Caseflicks

Supreme Court of the United States • 1990

Maryland v. Buie

494 U.S. 325 | 110 S. Ct. 1093 | 108 L. Ed. 2d 276 | 1990 U.S. LEXIS 1176

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Takeaway

In short, this case permits a strictly limited protective sweep during an in-home arrest: adjoining spaces may be checked automatically, but more remote areas require reasonable, articulable suspicion that a dangerous person is hiding there.

Background

After an armed robbery of a Maryland pizza restaurant, police obtained arrest warrants for Jerome Buie and a suspected accomplice. One robber had worn a red running suit. Police surveilled Buie’s home, confirmed by telephone that he was there, and entered with the arrest warrant.

Officers spread through the house while Corporal Rozar guarded the basement stairway and ordered anyone below to emerge. Buie came upstairs from the basement, where he was arrested, searched, and handcuffed. Detective Frolich then entered the basement to see whether anyone else was there. In plain view, he saw and seized a red running suit.

The trial court denied Buie’s suppression motion, and a jury convicted him of armed robbery and a related handgun offense. The Maryland intermediate appellate court affirmed, concluding that reasonable suspicion could justify a limited search for dangerous accomplices. The Maryland Court of Appeals reversed, holding that a protective sweep of a home required probable cause to believe there was a serious and demonstrable potentiality of danger. The Supreme Court vacated and remanded.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether the Fourth Amendment requires police to obtain a search warrant before conducting a limited protective sweep while making a lawful in-home arrest.

Holding

No. A warrant is not required for a properly limited protective sweep conducted incident to a lawful in-home arrest to protect officers and others at the scene.

Reasoning

The arrest warrant, together with probable cause to believe Buie was at home, authorized the officers to enter the residence and search places where Buie might be found, including the basement. Once they found and arrested him, that authority to search for Buie ended, but the officers still faced a distinct safety risk from other people who might be concealed in the house.

The Court treated the sweep as a safety measure analogous to the frisk upheld in Terry v. Ohio and the vehicle frisk upheld in Michigan v. Long. An in-home arrest can be especially dangerous because officers are on unfamiliar terrain and may be vulnerable to an ambush by unseen third parties. That immediate safety interest can justify a narrow, warrantless intrusion even though the home ordinarily receives the Fourth Amendment’s strongest protection.

The sweep is not a general evidentiary search. It must be a quick, cursory visual inspection of spaces where a person could hide, and it may last only as long as necessary to dispel the danger and, in all events, no longer than completion of the arrest and departure from the premises. Evidence observed in plain view during a lawful sweep may be seized if its incriminating character is supported by probable cause.

Issue #2

What level of suspicion must officers have to conduct a protective sweep beyond the immediate area of an in-home arrest.

Holding

For areas beyond immediately adjoining spaces, officers need reasonable, articulable suspicion—not probable cause—that the area harbors an individual who poses a danger to persons at the arrest scene.

Reasoning

The Court rejected Maryland’s proposed rule allowing sweeps whenever police arrest a person at home for a violent crime. Officer safety does not eliminate the need for individualized, objective justification; as in Terry, an officer cannot rely on a generalized fear or an unparticularized hunch.

The Court also rejected the Maryland Court of Appeals’ probable-cause requirement. The balance struck in Terry and Long permits a limited protective search on less than probable cause when specific and articulable facts, together with reasonable inferences from them, would lead a reasonably prudent officer to believe that a dangerous person is concealed in the area to be swept.

As an incident of arrest, officers may, without either probable cause or reasonable suspicion, inspect closets and other spaces immediately adjoining the place of arrest from which an attack could be launched at once. But a sweep of more remote areas requires the reasonable-suspicion showing. This rule does not conflict with Chimel v. California because Chimel forbade a full evidentiary search of a home based on the arrestee’s reach, whereas a protective sweep is narrowly directed at danger from hidden third parties.

The Court did not decide whether the facts of Buie’s case satisfied this new standard. It vacated the judgment and left the Maryland courts to determine on remand whether the basement entry was justified by specific and articulable facts showing danger.

Concurrences

Justice Stevens

Reasoning

Justice Stevens agreed that reasonable suspicion is the proper standard, but stressed that the doctrine applies only when a sweep is genuinely protective. The State must show a reasonable basis both to think that someone in the basement posed a threat or could interfere with the arrest and to think that entering the basement would reduce that danger.

On the existing record, Justice Stevens thought the State might have difficulty meeting that burden. Buie had emerged without resistance; Corporal Rozar testified that he was not worried about danger when he arrested Buie; and Detective Frolich offered only that he did not know who lived in the house, despite participating in the prior surveillance. Guarding the stairway from above, rather than entering the basement, appeared more consistent with an actual safety concern. Still, he agreed that the state courts should apply the new standard first.

Justice Kennedy

Reasoning

Justice Kennedy agreed that remand was the appropriate course because the state courts should apply the Court’s newly announced rule in the first instance. He wrote separately to reject Justice Stevens’ suggestion that the State faced a formidable burden on remand.

In Justice Kennedy’s view, the record indicated that the officers followed ordinary and prudent safety procedures. He believed they would have been remiss had they failed to take precautions against a possible danger in the basement, and he cautioned that Justice Stevens’ fact-specific doubts should not be taken as authoritative guidance on application of the Court’s rule.

Dissents

Justice Brennan

Reasoning

Justice Brennan, joined by Justice Marshall, argued that the Court improperly extended Terry’s reasonable-suspicion exception into the home. Terry involved brief street detentions and narrowly limited patdowns for weapons; it should not displace the usual warrant and probable-cause requirements for searches of a private residence.

The home occupies a uniquely protected place under the Fourth Amendment, and a protective sweep is far more intrusive than the majority acknowledged. Searching for a hidden person can require officers to enter every room, basement, or attic; inspect closets, cabinets, chests, and other containers large enough to conceal someone; and observe a wide range of personal effects in plain view. Thus, the sweep is much closer to a house search than to a patdown or automobile frisk.

Justice Brennan also doubted the majority’s assumption that planned home arrests pose risks comparable to unpredictable street encounters. Officers can plan these arrests, use a show of force, and sometimes choose a safer place to arrest the suspect. Given the home’s sanctity and the sweep’s substantial scope, he would require probable cause to believe a hidden confederate threatened officer safety. Because the Maryland courts found no probable cause here, he would have affirmed suppression of the running suit.