Albuquerque Jury's Verdict in Favor of Officers in Home Invasion Case Overturned by the 10th Circuit - Feelings and Hunches Not a Basis of Cause
The decision in Danny Manzanares v. Sean Higdon, 07-2156, an officer of the Albuquerque Police Department, is a major victory for the rights of citizens being interrogated by the police in their own homes. The 7 yr. old case was brought by Dennis Montoya of Rio Rancho, New Mexico.
Danny Manzanares first consented to the officers entering his home to investigate allegations of rape made against a co-worker and friend, Miguel “Rick” Maestas. Danny later revoked consent, commanding the officers to leave and stop asking him questions. Instead of leaving, the officers arrested Manzanares, who was neither a material witness nor accessory to the crime of rape, but merely stopping short of informing on his friend’s address.
Continued ...
The Appeals Court in Denver overruled an Albuquerque jury’s decision in favor of the officer (which was erroneously upheld by the lower federal court).
Officers can’t arrest people in their own homes without a warrant, even if they have certain fears and suspicions of criminal activity. Having a hunch or a feeling that Danny Manzanares knew more than he was saying, Officer Sean Higdon decided to place handcuffs on Danny, hauling him out of his home and placing him in his patrol car.
Manzanares was then detained for more than three, perhaps up to seven hours in Higdon’s patrol car, while the officer drove him to the residence of his friend and primary suspect. The Court cited United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696, 709-10 (1983) for the fact that a detention of over 90 minutes automatically constitutes an ‘arrest’ and cannot be newspoken into merely an ‘investigative detention.’ Officer Higdon expressed his feelings of fear that “Manzanares might have alerted Maestas (the rape suspect) to the police investigation if freed.” Id. at 22. Officer Higdon also expressed his fear of guns, testifying that “ ‘I was in somebody’s house. I don’t know anything about this person or what weapons he may have accessible to him in his own house.’ He further explained, ‘I felt the need to put him in handcuffs, so I mean, I wouldn’t have just put him in handcuffs for no reason.’ Higdon acknowledged that Manzanares was not suspected of a crime.” Id. at 4.
After thoroughly reviewing landmark U.S. Supreme Court cases, concerning castles in Payton, 445 U.S. at 601, Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 (1961), and Randolph, 547 U.S. at 115, and even going all the way back to 1928 in Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 463, Circuit Judge Lucero affirmed the long-standing tradition that there is simply no place for the subjective feelings of an officer in the law, especially when the Constitutional rights of citizens are at stake.
“We will not lower the drawbridge to invite police into a home without a warrant or an established substitute therefor whenever officers ‘feel’ that a resident might impede an ongoing investigation. Such an exception would stand the Fourth Amendment on its head. See Randolph, 547 U.S. at 109 (exceptions to the warrant requirement must be ‘jealously and carefully drawn’ (quoting Jones, 357 U.S. at 499). A jealous drawing of exceptions also was important in Melendez-Garcia, 28 F.3d at 1052 and Cortez, 478 F.3d at 1115-16. Even local, seemingly-futile and near-forgotten 2003 war resistance cases like Buck v. City of Albuquerque, 549 F.3d 1269, 1281-82 (10th Cir. 2008) was cited for the notion that “neither the officer’s subjective beliefs nor information gleaned post-hoc bear on this inquiry.” Manzanares at 12. Keylon v. City of Albuquerque, 535 F.3d 1210, 1218 (10th Cir. 2008) was asserted for the notion that there are areas of law which are strictly “objective legal questions,” and shouldn’t require years of painfully waiting for justice.
Inexplicably, Higdon’s attorney obtained jury instructions regarding an ‘accessory’ in the commission of a crime, aiding a felon to avoid arrest, and whether Manzanares “helped, encouraged, or caused the [sexual assault] to be committed.” Manzanares at 13, fn. 9. Not even officer Higdon alleged that Danny had anything to do with the crime at the time of the arrest, leading the Court to the inescapable conclusion that, “no reasonable jury could have found for Higdon on the basis of either of these statutes.” Id.
The Court continues, quoting Groh, 540 U.S. at 559, “ ‘[E]ven when a felony has been committed and there is probable cause to believe that incriminating evidence will be found within” a home, police may not enter without a warrant absent exigent circumstances. Warrantless searches and seizures in the home are presumptively unreasonable. Groh v. Ramirez, 540 U.S. 551, 559 (2004). And, “[L]abeling an encounter in the home as either an investigatory stop or an arrest is meaningless because Payton’s requirements apply to all [such] seizures.” United States v. Reeves, 524 F.3d 1161, 1166 (10th Cir. 2008).
The case marks the third recent major reversal of a major civil rights case, beginning with Keylon, which could have settled much earlier (and at far less emotional cost to Plaintiffs) in the legal process, but for the City of Albuquerque’s blanket “no settlement” policy in civil rights cases. The case began on March 16, 2002 and is just now being remanded for a new jury trial on damages, which will include the costs of the appeal.
When asked for comment, Rio Rancho attorney Dennis Montoya said, “The principal value of the case is that it serves to more clearly define what police officers CANNOT do when they are dealing with an individual in his own home. The case outlines for police officers when they do and more importantly when they DO NOT have probable cause to arrest someone.”
The 10th Circuit also strictly followed the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Jimeno, 500 U.S. at 251, regarding a Plaintiff who initially agrees to talk with officers by letting them into his home, but later revokes consent. “Similarly, the Court has clearly established that the scope of a consensual encounter is controlled by the consenting person.” Id. A citizen commanding a public servant to leave her own home should be regarded as a clear order. The law will not play games with an individual citizen’s right to end any encounter, which may have initially started with consent.
If “at the very core of the Fourth Amendment stands the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion,” retreating home must always be respected, less the foundations of our country crumble. Payton, 445 U.S. at 589-90.
-Derek Garcia for the Kennedy Law Firm
