Lead Opinion
OPINION
UPON A REHEARING EN BANC
A jury convicted Benjamin Wayne McCracken of possession of marijuana and two counts of assault and battery of a law
A panel of this court held that the trial court erred in admitting unlawfully seized marijuana and reversed the conviction of possession of marijuana. The panel held the defendant was not entitled to resist his arrest and affirmed the two convictions for assault and battery of a law enforcement officer. We granted a petition for rehearing en banc and stayed the mandate of the panel decision. Upon rehearing en banc, we affirm the trial court.
On appeal of the denial of a motion to suppress, we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth. Commonwealth v. Grimstead,
The defendant and Teresa Fields had lived together for almost three years in a house owned by Fields. During an argument, Fields called the 911 emergency dispatcher to have the defendant removed from her residence. When Deputies Dollar and Sexton responded to the “domestic disturbance” the couple were still arguing, but the situation had not escalated to violence. The defendant agreed to move out of Fields’ house, and the deputies remained for forty-five minutes and helped him remove his belongings. The defendant went to stay with his mother.
After the defendant arrived there, he telephoned Fields, and the two renewed their argument. When that call ended, the defendant’s mother telephoned Fields and warned her that the
When Deputy Dollar arrived at Fields’ house, the back door was locked, neighbors were in the front yard screaming, and the deputy heard Fields and the defendant arguing inside the house. The front door was partially open, but the screen door was closed. The deputy drew his weapon, pushed open the screen door, and entered.
The defendant and Fields were standing four to six feet apart. The deputy saw nothing in their hands. He holstered his weapon, but as he looked over the defendant, he noticed a bulge in his right front pants pocket. He asked the defendant to place his hands on the wall so he could make sure the defendant did not have any weapons. The defendant did not comply and kept moving around the room despite repeated requests to put his hands on the wall. Finally, the defendant stopped and put his hands on the back of a love seat.
While the defendant leaned against the love seat, the deputy patted the defendant’s front right pocket and felt a hard, rigid object in it. The deputy reached into the pocket for the hard object, but first uncovered a plastic baggie containing plant matter, which had been on top of the hard object. The deputy believed the bag contained marijuana. He told the defendant he was under arrest for possession of it and instructed the defendant to put his hands behind his back. Again the defendant disregarded instructions. He “kept easing away,” and then stated he wanted his Skoal and his gun. The defendant started toward the kitchen at a fast pace.
Deputy Dollar told the defendant to stop and grabbed hold of him. The defendant resisted; the two began to scuffle, and then to fight. During the altercation the defendant kicked the deputy, struck him in the face, and began choking him with a headlock hold. At that point, Deputy Sexton arrived. While he tried to break the defendant’s hold on Dollar, the defendant
Before opening the screen door, the deputy had probable cause to believe the defendant was trespassing, Code § 18.2-119.
As a trespasser, defendant had no justifiable expectation of privacy in Fields’ home and therefore no standing to contest the entry of the house. See Woodson v. Commonwealth,
The argument between Fields and the defendant could easily have escalated if the deputy had not acted immediately upon noticing the bulge in the defendant’s pocket. Domestic disturbances have a low flash point, and “violence may be lurking and explode with little warning.” Fletcher v. Town of Clinton,
After initially resisting, the defendant placed his hands on the love seat and permitted the officer to pat down the defendant’s pants pocket. At that point, the deputy was lawfully taking “such steps as [were] reasonably necessary to protect [his and others’] personal safety____” United States v. Hensley,
While a person is entitled to use reasonable force to resist an unlawful arrest, he is not entitled to resist a lawful arrest. Brown v. Commonwealth,
A lawful arrest, when made with unlawful force, may be resisted. Palmer v. Commonwealth,
We conclude the conduct of the deputy sheriffs in responding to this series of events was reasonable under the totality of the circumstances. Accordingly, we affirm.
Affirmed.
Notes
. Later searches revealed a rifle behind the bedroom door, five feet from the site of the struggle, and a folding knife in the defendant's right front pants pocket.
. Code § 18.2-119 provides:
If any person without authority of law goes upon or remains upon the lands, buildings or premises of another ... after having been forbidden to do so, either orally or in writing, by the owner, lessee, custodian or other person lawfully in charge thereof ... he shall be guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.
