Warrant Needed for a Barn Outside the Curtilage?
An animal control officer discovered a cow loose on the road near the Defendant's home. Upon returning the cow to its pen, he observed numerous dead animals on the property in various states of decomposition. He saw three dogs on the property that were emaciated. The Defendant had no explanation for how the animals died. From one of the pole barns that could be observed from the road and the house, he heard the yipping of dogs. The officer obtained a search warrant for the property. However, in the description of the place to be searched, the officer listed only the description of the house, making no mention of the pole barns on the property. A search of one of the pole barns revealed 23 emaciated dogs with no food or fresh water and a floor covered with feces and urine.
The Court, in an opinion written by Judge Michael Kelly, concluded that the search of the pole barns was warrantless and did not fit within any exception to the warrant requirement. The issue first turned on the fact that, as agreed by the parties, the pole barns were outside the curtilage of the home. The prosecution argued the Defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the pole barns located outside the curtilage of the home. Relying on cases from sister states and federal circuits, the Court disagreed. Though the Defendant had no privacy rights in the exterior of the barns and the rest of the area outside the curtilage, as it was an open field, the interior of the locked and windowless barns was a protected area. Therefore, the search of the barns required a search warrant.
The prosecution then argued that the good faith exception to the warrant requirement applied. The Court concluded it did not. The invalidity of the warrant here was not that it did not contain probable cause to search the barns, the officer clearly had reason to believe evidence of a crime would be found there. A plain reading of the place to be searched revealed that it mentioned nothing about the existence of the barns. Though the body of the warrant mentioned the pole barns, the specific description of the place to be searched was limited only to the house. Unlike the situation in People v Hampton, 237 Mich App 143; 603 NW2d 270 (1999), where the fourth page of the warrant incorrectly described the but the first page did, the warrant and the affidavit here specifically described only the home. Therefore, the search was conducted without a warrant. Though the good faith exception has applied to warrantless seizures, the prosecution did put forth its application in this case. Even if it had, the officer here testified he based his search of the barns on the fact that he had a warrant and nothing else.
Judge Boonstra, in a partially concurring and partially dissenting opinion, agreed that a warrant was required to search the barns. However, he believed the warrant as written was sufficient to include the barns. He cited the language of the affidavit and the warrant which stated, "'The PROPERTY [that] is to be searched' and gave as a basis for the search 'animals running at large and several dead animals found on the property.' (Emphasis added). The dead animals had not been found inside the residence, however, and the animals running at large also were not doing so in the residence. In this respect, the warrant’s language suggests that the drafter intended for the search to be of an area broader than simply the residence. And many of the animals specified for seizure were of a type—cows and sheep—that would not typically be expected to be found within a residence, but instead would be expected to be found either in open spaces or inside the barns." The term "property" would have meant the entire property, not simply the house. In addition, therefore, he would have concluded that, even if the warrant was ambiguous about the area to be searched, it was sufficient to apply the good faith exception.
Comments
Post a Comment