Minn. Supreme Court reverses Meeker County fourth amendment case – West Central Tribune

The case stemmed from a 2015 arrest in Grove City. CEE-VI Drug and Gang Task Force agents had an arrest warrant for Leona Rose deLottinville, then 27, of Grove City. It was alleged that she had violated court-ordered conditions of release.

With information that deLottinville was at her boyfriend's Grove City home, officers went there on March 24, 2015, where they allegedly saw deLottinville through a glass patio door.

One officer opened the unlocked door, went inside the home, and arrested deLottinville.

Marijuana and a bong were sitting in plain view on a countertop.

After deLottinville's arrest, officers obtained a search warrant for the home and allegedly found marijuana, meth, hydrocodone pills and drug paraphernalia. She was charged with two additional counts of fifth-degree drug possession, and possession of drug paraphernalia.

In Meeker County District Court, deLottinville submitted a motion to dismiss all of the charges on the grounds that police should not have been allowed to enter the home.

Judge Stephanie Beckman granted the motion, and dismissed all charges against deLottinville in August 2016. Even as a short-term guest, Beckman stated, deLottinville had an expectation of privacy in the home.

The Minnesota Court of Appeals reversed that ruling, arguing that a guest in a home does not have a right to more privacy than the homeowner.

That decision was appealed to, and upheld by, the Minnesota Supreme Court, which issued the ruling Wednesday.

Justice David L. Lillehaug authored the opinion filed with the ruling.

In the Payton v. New York ruling, he wrote, the U.S. Supreme Court determined that an arrest warrant was grounds to enter the home in which that individual lives to arrest them.

What was not determined, Lillehaug wrote, was "whether the same holds true when the subject of an arrest warrant is believed to be present in another person's home."

The U.S. Supreme Court also previously ruled that an arrest warrant for a guest in a home does not justify searching the home. In that case, a search warrant would be required.

The case ruled upon on Wednesday, then, involved a window that had not yet been defined: What are a guest's rights inside a home?

Lillehaug wrote that even though the home is traditionally where an individual has a right to privacy, police can still enter to execute an arrest warrant. That constitutional reasoning should not change when the individual is in a home other than their own, Lillehaug wrote.

"A guest should not receive any greater Fourth Amendment protection when outside her home than when inside it," he wrote.

Justice Margaret H. Chutich dissented from the ruling.

She disagreed with the Supreme Court's application of the Payton v. New York ruling in the current case.

"This unwarranted extension of Payton fails to apply later Fourth Amendment precedents," Chutich wrote, "and fails to protect the right of a host from unreasonable governmental intrusion into the sanctity of her home, a right at the 'very core' of the Fourth Amendment."

The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits unreasonable search and seizure.

In the opinion, Lillehaug had acknowledged that, with the ruling, there would be "potential for abuse." But he said that in this case, deLottinville was visible to the officer before he entered the home. There was no evidence of abuse, he said.

Chutich wrote that that potential for abuse "is not merely theoretical."

"Minnesotans would certainly be surprised to realize that the police can enter their homes at any time with nothing more than an arrest warrant for an overnight guest, or even a short-term social guest," she said.

Go here to see the original:
Minn. Supreme Court reverses Meeker County fourth amendment case - West Central Tribune