. The deputy was answering a complaint, a call for assistance from the homeowner, and he was entering the property of the complainant, not of the defendant. The deputy was not making a warrantless arrest of the defendant in his home as in Payton v. New York,
. In recognition of the difficulty of protecting against domestic violence, the General Assembly increased the duties of law-enforcement officers when responding to such incidents. See Code § 19.2-81.3. Police are entitled to arrest without a warrant though the violation does not occur in their presence. They must arrest “the primary physical aggressor” if they develop probable cause unless special circumstances exist. The police must make a written report of any incident in which they have probable cause that "family abuse” occurred and written explanation of the special circumstances if they do not arrest. Finally, if the officer has probable cause to believe that a danger of acts of family abuse exists, he “shall seek an emergency protective order....” "Family abuse" not only includes violence and force resulting in bodily injury, but it also includes a threat that places one in reasonable apprehension of bodily injury. See Code § 16.1-228.
Dissenting Opinion
dissenting.
I.
The evidence proved that Benjamin McCracken and Teresa Fields lived together in the house for nearly three years. Fields testified that on April 8, 2000, McCracken was asleep when she began cleaning the house. After the cleaning noise awakened McCracken, Fields and McCracken argued. Fields testified that she “had an excruciating headache, ... was ill,
When the police arrived, McCracken was putting various personal possessions in his car. Fields and McCracken explained that “they’d had [a] verbal argument and that [there] had been no assault.” When asked if he was able to calm the situation, the officer responded, “It seemed to have been not very escalated.” The officers remained while McCracken gathered some of his personal possessions and put them in his car. One officer described the situation as “very peaceful” and said they helped McCracken load some of his possessions. The other officer testified that McCracken was “very friendly, [that McCracken] agreed to leave, and [that] there were no problems whatsoever.” Fields testified that she and McCracken declined “to fill out any type of papers to keep each other away” and said “there was no purpose for that.”
McCracken went to his mother’s residence with some of his personal possessions and later telephoned Fields. During that conversation, McCracken and Fields were both agitated. McCracken’s mother later telephoned Fields to inform her that McCracken was returning to collect more of his personal possessions. Before McCracken arrived at the residence, Fields telephoned the police dispatcher and requested that the officers return to her home. Fields testified that she “overreacted” and telephoned for the officers to return because she had to go to work. She expected to be late arriving at work and did not want to be further delayed by an argument with McCracken. She testified that when McCracken arrived he told her “he was there to pick up some of his belongings.”
The officers returned to the residence about an hour and a half after they had left the residence. The first officer to arrive testified that before entering the residence, he heard
II.
McCracken contends the officers had neither probable cause to believe a crime was being committed nor exigent circumstances to justify their entry. The Commonwealth responds the “officers had probable cause at the time of their warrant-less entry to believe that cognizable exigent circumstances were present” because of a “domestic” dispute.
The United States Supreme Court has held that, “absent probable cause and exigent circumstances, warrantless [entries and] arrests in the home are prohibited by the Fourth Amendment.” Welsh v. Wisconsin,
The trial judge found that the officers acted reasonably in entering the residence and denied the motion to suppress. His findings included the following:
There is no question or at least I haven’t heard any evidence that would cause the Court to believe that the first*265 call was not made by her complaining about the conduct of [McCracken]. The officers responded. When they got there, evidently a reasonable inference would be that ... Fields and [McCracken] had come to some sort of agreement. The officers testified that there was no fighting or arguing, that he was in the process of removing his property. He was cooperative, he was loading his vehicle, his personal items, some of his stereo equipment. The officers even assisted him. So there is no evidence of any ill feeling or ill will from the first call. But the fact remains that ... Fields called for help the first time.... Shortly thereafter, an hour or hour and a half later, a second call comes in. And the evidence is unrebutted that [McCracken] is back on her property where he was living with her. And the Jury has heard evidence that there was screaming on the outside, one of the officers heard it, the other one didn’t. Officer Sexton says he didn’t. And when they go inside of the house, the Court is of the opinion that that was reasonable. I mean, here you had a second call where the officers thought [McCracken] was leaving and was cooperative and left. Now he’s back on the scene. And the owner of the property is calling the officers again for assistance. They respond. They come in, they observe, they know there’s been prior problems.
We have held that a call to the police dispatcher for assistance does not, without more, give rise to probable cause to believe a crime is occurring. Id. at 674-75,
The evidence also proved that when Fields called the police on the second occasion, McCracken had not arrived. Fields
Although the majority contends that McCracken had committed a trespass and had no expectation of privacy in the residence, no evidence supports that hypothesis. The Commonwealth never suggested at trial that McCracken committed a trespass or lacked standing. Moreover, the trial judge made no finding that McCracken committed a trespass or lacked standing. Indeed, prior to this hearing en banc, the Commonwealth never argued trespass or the lack of standing. I substantially agree, therefore, with the discussion in Part 1(A) of Judge Elder’s concurring and dissenting opinion that we have no basis to consider, in the first instance, these issues on appeal.
