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State v. Knight7/28/1995
llegal entry and securing of a defendant's residence from within for over nineteen hours while waiting for a valid search warrant to arrive did not render the seizure of the residence unreasonable or taint the evidence later discovered pursuant to the valid search warrant if the search warrant and the information upon which it was based were independent of and unrelated to the illegal entry. Id. at 811, 82 L. Ed. 2d at 613.
In the instant case, even if the police officers illegally entered the home and conducted the initial sweep of the residence for weapons while waiting for the search warrant to arrive, under Segura this conduct did not constitute an unreasonable seizure requiring the evidence consisting of defendant's boots, his confession, and his knife to be excluded at trial. Defendant does not contest the validity of the search warrant in this case. The search warrant and the information upon which it was based were totally unrelated to the police entry into defendant's residence. The information supporting the warrant was provided by Doby's statement, and the warrant was issued more than an hour before the entry into defendant's residence occurred.
The evidence at issue was not discovered as a direct result of the entry but as a result of the later search conducted pursuant to the valid search warrant. As indicated above, there was sufficient competent evidence to support the trial court's finding of fact that the search warrant was read to McGrew prior to any search of defendant's residence. The boots were not examined or seized until after the search warrant was properly executed, and the knife was not discovered until several hours later.
The delay of ten to fifteen minutes between the time the officers entered the residence and the time the warrant allegedly arrived was not as extensive as the nineteen-hour delay before the warrant arrived in Segura, and the evidence in the instant case clearly supports the trial court's finding that the officers only conducted a sweep of the house for weapons and other persons before the warrant was executed. Admission of the evidence consisting of defendant's boots did not violate defendant's rights to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.
N.C.G.S. § 15A-974(b) requires exclusion of evidence obtained as a result of a substantial violation of chapter 15A of the North Carolina General Statutes. For evidence to be excluded under this statute, there must be a causal relationship between the violation and the evidence sought to be suppressed. State v. Hunter, 305 N.C. 106, 113, 286 S.E.2d 535, 539 (1982). The evidence at issue was not obtained as a consequence of any violations of chapter 15A, and no causal relationship between any such violations and the evidence sought to be suppressed exists in the instant case. Therefore, the evidence at issue was not required to be suppressed pursuant to this statute.
Next, defendant contends that the trial court erroneously denied his motion to suppress his 28 May 1992 statement to the police about his involvement in this murder in violation of his constitutional right against compulsory self-incrimination as guaranteed by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 23 of the North Carolina Constitution. He argues that the trial court erred by concluding that defendant knowingly and voluntarily waived his constitutional rights before making his statement to the authorities and that both his confession and the hunting knife obtained as a result thereof should have been excluded.
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