You have the right to be secure in your person, your home and your effects. You have the right to expect no unreasonable searches and seizures. You have the right to move about freely without harassment or suspicionless detention. This subreddit is dedicated to the upholding and exercising of these rights.
It is 1am and I woke up to pee and saw what looked like a car pull into my driveway. Upon realizing it was a cruiser, I ran to my kitchen door to meet him. I came out to find him with a flashlight about to walk into my garage. It was left completely open by my husband earlier in the night. He stops dead in his tracks and says he was "just seeing what's going on" because the door was open. I said "oh" and close it. He says have a good night and gets back in the cruiser and leaves.
We own a home in a very safe, suburban area, I am puzzled as to why he would walk onto my property for that reason. Wondering if he was trying to spot "something" in plain view... My husband and I have no arrests or any records. Would love some input...
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Did he have good or bad motives? Who knows. The issue is whether, if the LEO had observed contraband in plain view in the garage, he could have seized it. Applying the Horton test, we have to determine if the officer was lawfully present on your driveway. We can also ask whether that presence constituted a search, but frequently that's not even going to matter. That second question asks whether you had a reasonable expectation of privacy in your garage.
The fact that a police officer does not have your consent when he comes onto your curtilage does not alone make his presence unlawful. There are a host of legitimate reasons for an LEO to come onto your property. One fine example might be, "I noticed from the street that the garage door was open and went to notify the homeowner."
So then we have to wonder whether the entry was a search, and that means we have to decide if your expectation of privacy in the garage was reasonable. Well, it was the middle of the night and dark. On the other hand, the garage was open and presumably at the end of your driveway. It would be perfectly reasonable to expect that any person would come onto your driveway adjacent to your garage, whether or not he was police and whether you invited him or not, and in so doing you might expect any person to be able to see into the garage. The real issue here is that the officer was using a flashlight to assist himself to see things he could not see with the naked eye.
There's a pretty compelling argument to be made that looking into your open garage without a flashlight from the driveway is not even a search. If he finds contraband sitting out in the open, you're up the creek, because Horton tells him he doesn't need a warrant anyway.
If the officer sweeps the light over contraband, then we have to worry about whether he's searching: If you had no expectation of privacy, even considering the flashlight, then you're dead again under Horton. On the other hand, if you reasonably expected that your dark garage would be unobserved from the driveway despite being open, you might have a leg to stand on to exclude the contraband. However, you're not done there. Even if you have a search on your hands, it's possible that a court could rule that the search was nevertheless unintrusive enough that it was legitimate even without a warrant, due to the officer's stated justification for his presence.
In your particular case I'm not sure how things would go down, but I certainly wouldn't want to litigate it if anything were found.
Remember that no amount of friendly and neighborly intentions on the LEO's part are going to stop him from up-ending your life over something illegal he sees in the garage. I don't have any problem with giving him the benefit of the doubt, but just keep in mind that at least in this situation, you're no less vulnerable to a friendly officer than a hostile one.
Moral of the story: Close your damn garage door.
Using a flashlight to enhance plain view is not a violation or an issue. It has been addressed in multiple Supreme Court cases.
Texas v. Brown
United States v. Dunn
United States v. Lee.
Your "moral of the story" is completely accurate, though!
I would absolutely draw a line between Brown and this situation just because we're talking about a person's home. Since there's a distinction between vehicles and a person's home for purposes of intrusiveness, I think we've still got to deal with the question of whether, in particular, OP had a reasonable expectation that his open garage would be free from search (by an officer with a flashlight).
Let's take a look at Dunn, though, since it's a lot closer to our facts even though I'm not sure it would have the application here that you say it does (or that it would have even a year ago). In Dunn, we've got an open barn that the cops are shining their light into, at some distance from the home. The Court holds that the area near barn isn't even curtilage. On the other hand, take a look at Brennan's dissent. The facts in Dunn seem to me a pretty horrific example of the Court forcing the outcome it likes. I'm not sure it would stand modern scrutiny (or at least it is to be hoped), especially after the likes of Jardines.
Granted, Jardines involves an element completely absent here (the dog). However, I think given the posture of the majority, I'd absolutely be willing to argue that a police officer intruding onto my property to search my open, darkened garage is impermissable. Is it a good defense? Absolutely not. I think on the whole the homeowner is probably good and hosed here. But there's an argument to be made, if a feeble one.
The officer heard a noise or perceived movement in the garage and illuminated the garage to ensure that it wasn't a threat to his safety.
Bar exam is over. Find a job.