In addition, the evidence proved that when the prosecutor asked Fields, “who actually owns the home where this incident took place?,” Fields responded, “My father. He give it to me and my [minor] daughter.” Although the evidence did not indicate whether Fields and McCracken paid rent to Fields’ father, the evidence also did not prove McCracken had been barred by anyone from entering the house. Significantly,
The principle is well established that “no amount of probable cause can justify a warrantless [entry into a home] ... absent ‘exigent circumstances.’ ” Coolidge v. New Hampshire,
As in Shannon v. Commonwealth,
III.
“At the very core [of the Fourth Amendment] stands the right of a [person] to retreat into his [or her] own home and there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion.” Silverman v. United States,
Unlike in United States v. Moore,
An officer gaining access to private living quarters under color of his office and of the law which he personifies must then have some valid basis in law for the intrusion. Any other rule would undermine “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects,” and would obliterate one of the most fundamental distinctions between our form of government, where officers are under the law, and the police-state where they are the law.
Johnson,
“It has long been held in Virginia that where an officer attempts an unlawful arrest, the officer is an aggressor which gives the arrestee the right to use self-defense to resist so long as the force used is reasonable.” Brown v. Commonwealth, 27 Va.App. 111, 116-17,
The evidence proved that McCracken initially resisted being searched and then attempted to maneuver his way around the officer after the officer sought to arrest him. Because the attempt to search and arrest McCracken was made after the officer had unlawfully entered the home without a warrant, McCracken had a right to use reasonable force to resist any of the officer’s conduct. The encounter escalated to a physical altercation only when the officer jumped onto McCracken’s back.
The events that gave rise to the search and arrest all occurred within the home, after the officers had unlawfully entered the home and upon the officer’s discovery of evidence within the home during that unlawful entry. This is precisely the circumstance the Supreme Court’s decision in Payton barred by holding that “ ‘physical entry of the home is the chief evil against which the wording of the Fourth Amendment is directed.’”
For these reasons, I would hold that the officer’s warrant-less entry into the residence violated the Fourth Amendment. The officer’s unlawful entry negated his authority to search McCracken and make an arrest for events occurring inside the home.
. Although I would hold that the officer’s warrantless entry was presumptively unlawful and negated his power to arrest, I agree with the portion of Part 1(B) of Judge Elder’s concurring and dissenting opinion which indicates that the circumstances did not provide the officer with a reasonable, articulable suspicion that McCracken was armed and dangerous. “An officer may not, simply by observing some item causing a ‘bulge’ in one’s clothing, conduct a general frisk where the nature of the bulge or the surrounding circumstances do not reasonably support the conclusion that ... the person is armed and dangerous.” Stanley v. Commonwealth,
Concurrence Opinion
concurring, in part, in the judgment and dissenting, in part.
For the reasons that follow, I concur in the majority’s affirmance of appellant’s two convictions for assault and battery on a law enforcement officer but dissent from its affirmance of his conviction for marijuana possession. I substantially concur in the majority’s recitation of the relevant facts.
I.
A.
TRESPASS
The majority concludes the search of appellant was valid as incident to arrest because Deputy Dollar had probable cause to arrest for trespass before he conducted the search. I recognize the principle that an appellate court may affirm the
In the trial court, the Commonwealth argued that the deputy had a right
to do a frisk search ... to protect himself because ... he didn’t know what he was looking at coming in on that second call. And once he found an object in the pocket, he had the right to take that object out and that turned out to be the marijuana. It’s a valid frisk, it’s a valid arrest....
Appellant argued the police lacked probable cause to enter and also lacked the articulable suspicion necessary to justify a weapons frisk. The trial court ruled that, based on the events occurring during the deputies’ first and second trips to the residence, they had the right to “do[ ] a pat down to ensure their own safety.” The court expressly found that Teresa Fields was the owner of the house, a subsidiary factual finding relevant to the issue of whether a trespass occurred. However, neither party mentioned whether appellant was a trespasser or had standing to contest Deputy Dollar’s entry of the residence, and the trial court gave no indication that it considered these issues or made any of the additional factual findings critical to their resolution.
Thus, I would hold that neither the existence of probable cause to arrest appellant for trespassing nor his alleged lack of standing to contest Deputy Dollar’s entry of the residence, provides a valid basis for affirming appellant’s convictions and
B.
