Summary
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court held that a warrantless police entry into the side yard and porch area of a three-family home constituted a search under the Fourth Amendment and art. 14 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights. Applying the curtilage factors from United States v. Dunn and the physical-intrusion framework of Florida v. Jardines, the court concluded that the search was unlawful and affirmed the suppression of a sawed-off shotgun.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether the side yard and porch area of a multifamily home may constitute curtilage protected by the Fourth Amendment and article 14.
- Whether the police officer's warrantless physical intrusion into the side yard and porch area was an unlicensed search requiring a warrant.
- Whether the Commonwealth could justify the warrantless search based on probable cause or exigent circumstances despite not raising that argument below.
Holdings
- The side yard and porch area of the three-family home were within the home's curtilage and therefore constituted a constitutionally protected area under the Fourth Amendment and article 14.
- Detective Griffin's warrantless physical intrusion into the side yard and porch area to search for the weapon was an unlicensed search for constitutional purposes.
- The court declined to reach the merits of the Commonwealth's probable-cause and exigent-circumstances argument because the Commonwealth failed to raise it below and therefore waived it.
Key quotations
“Thus, we decline to limit Jardines' holding to single-family homes or to fashion a rule categorically excluding areas associated with multifamily homes as curtilage and thus placing them beyond the reach of the protections of the Fourth Amendment and art. 14.” (477 Mass. at 51)
“In veering off the path and venturing into the side yard of the home for the purpose of conducting a search for the weapon, Detective Griffin engaged in the precise conduct that Jardines found offensive to the Fourth Amendment.” (477 Mass. at 58)
Factual background
Police observed Bobby Leslie and several other men enter the fenced property of a three-family home where Lacy Price resided. Leslie and Price repeatedly went to the side porch area, bent down, and appeared to manipulate or inspect something under the porch; Leslie also made a gesture simulating the firing of a shotgun. Without a warrant, Detective Daniel Griffin left the walkway and entered the obscured side yard, where he saw a sawed-off shotgun under the porch; Leslie and Price were subsequently arrested.
Procedural history
The defendants were indicted in the Superior Court Department on firearms and ammunition offenses. A Superior Court judge allowed their motions to suppress a sawed-off shotgun found under the porch of a three-family home, concluding that the warrantless search violated the warrant requirement under Florida v. Jardines and article 14 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights. The Commonwealth appealed; a single justice allowed an interlocutory appeal and reported the case to the Appeals Court, after which the Supreme Judicial Court granted direct appellate review.