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In Wooden v United States:

Wooden was sitting at home one evening when he heard a knock at his door. He answered to find an unknown man, who asked to speak with Wooden’s wife. Wooden invited the stranger inside while he went to get her. The stranger just happened to be a plain-clothes officer who knew of Wooden’s felony convictions. Because people with felony convictions are generally prohibited from possessing firearms, when the officer stepped inside and saw a gun, he arrested Wooden.

How is a plain-clothes officer entering your house without identifying himself as an officer not an unreasonable search?

phoog
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robertspierre
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    You should begin with the assumption that the 4th Amendment means nothing if cops are finding evidence to be used against "criminals." There are pleasant surprises when one might retain actual rights, but in the USA, expect courts to side with police. – Tiger Guy Oct 05 '21 at 15:10
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    @TigerGuy In that case the police didn't search for "evidence to be used", the criminal himself picked up the gun in plain sight. I don't know of any country where if someone was stupid enough to voluntarily show evidence to the police, the police wouldn't be able to use it due to "unreasonable search". Do you know of any country where people have the right of being immune to evidence they themselves present to the police? – vsz Oct 06 '21 at 06:10
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    @vsz if there is any such country, I imagine that the police officer's not identifying himself would be a critical element in the analysis. – phoog Oct 06 '21 at 11:33
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    How is this a search in the first place? Anyone can ask to talk to your wife, or to enter your house. He could have done this in his off time. Even if it was done in his off time, plain sight rules would still apply. The officer wasn't performing a search, his wife could have spoken with the offiicer outside of the house. – Issel Oct 06 '21 at 12:51
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    Not a lawyer, but I find this interesting. The two times an LEO showed up at my front door asking to talk, I followed the advice of every lawyer who's ever discussed this with me: I stepped outside onto the porch, closed the door behind me and had a conversation. This was all because the LEO was in uniform. If a random, unsuspicious looking person shows up at my door, I act differently. – Flydog57 Oct 07 '21 at 00:48
  • What if it was a non-police officer instead who then reported to the police? – BCLC Oct 07 '21 at 17:16
  • @Flydog57 I do not think that is very good advice. The one time I answered the door for the police, the officer immediately stuck his foot in the door. I could not close the door without "assaulting" the officer, nor could I walk out the door w/out walking through him (both arrestable offenses). I think the best advice is to not open the door for strangers of any kind. If the officer at the door is not your personal friend then do not open the door. – emory Oct 08 '21 at 16:09
  • @Flydog57 if you open the door to step outside, the LEO can put his foot on the doorstep as to leave the door open – robertspierre Oct 23 '23 at 04:31

4 Answers4

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Wooden made two arguments to suppress the evidence, first that he had not consented to the officer entering his house (the officer and the court disagreed) and the second that even if the officer's entry had been legitimate, the evidence wasn't legitimate because of the Fourth Amendment:

Much of Wooden’s challenge turns on the fact that Mason was neither in uniform nor identified himself as a police officer. Both are true. But generally speaking, neither amounts to improper deception in the Fourth Amendment context. United States v. Baldwin , 621 F.2d 251, 252–53 (6th Cir. 1980) (citing Lewis v. United States , 385 U.S. 206, 211, 87 S.Ct. 424, 17 L.Ed.2d 312 (1966) ). Nor did Mason take any affirmative steps to attempt to deceive Wooden regarding his identity. Mason was silent as to his official position; he did not hold himself out to be anything he was not. He merely asked to speak to Harris and then asked if he could come inside, to get out of the cold.

Probably relevant also is that the officer didn't "search" for the rifle that prompted the arrest. Wooden picked it up in plain sight, the search of Wooden's person that revealed the second firearm was done as the officer arrested him for the rifle and the subsequent search of the house was carried out with the consent of the other resident Janet Harris.