WEAPONS FRISK
In order for an officer to conduct a weapons frisk, two conditions must exist. First, the officer must rightly be in the presence of the party frisked so as to be endangered if the person is armed. See, e.g., 4 Wayne R. LaFave, Search and Seizure § 9.5, at 246 (3d ed.1996). Second, the officer must be able to point to “ ‘specific and articulable facts’ ” “which reasonably lead[ ] him to conclude, in light of his experience, ... that the suspect ‘may be armed and presently dangerous.’ ” Lansdown v. Commonwealth,
In assessing whether a particular person may be armed and dangerous, an officer may consider “characteristics of the area surrounding the stop, the time of the stop, the specific conduct of the suspect individual, the character of the offense under suspicion, and the unique perspective of a police officer trained and experienced in the detection of crime.” Christian v. Commonwealth,
Here, Deputy Dollar responded to Fields’ second 911 call and entered her residence through an unlocked door only after he encountered neighbors in the front yard yelling and heard arguing inside the residence. Thus, Deputy Dollar was rightly in appellant’s presence. Nevertheless, the evidence did not provide Deputy Dollar with reasonable, articulable suspicion to conclude that the object in appellant’s pocket may have been a weapon. Although Deputy Dollar was responding to a 911 “domestic call” at Fields’ residence for the second time that day, the first call involved only “verbal arguing,” was “not very escalated,” and resolved peacefully with no indication that either party possessed a weapon or was predisposed to use violence toward the other or toward the deputies. When Deputy Dollar returned the second time, neighbors were in the front yard yelling, and Dollar heard the parties inside “verbally arguing back and forth” while he stood on the front porch, but Dollar did not testify that he overheard either party threaten the other or that he heard anything indicating physical violence or abuse.
When Dollar entered unannounced, he immediately saw Fields and appellant standing at least four feet apart, he noticed nothing unusual about Fields’ appearance, and he saw nothing in either party’s hands. Although he noticed appellant’s right front pocket was “bulging” and concluded that appellant had “something” inside his pocket, Dollar articulated no specific basis for believing that “something” might be a weapon. Before Deputy Dollar attempted to frisk appellant for weapons, appellant engaged in no additional behavior and
Thus, I would conclude Deputy Dollar lacked reasonable articulable suspicion to believe appellant was both armed and presently dangerous when Dollar told appellant he intended to frisk appellant for weapons. I recognize that domestic disputes often are fraught with danger for both their participants and the law enforcement officers trying to diffuse them. See, e.g., Fletcher v. Town of Clinton,
C.
ASSAULT AND BATTERY ON A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER
“An unlawful arrest or an arrest utilizing excessive force is a battery because that touching is not justified or excused and therefore is unlawful.” Gnadt v. Commonwealth,
No Virginia appellate decision holds that an arrest is unlawful for purposes of entitling the arrestee to resist the arrest simply because the evidence which provides probable cause for the arrest is obtained in a search or seizure that is unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment. Cf. Commonwealth v. Hill,
[t]he privilege [to resist] is available only if the arrest was “unlawful.” The parties agree that appellant was arrested*277 after the agents discovered the marihuana in his suitcase [while conducting an unreasonable search]. The agents then had probable cause to believe that a felony was being committed in their presence. The warrantless arrest was therefore lawful, in itself. It was “unlawful” only in the exclusionary-rule sense that it was “fruit” of the prior unlawful search. We have been cited no authority, and have found none, that permits resistance to an arrest that is unlawful only in this derivative sense.
Id. (emphasis added).
The court in Moore examined “[t]he purposes of the privilege [to resist an unlawful arrest],” which it cited as “deter[ring] abuses of police authority” and “preserving] the sense of personal liberty and integrity ... by protecting from punishment persons who reasonably resist unlawful intrusions by government agents.” Id. at 1365. It concluded that “the resolution of often difficult issues relating to the lawfulness of the search [upon which the challenged arrest was based] are surely best left to subsequent court proceedings.” Id.; see also Hill,
II.
In sum, I would hold that, although Deputy Dollar was rightly in appellant’s presence, the weapons frisk violated the Fourth Amendment because the presence of a bulge in appellant’s pocket was insufficient under the facts of this case to provide reasonable suspicion that appellant was armed and dangerous. However, I would also hold that appellant had no right to resist his arrest for possession of marijuana. Thus, I concur in the majority’s affirmance of appellant’s two convictions for assault and battery of a law enforcement officer but dissent from its affirmance of the conviction for marijuana possession.
. The court indicated in Moore that it might be willing to extend the right to resist an arrest supported by probable cause if the arrestee ”claim[ed] ... bad faith, unreasonable force, or provocative conduct on the part of the arresting officer.”
Assuming that whether the officer acted in bad faith would be relevant under Virginia law, see Brown,
Further, as discussed in the majority opinion, Virginia law recognizes a right to resist an arrest involving excessive force, and this right did not apply under the facts of this case.