State v. Boilard

488 A.2d 1380, 1985 Me. LEXIS 648
CourtSupreme Judicial Court of Maine
DecidedMarch 15, 1985
StatusPublished
Cited by47 cases

This text of 488 A.2d 1380 (State v. Boilard) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Judicial Court of Maine primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Boilard, 488 A.2d 1380, 1985 Me. LEXIS 648 (Me. 1985).

Opinions

DUFRESNE, Active Retired Justice.

Donald Boilard appeals from his convictions in the Superior Court (York County) on the charges of assault, 17-A M.R.S.A. § 207 (1983), and of obstructing government administration, 17-A M.R.S.A. § 751 (1983), both Class D crimes. On appeal, Boilard challenges the denial of his motion in the District Court (Kittery) to dismiss the charges against him, or to suppress evidence of the two crimes, because of the allegedly illegal police entry into his home which accounted for his confrontation with these public servants and led police to his arrest. We reverse the finding of the suppression judge to the effect that the police lawfully entered Boilard’s home. This ruling, however, does not entitle the defendant to have the evidence of the stated charges suppressed, nor to have the complaints dismissed. The majority of the court affirms the judgments of conviction.

In the early evening of August 20, 1983, the South Berwick Police Department received a call on the telephone from an individual who reported disturbing shouting from the Boilard home between Donald Boilard and one of his children. The caller did not immediately identify himself, but when pressed admitted that he was William Straub, a neighbor of Mr. Boilard. At trial, Mr. Straub testified that he did not see Boilard, nor his children, on August 20th, but was concerned because of the loudness of the argument.

The police dispatcher radioed Officer Peter Gagnon, who was on cruiser patrol at the time, and informed him of a domestic disturbance at the Boilard residence on Old South Road. Asking for details, Gagnon was told that it sounded as if Boilard was beating his kids. Within minutes, the officer was there, arriving shortly after 6:30 p.m. As he was walking toward the front door of the house, Gagnon admitted that all was quiet. The officer already knew Mr. Boilard, having had several contacts with him in the past. Whether he had time to knock on the door, the officer was. not sure, but he testified that the front door was thrown open by Boilard, who told him very excitedly “to get-off his property.” The officer then advised Boilard that the police had received a complaint that he was beating his kids and that he, Gagnon, was there to check on it and all he wanted to do was to see the children and if they were fine, he would leave. Boilard did not see it that way. He told the officer again to get off his property, that it was his house and that he did not have to show him the kids if he did not want to. The defendant then tried to close the door on the officer, but the agile policeman had already placed his foot in the doorway to prevent its closing shut and with the necessary “beef” forced his way into the front entryway to the Boilard home.

The officer’s presence in the house got the children to start yelling, screaming and crying. Gagnon was urging the defendant to let him see the children as the police had [1383]*1383received this complaint that he was beating his kids. Boilard would not hear of it and kept telling the officer that he was trespassing and to get off his property and that, if he did not, it would cost the officer his job. He did manage to tell the officer that all he did was that he had spanked his kids. Officer Gagnon then attempted to move from the hallway of the house into the living room where Boilard’s two sons of school age and some guests were sitting. The defendant tried to prevent this by pushing the officer out of the house, but in this he did not succeed, and the officer threatened Boilard with arrest, if he resisted further. By this time, Boilard had ordered his children to go upstairs. Adamant in seeing, and talking with, the two sons, asserting this a police routine practice in domestic cases in South Berwick, Officer Gagnon pushed his way to the living room, where after some scuffle Boilard was placed under arrest with the help of backup police for assault and obstruction of government administration. After Boilard was properly secured in the police cruiser, Officer Gagnon returned to the house and had the children come down. They told the officer that their father had spanked them for being bad boys. The spanking had left no bruises, so far as the officer could see.

1. Warrantless Entry

The defendant’s motion before the judge of the District Court sought dismissal of both charges against him or, in the alternative, suppression of all evidence of the happenings inside the house because of Officer Gagnon’s alleged illegal entry into his home. The District Court judge denied the motion, ruling that the police entry was not illegal and that, even if it were, evidence of crimes committed after an illegal entry would not be suppressable as such. We agree with this ruling insofar as it denied the motion to suppress, but disagree with the judge’s conclusion that the policeman’s forceful entry into the Boilard residence was legal.

Both the constitutions of Maine and of the United States prohibit unreasonable searches and seizures in the homes of our people. This treasured freedom is protected by the warrant requirements of section 5 of article I of the Maine Constitution and of the fourth amendment to the United States Constitution.1 Warrantless searches are per se unreasonable, subject to a few specifically established, carefully drawn and much guarded exceptions. Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 357, 88 S.Ct. 507, 514, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967); State v. Johnson, 413 A.2d 931, 933 (Me.1980). Warrantless entries into private homes for purposes of search, or arrest for that matter, are equally unreasonable, except in those circumstances wherein an exception to the warrant requirements has been carefully drawn and guarded as previously stated. See Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 576, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 1374-75, 63 L.Ed.2d 639 (1980), where the United States Supreme Court held that “the Fourth Amendment ... prohibits the police from making a warrantless and nonconsen-sual entry into a suspect’s home in order to make a routine felony arrest.” As stated in State v. Smith, 379 A.2d 722, 725-26 (Me.1977), it was sound police practice presenting no constitutional infirmity for the police to make an immediate warrant-less entry and search in a situation of exigency as existed in that case. The principle of law ensuring privacy in one’s home and giving to every man the right to repel [1384]*1384intruders by force, if necessary, and which is usually expressed in the familiar maxim, “Every man’s house is his castle,” still remains in full force and vigor and is recognized in both our State and Federal Constitutions. What was true in 1925, as this Court then pronounced, is still true in this age. See Marshall v. Wheeler, 124 Me. 324, 326, 128 A. 692, 693 (1925).

Recognized exceptions to the warrant requirements of the constitutions exist in situations where the entry and subsequent search by law enforcement officers are incidental to hot pursuit of a fleeing felon. See Warden v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294, 87 S.Ct. 1642, 18 L.Ed.2d 782 (1967).

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Bluebook (online)
488 A.2d 1380, 1985 Me. LEXIS 648, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-boilard-me-1985.