 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Employee Leasing Services in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
State v. Harada2/25/2002
Entering house to arrest. Whenever it is necessary to enter a house to arrest an offender, and entrance is refused, the officer or person making the arrest may force an entrance by breaking doors or other barriers. But before breaking any door, the officer or person shall first demand entrance in a loud voice, and state that the officer or person is the bearer of a warrant of arrest; or if it is a case in which arrest is lawful without warrant, the officer or person shall substantially state that information in an audible voice. (Emphasis added.)
The language employed is plain and unambiguous. On its face, HRS § 803-11 concerns "enter a house to [make an] arrest" and, thus, is directed at "the officer or person making the arrest." Dixon, 83 Hawaii at 15-16, 924 P.2d at 183-84. Hence, the words "entrance is refused" relate to the person so affected, that is, "the officer or person" who finds "it . . . necessary to enter a house to arrest an offender." Id. It is the officer or person making the arrest, then, who is empowered to enter for that purpose and who, as the words "entrance is refused" indicate, id., must first request entry.
Because, as stated in the statute, authorization to request entry is given "to [make] an arrest," the entry requested must be for that purpose. Id. The statute does not contemplate that the request to enter a house for the purpose of arrest be on any other ground; afortiorari, entry is authorized only upon a request to make an arrest. HRS § 803-11, then, does not permit any person except one acting in the capacity described, to enter other than upon a request to make an arrest. Because the statute does not authorize any other manner of serving an arrest warrant, it forecloses the use of a ruse that masks the true purpose of the request to enter.
Despite the clear language of HRS § 803-11, from which legislative intent is to be determined, Dixon relied on federal decisions under 18 U.S.C. § 3109 pertaining to search warrants and other state decisions, a course at odds with our duty to apply the plain language of our own statute. In arriving at the conclusion that "HRS § 803-11 is not implicated where entry is gained through an open door without use of force," Dixon, 83 Hawaii at 21, 924 P.2d at 189, this court rendered HRS § 803-11 a nullity. Seeinfra Part VII. In executing warrants, the police now need only resort to a ruse to obtain entry, a practice verified by Dixon, Eleneki, and the majority opinion in this case. Dixon went even further, in an analysis paying little heed to constitutional considerations of privacy in the execution of a warrant, a matter discussed infra in Part X.
V.
We are not faced with exigent circumstances in a situation where the police lacked a warrant. Here the police officers had a warrant; the exigent circumstances rule in that situation is applied for the purpose of excusing officers' adherence to the announcements required before entry, seeState v. Balberdi, 90 Hawaii 16, 21, 975 P.2d 773, 778 (App. 1999), and the constitutional mandate that they afford an occupant a reasonable time to respond to a demand for entry. SeeGarcia, 77 Hawaii at 467, 887 P.2d at 677 (holding that article I, § 7 of the Hawaii Constitution's mandate that search be reasonable requires officers to afford the occupants of the premises a reasonable time to respond to their announcement). Accordingly, the relevant exigent circumstances overriding constitutional and statutory mandates are those occurring prior to entry. Here, there were no exigent circumstances justifying an abandonment of the requirements set down in Garcia.
The so called "exigent circumstances" asserted by the prosecution originated not in the
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 Hawaii Employee Leasing Services
Employee Leasing Services
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Employee Leasing Services in your area.
|
|