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State v. Richter6/20/2000
REVIEW OF A DECISION OF THE COURT OF APPEALS Reported at: 224 Wis. 2d 814, 592 N.W.2d 310 (Ct. App. 1999-Published)
Submitted on Briefs: Oral Argument: February 15, 2000
Source of APPEAL COURT: Circuit COUNTY: Marinette JUDGE: Charles D. Heath
JUSTICES: Concurred: Dissented: ABRAHAMSON, C.J., dissents (opinion filed). BRADLEY, J., joins dissent. Not Participating:
This opinion is subject to further editing and modification. The final version will appear in the bound volume of the official reports.
REVIEW of a decision of the Court of Appeals. Reversed.
.
This case involves a warrantless entry of a home, and the recurring question of whether the circumstances under which it took place were sufficiently exigent to justify it. The circumstances were these: a Marinette County sheriff's deputy responded to an early-morning dispatch of a burglary in progress at a trailer park. The victim flagged down the deputy as he arrived on the scene and told him that someone had broken into her mobile home, and that she had seen the intruder flee her trailer and enter the defendant's trailer across the street. The deputy observed signs of forced entry at the defendant's trailer-a window screen was knocked out and lying on the ground. The deputy shined his flashlight in the open window and attracted the attention of two people who were sleeping on the floor. They opened the door and identified the defendant, who was sleeping on the couch, as the owner of the trailer. The deputy entered the trailer, woke the defendant, told him what had happened and asked his permission to search the trailer for the burglary suspect. Permission was granted. During the search, the deputy observed marijuana in plain view, which the defendant admitted was his.
. The defendant was charged with several marijuana possession offenses, and moved to suppress the physical evidence and his statements, alleging an illegal entry. The circuit court granted the motion, and the court of appeals affirmed, finding the circumstances insufficiently exigent and the defendant's consent insufficiently attenuated to justify the search. State v. Richter, 224 Wis. 2d 814, 817, 592 N.W.2d 310 (Ct. App. 1999). Because we conclude the entry was justified by exigent circumstances-specifically, the deputy's "hot pursuit" of the burglary suspect and his need to protect the safety of those inside the trailer-we reverse. We also conclude that the court of appeals' application of the attenuation doctrine was based upon a misconstruction of several of the doctrine's elements.
. The facts of the case are not in dispute. In the early morning hours of October 12, 1997, Marinette County Sheriff's Deputy Rick Berlin was on patrol in the City of Marinette. At approximately 4:30 a.m., Berlin overheard a City of Marinette police dispatch reporting a burglary in progress at the Golden Sands Trailer Park. Berlin, who was near the area, responded to the call. When he arrived at Golden Sands, he was immediately flagged down by Linda Champion, who reported that an unknown man had just broken into her mobile home on lot 438. She told the officer that she had yelled at the intruder, and he then ran from her trailer into the trailer on lot 439 directly across the street. Her husband confirmed this account.
. Deputy Berlin went to the trailer on lot 439. The trailer had a front picture window just west of its front door. As he approached, Berlin noted that the window was open and its screen had been knocked out onto the ground outside. Since the temperature was in the 40s, Berlin took this as a sign of forced entry, given the information he had obtained from the C
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