Opinion
Record No. 0132-94-1
Decided: March 28, 1995
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF VIRGINIA BEACH, Edward W. Hanson, Jr., Judge
Andrew G. Wiggin (Office of the Public Defender, on brief), for appellant.
Katherine Baldwin, Assistant Attorney General (James S. Gilmore, III, Attorney General; Donald R. Curry, Senior Assistant Attorney General, on brief), for appellee.
Present: Judges Barrow, Koontz and Elder
Pursuant to Code Sec. 17-116.010 this opinion is not designated for publication.
Corneal Wayne Williams (Williams) appeals his conviction for possession of cocaine. Williams contends that the trial court erred in failing to suppress evidence obtained through alleged improper execution of a valid search warrant. We disagree and affirm Williams' conviction.
In the pre-dawn hours of August 19, 1993, Virginia Beach Police executed a search warrant at a suspected "crack house." Detective William Frank Crayle, Jr. testified at the suppression hearing that he knocked on the front door of the home and someone inside responded by asking who was there. Crayle replied, "Yo. It's me." As the door was opened from inside, Crayle announced "Police-search warrant" and he and other officers, their guns drawn, forced their way through the partially open door. Williams and others were discovered inside along with a quantity of cocaine.
Williams contends that because the door was not completely open when Crayle forced entry, Wynne v. Commonwealth, 15 Va. App. 763, 427 S.E.2d 228 (1993), requires that the evidence should have been suppressed. In Wynne, we held that, absent exigent circumstances, where police delay only five seconds after knocking on the front door of a home and announcing their intent to serve a search warrant before forcing entry, such procedure was insufficient to comport with the Fourth Amendment's requirement of reasonableness. Id. at 767, 427 S.E.2d at 231.
Wynne is not applicable to the facts of the present case. When police execute a search warrant, the manner in which they obtain entry onto the premises is judged by a standard of objective reasonableness. Johnson v. Commonwealth, 213 Va. 102, 103, 189 S.E.2d 678, 679 (1972), cert. denied, 409 U.S. 1116 (1973). Police may obtain entry to a residence by a ruse, and in so doing are not required to abide by the "knock and announce" rule. Commonwealth v. Viar, 15 Va. App. 490, 493-94, 425 S.E.2d 86, 88-90 (1992). We hold that where initial access to a premises is obtained by ruse, police may use reasonable force to maintain that access. See United States v. Contreras-Ceballos, 999 F.2d 432, 433-435 (9th Cir. 1993) (on point with these facts); United States v. Salter, 815 F.2d 1150, 1152 (7th Cir. 1987); United States v. Byars, 762 F. Supp. 1235, 1238 (E.D. Va. 1991).
Although Crayle admitting applying "a little force to the door," there is no evidence that anyone inside attempted to force the door shut or did not know that the persons entering were police executing a search warrant. See Johnson, 213 Va. at 104, 189 S.E.2d at 679. Accordingly, having obtained access to the premises by ruse, the police were permitted to maintain that access and to use reasonable force to secure the premises and prevent the destruction of the contraband that was within.
For these reasons, we affirm Williams' conviction.
Affirmed.