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State v. Ricci10/20/1999
d 1131, 1134 (Utah Ct. App. 1991) (when assessing validity of warrantless home arrest, court considered whether police had probable cause to believe that public offense was committed prior to home entry even though defendant was only charged for conduct occurring inside the home). Accordingly, we examine whether the police were in hot pursuit of the defendant when they entered his home on the night of July 10, 1997.
Hot pursuit, the exigent circumstance offered by the State to justify the conduct of the police, requires immediate and continuous pursuit of a defendant from the scene of a crime. See Welsh, 466 U.S. at 753. Here, the police followed the defendant for a considerable distance with their sirens and blue lights activated. Rather than comply with police demands in a public place, however, the defendant continued driving home with the police following. McQuate immediately approached the defendant and repeatedly directed him to come to the front of the cruiser. The defendant again resisted complying with police demands while standing in his driveway, see State v. Pinkham, 141 N.H. 188, 191, 679 A.2d 589, 591 (1996) (police entitled to enter semi- private driveway for legitimate police business), and insisted on letting his dog into the house. While McQuate granted the limited request, the defendant exceeded its scope by quickly following the dog into the house.
Presumably based on McQuate's concession, the defendant argues that "he did not flee into his home," and thus, no hot pursuit existed. We disagree. McQuate did not give the defendant permission to enter his home, but rather repeatedly instructed him not to do so and to return to the cruiser. Given the defendant's conduct up to that point, we cannot say that it was unreasonable for Officer McQuate to allow the defendant to take a few seconds to let his dog inside rather than physically restraining him from doing so and risking an escalation of an otherwise innocuous police stop into a potentially violent one. A momentary pause, under the facts of this case, did not interrupt the otherwise immediate and continuous pursuit of the defendant into his home.
It would offend constitutional search and seizure protections to permit the defendant to defeat his arrest when the pursuit began in a public place and he achieved entry into his private domain only through apparent deceit. Just as the police cannot create an exigency for purposes of avoiding the warrant requirement, see Santana, 133 N.H. at 805, 586 A.2d at 81, defendants cannot trigger the need for a warrant by racing the police to the sanctity of the home, see United States v. Santana, 427 U.S. 38, 42-43 (1976); Ramirez, 814 P.2d at 1134. "Law enforcement is not a child's game of prisoners base, or a contest, with apprehension and conviction depending upon whether the officer or defendant is the fleetest of foot." State v. Blake, 468 N.E.2d 548, 553 (Ind. Ct. App. 1984). We conclude that the totality of the circumstances, including the defendant's apparent elusive conduct, demonstrates that the police were in hot pursuit of the defendant when they entered his home. Accordingly, we affirm the defendant's driving under the influence conviction.
Affirmed.
All concurred.
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