OPINION OF THE COURT BY
Riсky Barrett entered a conditional guilty plea to first degree possession of a controlled substance following the trial court’s denial of his motion to suppress evidence. The Court of Appeals affirmed, and this Court granted discretionary review. Barrett argues that police entered and searched his home in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Cоnstitution and Section 10 of the Kentucky Constitution. For reasons stated herein, we affirm the Court of Appeals.
I. BACKGROUND.
Covington Police received a tip from an anonymous caller that Ricky Barrett was currently located at 2721 Rosina Avenue.’ Dispatch confirmed that multiple arrest warrants had been issued for Barrett and directed officers to the residence. Dispatch also informed the officers that the last police contact with Barrett had occurred at that address and that Barrett was listed as the homeowner.
Officer Edwards continued to knock on the door using his flashlight to knock louder. Without touching the handle or the lock, this added force caused the door to open.
Once inside, Officer Edwards positioned himself at the bottom of a staircase just inside the door, and Officer Isaacs searched the downstairs rooms. After Officer Edwards again announced the officers’ presence inside the house, he heard a woman’s voice call out from the second floor. Officer Edwards аsked her to come downstairs, which she did. The woman told the officers that she was Deborah Barrett and that she owned the house. When asked if Ricky Barrett was inside the house, Mrs. Barrett replied that he was hiding upstairs in a closet. Officer Edwards remained downstairs with Mrs. Barrett, and Officers Isaacs and Christian proceeded up the stairs to locate Barrett.
The officers fоund a hallway closet at the top of the stairs, and Officer Christian remained outside of it while Officer Isaacs searched the other rooms on the second floor. While searching one bedroom, Officer Isaacs observed syringes and other drug paraphernalia in plain view. Officer Christian then heard noise from inside the hallway closet and called out fоr assistance. Officer Isaacs immediately returned and both officers found Barrett hiding inside and arrested him. Officer Isaacs then collected three syringes and a spoon and filter containing possible heroin residue from the bedroom, which Mrs. Barrett later identified as Ricky Barrett’s.
A Kenton County Grand Jury indicted Barrett for first-degree possession of a controlled substance (heroin). Barrett filed a motion to suppress the evidence collected from the bedroom. The trial court held a hearing on June 25, 2012 and, after hearing testimony from Officers Edwards and Isaacs and arguments from the parties, denied the motion. Barrett entered a conditional guilty plea, and the court sentenced him to 18 months’ imprisonment. The Court of Appеals affirmed the trial court’s denial of Barrett’s motion to suppress, and this Court granted discretionary review. For the following reasons, we affirm.
II. STANDARD OF REVIEW.
The standard of review of the trial court’s denial of a suppression motion is
III. ANALYSIS.
As he did before the trial court and the Court of Appeals, Barrett argues that: the initial entry into the residence by police was unlawful; and the search of the upstairs rooms exceeded a lawful scope. If either is correct then the evidence should have been suppressеd as fruit of the poisonous tree in violation of the Fourth Amendment. We address each argument in turn.
A. The Initial Entry.
The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Section 10 of the Kentucky Constitution protect citizens against unreasonable searches and seizures by the government. The “physical entry of the home is the chief evil against which the wording of the Fourth Amendment is directed.” United States v. U.S. Dist. Court fоr E. Dist. of Mich., S. Div.,
This Court has cited this rule in two prior decisions, but we have never had occasion to interpret the “reason to believe” standard set forth in Payton. See Kerr v. Commonwealth,
Despite what appears to be clear language, courts are split over the meaning of the phrase “reason to believe.” The majority of courts that have considered the standard have held that it is less exacting than probable cause. See United States v. Pruitt,
The Sixth Circuit’s line of decisions on this question is noteworthy. In Pruitt, police arrested Pruitt in his home for possession of contraband.
Two years later, a different panel of the Court decided Hardin. There, police, acting pursuant to an arrest warrant and multiple informants, arrested Hardin in his girlfriend’s apartment and charged him with possession of contraband found during the arrest. Id. at 407-08. The issue in the case concerned the proper standard for evaluating the quantum of proof required for police to enter a residence to execute an arrest warrant. Id. at 410. The government argued that Pruitt’s “lesser reasonable belief.standard” and not probable cause should have applied. Id. However, the Court declined to follow Pruitt, labeling ⅜ holding as dicta because the Court found the police clearly had probable cause to believe that Pruitt was inside the residence. Therefore, the choice of one standard over the other was not necessary to the outcome of the case. Id. at 413. The Court then held that the information the police possessed failed to establish even a reasonable belief that Hardin was inside the apartment, so the Court declined to adopt either standard. Id. at 426.
