Colorado Court of Appeals People v. Clemens 11CA1460

Decision here.

   Police responded to a call of a fight.  They found a female and three male bystanders in the street.  Their investigation revealed that Clemens (who was no longer present) had been attacking the female with a golf club when one of the males tried to intervene.  Clemens also attacked that male, but then a second bystander kicked Clemens in the head.  Clemens ran away, and the third bystander called the police.

   The bystanders gave conflicting information about which house Clemens ran into, but the female said that she lived with Clemens at a house on the same block, and gave the police permission to enter the residence forcibly if need be.  Police made entry, and arrested Clemens.  He was charged with (and convicted of) second degree assault for attacking the female and third degree assault for attacking the first guy who came to her rescue.

   Clemens appealed his conviction on multiple grounds, but the one that matters for this blog is that he claimed that police lacked authority to enter his house without a warrant.  He claimed that the police should have made further inquiries into whether or not the female victim actually had standing in his house (apparently she didn't, although the court doesn't come right out and say that).

   The court held that the circumstances gave the officers an objectively reasonable basis for believing that the female had standing in Clemens' house.  They relied on factors like her claim that she lived there, the fact that she was found unclothed in the street near the house, that she claimed she had keys to the house (but that they were inside),and the fact that she gave permission to enter forcibly (which someone without standing would not feel entitled to do).  Clemens argues that all of this is at best ambiguous, since some of the bystanders thought he went into a different house.  

   Fortunately, the trial court and the Court of Appeals both recognized how stupid Clemens' argument is.  Especially considering that the police were dealing with an active crime scene involving assaults against multiple victims, this one inconsistency doesn't create the kind of ambiguity that Clemens imagines.  The police had every reason to believe that the female lived where she said she did, and therefore had standing to give consent for entry.  Since the court found that consent justified the entry, it didn't address whether or not exigent circumstances also justified the entry.

   Unfortunately, this case was reversed and sent back to the district court for a new trial.  The reversal of the lower court's decision had to do with a questionable jury selection, nothing that the police need to worry about.