Case Story: a Rare DWI Dismissal

We often hear the phrase “the end can’t justify the means.” Less often, however, are we told what that actually means.

So… what does it mean?

Well, in the criminal law, it is the backbone of all our legal arguments.

Why?

Because oftentimes, our clients have actually done something wrong—committed a crime, been present when a crime was committed, etc. But just because someone did something wrong doesn’t mean the state can use illegal means and methods to prove that person acted illegally.

In this example, the “end” is proving a person acted illegally. The “means” is the way the police proved the illegality. So, when we say the “end can’t justify the means,” what we mean is that just because a person acted illegally doesn’t mean it’s OK for the police to prove the person’s guilt however they want.

This is because the only time that we discover law enforcement’s violation of our constitutional rights is when they charge someone with a crime. So by protecting the rights of people charged with crimes, we protect the rights of us all.

That’s what this case is about.

Law enforcement suspected our client of drunken driving—the “end.” But when police showed up to his house to prove it—the “means”—they entered his house without a warrant. This is illegal. So we challenged it, making the straightforward argument that the end of arresting a person for drunken driving cannot justify the means of violating the person’s Fourth Amendment rights.

The judge agreed with us and dismissed the case.

Here’s how we did it.

The Charge

As many in northern Minnesota do, our client went fishing with a friend one day last summer. The two brought some beer with them and drank a few while on the lake. When they got off the water, a state inspector checked the boat for weeds and other invasive species. During the check, the inspector saw some empty beer cans in the boat and claimed to smell alcohol on my client and his friend.

Not being a law enforcement official, the inspector let the two leave in their trucks. After they left, the inspector called the police and reported what he claimed to see. An officer responded to the call by driving to our client’s house to question him about his fishing and alleged drinking.

Our client’s house was located on a specific street in the town where he lived. We’ll call it Alpha St. for the story. The front door of the home looked out onto Alpha St., and that’s also where the mailbox was located. You’ll see why this becomes important in a moment.

When the officer arrived, he parked his car on Beta St. (again changed for the story). Now the side of our client’s house, including the garage, was on Beta St. And that’s because the house was on a corner lot. The front of the house looked out onto Alpha St. and the side of the house and garage looked out onto Beta St.

Despite knowing the house’s address was on Alpha St., and despite not seeing any traditional front door on the side of the house that looked out onto Beta St., the officer entered the house from Beta St.

He did so by walking up the home’s driveway (on Beta St.) and into the garage (on Beta St.), which was open. Before doing this, he didn’t knock on any outside door to the garage, he didn’t knock on any front door to the house, and he didn’t get anyone’s permission.

He just walked into the garage, found a service door that went into the home, and knocked on it.

When our client answered the service door, he was surprised to see it was a police officer, as he had not permitted him to come into his home this way.

The officer then asked our client permission to enter his home, even though he had already entered the home by coming into the garage. Our client agreed, the two talked, and the officer ultimately arrested our client for suspected DWI.

After bailing himself out, our client hired us and told us what happened, and we immediately zeroed in on the officer’s decision to enter the garage the way he did. Believing it was illegal, we moved to suppress the evidence the officer found after he entered the garage.

The Legal Fight

The fight was over the Fourth Amendment. Under the Fourth Amendment, for the police to enter your home, they must have one of three things:

1. Your permission

2. A warrant

3. An exception to the warrant requirement

One quick thing that you might be wondering about—yes, a person’s garage is part of their house. The legal term is “curtilage,” and the idea is that your home means more than just inside the four walls of where you live. Instead, your home means your actual house, your garage, the front porch of your house, and some other stuff.

Since the officer went into our client’s garage, that counts as his house, and so the Fourth Amendment applies.

Now since the officer didn’t ask, or get, our client’s permission before going inside the garage, 1) doesn’t apply. So really the fight comes down to 2) and 3), that is, did the officer have a warrant to go inside the garage or did he have an exception to the warrant requirement that allowed him to go into the garage.

The first one was easy—the officer did not have a warrant. That was not in dispute. So the only question was whether there was some exception justifying the officer’s warrantless entry into the garage.

We said there wasn’t; the state said there was.

The Decision

The judge sided with us.

He ruled that the officer entered our client’s garage without permission, without a warrant, and without an acceptable justification for his warrantless entry.

This was despite the officer later determining our client had likely driven under the influence.

That’s a big deal.

The judge essentially did what a judge who takes their job seriously must do: put aside the fact that a person may be guilty of a crime and apply the law, no matter the outcome.

The state tried to say that the officer’s warrantless intrusion into the garage wasn’t that bad, and that old caselaw in Minnesota allowed this type of conduct in some cases.

The judge disagreed.

He ruled that the caselaw was clear: before walking into someone’s garage without permission or a warrant, an officer must first go to the front door, knock, and try to make contact that way. If that doesn’t work, then sometimes an officer can try other forms of entry into the home—through a garage, for example.

But that’s not what happened here. The officer did not first go knock on the door on Alpha St. Instead, he immediately entered through the garage on Beta St.

That was illegal.

And since the only way the officer learned that our client had been drinking and driving that day was because of the illegal entry through the garage, this tainted the evidence and justified its suppression.

In short, the judge held the officer accountable for not following the rules related to investigating crimes.

Even if the “end” turned out to be that our client had broken the law, the “means” the officer used to get to this “end” was illegal.

And two wrongs can’t make a right.

The Takeaway

The situation here is probably the hardest one judges face in the criminal law: what do you do when you are fairly sure the person charged with the crime actually committed the crime, but the way the officers figured it out violates the constitution?

Do you sweep it under the rug? He’s guilty, after all, so it’s not like you’re punishing a choirboy.

Or do you fulfill the oath you pledged to uphold and say, no, no matter what the person did, the police cannot break the law to catch a lawbreaker?

The law must always be greater than the lawbreaker. Otherwise it is no law at all.

There will be many more DWI cases in this officer’s life.

There won’t be any more Fourth Amendments.

And so if it’s a question of which one takes precedence, the answer must always, always, always be the Fourth Amendment.

Remember, the law is only the law when it applies fairly in all circumstances. Not just to people we like. Or conduct we like. Always.

This case proved that, and this judge deserves credit for enforcing the law.

His ruling was simple: the end can’t justify the means.