Police performing protective sweep were "acting on a hunch," court rules.
TRENTON -- The state's highest court has ruled a protective sweep of a New Jersey man's home that turned up drugs and a gun was unconstitutional because the officers at the scene were "acting on a hunch."
The Supreme Court unanimously found that the Plainsboro Police Department violated the rights of Charles Bryant, Jr. in 2013 when, investigating a domestic violence incident, they entered his home without a name or description of the suspect and conducted the search.
According to court records, the officers were responding to a 911 call from a woman claiming her boyfriend had struck her. The woman did not provide her name or the name of her attacker, but did provide an address.
When police arrived, they found the woman outside, "intoxicated, crying, and excited" and had difficulty getting information from her.
High court tosses high beam search
Two officers knocked on the door of the apartment and Bryant answered, the documents show. They immediately ordered the man to sit on the couch, and one officer began questioning him as the other conducted a sweep of the home.
When performing the search, the officer noticed the "overwhelming odor" of marijuana coming from the closet, in which he found a Ziploc bag containing what appeared to be pot.
Police arrested Bryant and later obtained a search warrant, after which they found a Tec-9 semi-automatic weapon, about 55 grams of marijuana and drug packaging materials.
He was charged with possession of a controlled dangerous substance, possession with intent to distribute and unlawful possession of an assault firearm, among other infractions.
Bryant sought to suppress the drug and weapons evidence, claiming it was the product of an illegal search. The trial court found the officers were allowed to perform the search because they were looking for the suspect in a domestic violence case where the victim presented physical signs of injury.
Generally, police are allowed to perform such protective sweeps when arresting someone to if they have reason to believe other dangers may be hiding out of plain site. And state domestic violence laws require police to arrest a suspect when the victim is visibly injured.
But writing for the unanimous court, Justice Walter Timpone said police "did not adhere to the rigorous standards for proceeding without a warrant under the protective sweep doctrine."
Susan Brody, the deputy public defender who represented Bryant before the Supreme Court, said in an interview Thursday that police had not done the minimal investigation required to arrest Bryant and search his home.
"In this case, they did not have the name of a perpetrator, they did not have a physical description, they just had some guy who answered the door of an apartment," she said.
The court agreed.
"We recognize that officers are faced with the difficult task of running toward danger, often with little to no information about the danger they face," Timpone wrote in the decision, citing research that shows domestic violence calls can be the most dangerous types of incidents for police.
But, the justice added, the failure of the officer who performed the sweep to ask the suspect basic questions before entering the home "reduced his actions to, at best, nothing more than acting on a hunch."
The justices found police acted without the necessary "reasonable suspicion" to perform the search, ruling the evidence should have been suppressed and sending the case back to the trial court.
In an e-mail, Deputy Attorney General Sara Quigley, who represented the state, said her office was "disappointed in the result, but we are pleased that the Supreme Court recognized the serious danger that domestic violence calls pose to responding police officers."
"We hope that courts will continue to be mindful of this important circumstance in evaluating police conduct after the fact," she said.
S.P. Sullivan may be reached at ssullivan@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter. Find NJ.com on Facebook.