Got a job. What's your problem?
Maybe he thought it was odd that a garage was left open at 1am possibly thinking it could be intruders/thieves.
Yeah, if I lived in a nice neighborhood, I would totally hate the local police being proactive in keeping it nice. And if they patrol the same neighborhood every night at the same time and one night see something odd, indicating a crime is possibly being committed, I would be so up in arms about them doing any kind of investigation. How dare they look out for me, my family or my property. I have rights!
dick
maybe its me, but I've been noticing a ton of boot lickers in threads here lately and upvoting stupid pro-cop shit
He probably thought...wait for it...
...that you had forgotten to close your garage door. He was probably trying to see if anybody or any animal was rummaging through your garage trying to steal anything.
Sometimes police aren't out to get you. If he walked up to your garage door and then turned around once he saw you, then he wasn't "looking for something" to get you with. If he was doing that, he would have "found" it and proceeded to harass you.
I once hosted some friends in college one night and was about to drive them home (eg: garage door was open but we weren't in the garage yet). Cops knocked on my door (I thought there was a noise complaint from overactive neighbors or something) and let me know it was up and before I could even say thanks they had half-turned around and were walking away. They obviously didn't care about anything other than letting me know so I could act accordingly.
It could be either or. There are snoopy cops and dirty cops just looking for shit as well. Maybe he was being nice, as in your case. I honestly find it odd for a cop to knock on people's houses when they leave their garage open. I've lived in nice areas, and decent ones, and I've seen neighbors leave their garage door open as I have as well. Never seen or heard of a cop doing this, but doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
Whether you have experienced nice cops just telling you your garage door was open or not, using inductive reasoning the most probable explanation was that he was double checking that nothing was amiss before letting the homeowner know that the garage door was open.
Presumption of innocence, people.
That's hilarious, since they often seem to have us prove our innocence.
In a different scenario, I'd say give them the benefit of the doubt. But they're too crooked.
That doesn't make it okay for us to not do it for them. It's exactly what makes us better than crooked cops, and it's how we can find it reprehensible for them to not do it for us.
Sure it does, because...fuck them. What makes us better than cops, is not being one. They're all pieces of shit.
The most rational explanation and you got downvoted. There are many opportunities to criticize the way cops behave. This isn't one of them.
My dad was an NYPD LT who would bring home free stuff.
I will swear on whatever family member's life you prefer, on that note.
I was aware of many of his co-workers who enjoyed lifestyles a bit higher than their salaries dictated. One partner he had in undercover work, never wore a shirt twice. Worn once and discarded, NOT donated somewhere.
I could write books.
What does this have to do with anything that is in this thread?
Cops stealing things.
From other people.
I found it quite relevant, using simple logic connecting possible theft by cop, and past anecdotes about theft by cop, in response to doubt of such a thing occurring.
It seems to have upset some people. I expected that.
I did tell the truth about cops stealing, in response to the subject of xops possibly stealing.
In short, my comment has to do with cops stealing, in response to the subject of cops stealing. Ask me for more clarity if you like.
Expect this is not in response to the subject of cops stealing. The subject is, as worst, cops attempting to find something in that garage to use against the OP to arrest them. But in reality, what likely happened was that the officer saw an open garage door in the middle of the night and was making sure people weren't stealing things from there.
To say that the cops were possibly stealing because of your anecdote is ridiculous. And the person you chose to respond to said nothing about stealing of any sort.
An officer left a note on our front door reminding us to shut the garage at night so things don't get stolen.
Unless the weather is perfect, a front door could also invite an officer to investigate if it was kicked in.
It's probably nothing.
But just in case, a locked door keeps an honest person honest.
I don't get how cops are seemingly unafraid of being shot when they enter someone's property unannounced, especially at night.
They know they have trained the citizens well.
Well we love in a super liberal state where no chief of police in a 50 mile radius would grant a permit to carry
Except you don't need a permit to carry in your fucking house.
I know, I'm just making a point that there aren't many gun owners around here at all, especially the kind who's first reaction is to shoot
Sounds like a great place to a thief.
MA or NY?
MA
It sounds harmless, every once and a while cops actually are just there to help.
And if you woke up the next morning and found everything of value was stolen out of your garage, who would you call?
Of course he did. Tell him to leave.
Should have told the uninvited swine that that's a good way to get shot in the brain.
Felony trespass with force.
What kind of force?
Maybe the flashlight was really bright and it hurt her eyes for a second.
It's their gun
Nope. Not if he didn't use it, it's not.