Criminal Practice – Search & Seizure – Community Caretaker Doctrine – Knock & Talk – Both Inapplicable

State v. Huddy (Lawyers Weekly No. 011-120-17, 17 pp.) (Richard Dietz, J.) (John Tyson, J., concurring) Appealed from Guilford County Superior Court (L. Todd Burke, J.) N.C. App.

Holding: While patrolling an area that law enforcement believed was at risk of home invasions or break-ins, a deputy sheriff saw a parked vehicle with its doors open at the end of a 150-yard driveway next to a house surrounded by trees. Under the community caretaker doctrine, these circumstances did not justify the deputy ignoring the cobweb-covered front door, walking all around the house to look for signs of a break-in, and knocking on the back door after he smelled marijuana.

We reverse the trial court’s denial of defendant’s motion to suppress.

The community caretaker doctrine, first recognized in our state in State v. Smathers, 232 N.C. App. 120, 753 S.E.2d 380 (2014), gives police officers the flexibility to help citizens in need or to protect the public even without the suspicion of criminal activity which would otherwise be necessary for a constitutional intrusion. In applying the doctrine, courts must assess whether the public need or interest outweighs the intrusion upon the privacy of the individual. Our state’s appellate courts have never applied the community caretaker doctrine to a search of a home.

The facts in this case do not justify that warrantless intrusion. At the time the deputy searched the curtilage of the home, the only indication that there was an emergency was a vehicle in the home’s driveway with its doors open. Although this might suggest a home invasion is in progress, there are countless innocent reasons why one might leave doors open in a vehicle parked in a driveway.

Moreover, there were other available alternatives to the search that the deputy could have used, such as knocking at the front door and calling out to ask if anyone needed assistance, or waiting at the entrance to the driveway to observe the vehicle. The facts of this case are insufficient to justify a search of the curtilage of defendant’s home under the community caretaker exception.

Knock & Talk

An officer’s implied right to knock and talk extends only to the entrance of a home that a reasonably respectful citizen unfamiliar with the home would believe is the appropriate door at which to knock. Without this limitation, law enforcement could freely wander around one’s home searching for exterior doors and, in the process, search any area of a home’s curtilage without a warrant.

Here, the deputy did more than simply knock and talk. He ran a license plate on a car whose license plate was not visible from the street (the car was registered at a different address), checked windows for signs of a break-in, and walked around the entire residence to “clear” the sides of the home before approaching the back door. This is precisely the sort of search of a residence that falls outside the knock and talk doctrine.

The background social norms that invite a visitor to the front door do not invite him there to conduct a search. Accordingly, the trial court erred by relying on the knock and talk doctrine to justify the deputy’s warrantless search of the curtilage of defendant’s home.

Reversed and remanded.

Concurrence

While the front door in this case may have been covered in cobwebs or not frequently used, a reasonably respectful citizen would not have taken this fact as an implied license to go to the back areas of the house, open the closed fence gate, cross the fenced backyard, open the storm door, and walk across the porch, just to knock upon the back door. The deputy’s actions far exceeded the scope of any implied license to conduct a knock and talk at defendant’s home without a warrant.