In full consideration of the diversity of legal authоrity and the reasoning supporting that authority, we expressly adopt the plain language reason to believe standard from Payton and reject the probable cause standard. Thus, police executing a valid arrest warrant may lawfully enter a residence if they have reason to believe that the suspect lives there and is presently inside. Reason to bеlieve is established by looking at common sense factors and evaluating the totality of the circumstances and requires less proof than does the probable cause standard. Pruitt,
We adopt this rule for three key reasons. First and foremost, a plain reading of Payton requires reason to believe and not probable cause. In. the words of one federal district court, “when the Court wishes to use the term ‘probable cause,’ it knows how to do so.” Smith v. Tolley,
By way of example, in Maryland v. Buie,494 U.S. 325 ,110 S.Ct. 1093 ,108 L.Ed.2d 276 (1990) thé Supreme Court held:
[B]y requiring a protective sweep to be justified by probable cause to believe that a serious and demonstrable potentiality for danger existed, the Court of Appeals of Maryland applied an unnecessarily strict Fourth Amendment standard. The Fourth Amendment permits a properly limited protective sweep in conjunction with an in-home arrest when the searching officer possesses a reasonable belief based on specific and artic-ulаble facts that the area to be swept harbors an individual posing a danger to those on the arrest scene.dard to be applied by police for conducting protective sweeps, it is evident that the Supreme Court does not use the terms probable cause and reasonable belief interchangeably, but rather that it considers reasonable belief to be a less stringent standard than probable cause.
Second, the rights of suspects will be adequately protected by using this standard. When police execute a valid arrest warrant, a neutral and detached magistrate has already made a' probable cause evaluation that the suspect has committed a crime. Commonwealth v. Marshall,
Third, with this holding we join the majority of other courts in adopting the reason tо believe standard. Although not controlling, we are persuaded by the reasoning of the overwhelming majority of federal circuit and state courts that have held that the “reason to believe” language is a less exacting standard than probable cause. Wayne R. LaFave, 3 Search And Seizure: A Treatise On The Fourth Amendment § 6.1(a) at n. 22 (5th ed. 2014) (citing Commonwealth v. Silva,
As applied here, thе police had a reason to believe, according to common sense factors and evaluating the totality of the circumstances, •' that Barrett lived at 2721- Rosina Avenue and was currently located • inside. The unidentified caller clearly stated that Barrett was present at the address. The dispatcher confirmed that the last police contact with Barrett occurred, at that address and reported that Barrett was the homeowner. Although this latter fact turned put to be false (Ricky Barrett, Sr. was the actual homeowner), it is undisputed that Barrett lived in the house and there- is no evidence that police acted in bad faith. Once police, arrived at the house, the sound of voices and movement insidе perpetuated the belief that Barrett was inside. See Route,
In sum, we continue to follow a plain reading of‘the Paytoh rule which allows police to enter a suspect’s residence with a valid arrest warrant when they have a reason to believe that the suspect lives in the residence and can currently be found inside. Reason to believe requires less proof than probable cause and is established by evaluating the totality of the circumstances and common sense factors. Because we find that the police satisfied the аppropriate standard, we discern no error in the trial court’s denial of Barrett’s motion to suppress as to the initial police entry.
B. The Search.
Barrett also argues that once the officers entered the residence, their search
It is weli established that war-rantless searches and seizures inside a home are presumptively unreasonable. Brumley v. Commonwealth,
Here, the police lawfully entered Barrett’s house and immediately began searching for him on the first floor. When Mrs. Barrett revealed that Barrett- was hiding in a closet upstairs, police сontinued their search on the second floor. The officers did, in fact, find a hall closet at the top of the stairs; however, Mrs. Barrett did not specify in which upstairs closet Barrett was hiding. She could just as easily have been referring to a closet in a bedroom. To promote officer safety and conduct a quick general search before a closet by closet search, police reasonably checked the .other rooms on the. second floor before opening the hallway closet.
Furthermore, as soon as Officer Christian heard noise fl’om inside the closet he called for Officer Isaacs to end his search of the other rooms and assist him. Thus, the officers did not exceed the scоpe of a lawful search under Payton.
Moreover, the search of the bedroom was permissible under the protective sweep exception to the warrant requirement. Maryland v. Buie,
The Commonwealth argues that Officer Isaac’s search of the bedroom falls within Buie’s first category. We agree. We addressed a similar situatiоn in Kerr v. Commonwealth. There, police arrested Kerr in the hallway of a guestroom, and this Court permitted the search of a nearby bedroom as a place adjoining the place of arrest from which an attack could be immediately launched.
Under either warrant exception, Officer Isaacs was lawfully in a position to view the drug рaraphernalia and there is no dispute that the items were in plain view and their incriminating nature was immediately apparent. Hazel v. Commonwealth,
IV. CONCLUSION.
For the reasons stated above, we affirm the trial court’s denial of Barrett’s motion to suppress the drug paraphernalia evidence.
Notes
. The actual homeowners were later determined to be Ricky Barrett, Sr. and Deborah
. Both Officers Edwards and Isaаcs testified at the Suppression Hearing that the use of the flashlight caused the door to open. However, on cross-examination, Officer Edwards admitted that he reported in the Uniform Citation that he "located the front door ajar." Officer Edwards explained that the door was not ajar but was not securely shut either.
. Courts have used "reasonable belief” synonymously with “reason to believe.” See, e.g., Hardin,