to a 911 call from someone they knew to get frequently in trouble, who was claiming that she had just been threatened with a gun; she was complaining about a known felon convicted of a violent felony; it was in a bad part of town; defendant was uncooperative when police arrived, hiding his hand behind door; and police could not locate caller but knew others were inside with defendant.continue to full post

Full post as published by Tenth Circuit Blog on February 10, 2010 (boomark / email).