adam.baker
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motosubatsu
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    the famous "Plain sight exception" – Trish Oct 05 '21 at 11:21
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    The famous “don’t pick up a firearm in front of strangers if you are not allowed to own one” exception. – gnasher729 Oct 05 '21 at 21:59
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    Would it have mattered if the officer did lie about being police? I've heard claims about police being required to identify themselves upon being asked, though most of the stuff I'm finding online refutes that as a myth. – Nat Oct 06 '21 at 02:21
  • No idea about US police procedures, but in the UK if is entirely reasonable to ask an alleged police officer for ID, including phoning his police station to check if an ID card offered as evidence (for example) is valid. – alephzero Oct 06 '21 at 02:50
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    @alephzero The same is true in the U.S., but the situation here is the opposite. The officer did not identify himself as such and likely would not have been invited into the home if he had. Nat's comment was about the hypothetical situation of if the officer had lied and said that he was not a police officer. That generally wouldn't change anything and that's obviously what any undercover law enforcement officer would do if asked. – reirab Oct 06 '21 at 02:52
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    @Nat That is largely a myth, although there are situations where there could be a requirement to identify as a police officer. – Acccumulation Oct 06 '21 at 04:16
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    IMHO its complete bullshit to consenting the officer to enter, because he allowed a civilian to enter his house, not an officer. But I guess that's the US for ya – Hobbamok Oct 06 '21 at 10:55
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    @Hobbamok: it’s not complete bs, if the officer had been a civilian and immediately upon seeing the gun pulled out a phone and reported the situation, it would be probable cause for a warrant (although it would have taken longer). The fact that the officer didn’t have to get a warrant because the officer witnessed the crime is really irrelevant. The question would be twofold, (a) was the person acting as an agent (yes in this case) and if so, (b) was the person legally allowed to be there (again yes). The people you allow to view your crimes can generally be witnesses against you. – jmoreno Oct 06 '21 at 11:12
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    @Hobbamok is there a country where you can invite someone into your home, they see you do something illegal, and you can expect that not to be used as evidence against you? I'm honestly curious why being an officer should have any bearing on that. – PC Luddite Oct 06 '21 at 18:34
  • @PCLuddite: Common courtesy dictates that people regard certain things as "invisible". Granting an uninvited guest permission to physically enter a dwelling does not imply a grant of permission to look at anything therein and take particular notice of what is seen. – supercat Oct 06 '21 at 18:56
  • @PCLuddite: Further, while I don't know whether defense raised this as an argument, I don't think that knowledge that someone has in his dwelling an artifact that at first glance looks like a GCA-68 firearm, but might be a prop gun, airgun, blank-firing replica, antique gun, muzzle loader, or other legal object, should in and of itself represent probable cause of anything. – supercat Oct 06 '21 at 19:02
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    @supercat - Posession of something looking at first glance like a GCA-68 might be a probable cause for illegal possession of an GCA-68. William Wooden fared better than Tamir Rice. – Jirka Hanika Oct 06 '21 at 19:09
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    @supercat “Granting an uninvited guest permission to physically enter a dwelling does not imply a grant of permission to look at anything therein and take particular notice of what is seen.” This is a lot of fancy words for “you can’t look around”, which is absurd IMO. With the exception of e.g. personal correspondence or medicine labels, I don’t expect things lying around to remain private—are my guests supposed to close their eyes? – Joshua Grosso Oct 06 '21 at 22:48
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    @JoshuaGrossoReinstateCMs: Members of polite society generally regard as "invisible" or "inaudible" things which they are not entitled to see or hear, even if they are physically able to see or hear them, and refrain from mentioning such things to anyone in any manner that might cause embarrassment. Someone issues may be sufficiently urgent as to justify violating normal rules of courtesy, but requiring that people have a dedicated room for uninvited guests doesn't seem practical. – supercat Oct 07 '21 at 05:38
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    @supercat If people have illegal material in a room, I suggest they not let anyone into that room who they don't know is down with it. I suspect that polite society has regularly been roiled by gossip from guests who heard a clip of a phone call or seen a carelessly placed letter or telegram, and police would generally consider "illegal activity" as sufficiently urgent to violate rules of courtesy. – prosfilaes Oct 07 '21 at 10:40
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    @supercat there's a pretty big difference between pretending not to notice something potentially embarrassing (left out anti-diarrhea pills) and pretending not to notice something criminal and/or life threatening (e.g. a gun) – PC Luddite Oct 07 '21 at 10:59
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    @supercat What is true is that there generally is no duty to report a crime. Some exceptions apply. What's also true is that being very polite isn't a good defense for providing a false testimony. If you saw a gun, you saw a gun. You may not have to report it, but you can't lie that you didn't see it when asked. – AmiralPatate Oct 07 '21 at 13:36
  • @AmiralPatate: You could say that you saw something that might been a gun, but took no particular notice of it, nor made any particular effort to determine what it was, a level of certainty that would leave plenty of room for doubt in response to cross-examination. – supercat Oct 07 '21 at 14:29
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If a plain-clothes officer entered your house without your permission or a warrant, then it would indeed run afoul of the 4th Amendment (and the same is true for a uniformed officer.) But essentially no search is considered 'unreasonable' if you consent to it without coercion/duress. Similarly, courts have consistently held that anything seen by an officer "in plain view" from a place where the officer was lawfully present is fair game for evidence. This is known as the "Plain View Doctrine" and its requirements were set out by the Supreme Court in Horton v. California, 1990.

So, if the officer was invited into the house (which the officer and court say was the case) and happened to see something that he knew to be illegal in plain sight (as far as I know, all parties agree that this was the case,) then seizing it as evidence and conducting an arrest is not a violation of the 4th Amendment.

reirab
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    In other words, "not having been told that someone is a police officer" does not constitute coercion. – phoog Oct 06 '21 at 06:01
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    Polite society recognizes a distinction between inviting someone into a dwelling, versus granting an uninvited guest permission to wait inside instead of outside because the rules of courtesy demand it. Should cops be treated as members of polite society? – supercat Oct 06 '21 at 19:24
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    @supercat The legal question doesn't turn on societal rules of politeness, but rather just on whether the person who saw the evidence was lawfully present in the position from which they saw the evidence in plain view. The description from SCOTUS Blog says, "When the officer stepped inside and saw a gun, he arrested Wooden," which sounds like the officer saw the weapon from the immediate vicinity of the entryway, not that he went snooping around the house looking for something incriminating (which would indeed have probably resulted in the evidence being inadmissible.) – reirab Oct 06 '21 at 20:09
  • @reirab: Many issues surrounding things like officers who enter property under exigent circumstances would be resolved if officers were required to obey societal customs regarding "invisiblity", and even in this case I would suggest that unless the rifle was very close to the door, the officer would not have been entitled to approach near enough to it to have any certainty as to whether it was actually a GCA'68 firearm rather than something else like a blank-firing replica which a felon could legally possess. – supercat Oct 06 '21 at 20:49
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    @reirab: On a related note, I think the credibility of an officer's statements about exactly what he saw, and when and where he saw it, should be a legitimate subject of factual inquiry which a defendant should be allowed to have examined by a jury. While allowing a defendant to suppress patently unreasonable evidence would be better than requiring a jury to disregard it, juries should be allowed to evaluate the evidence whose reasonableness is reliant upon factual determinations, and disregard evidence they find to have been unreasonably obtained. – supercat Oct 06 '21 at 20:57
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    @supercat If the court doesn't suppress the evidence as illegally obtained, then it is a legitimate subject of factual inquiry with the jury tasked on deciding the question of fact. In this case, the jury apparently sided with the officer, considering the defendant was convicted and is appealing. As far as whether it was a real rifle or a replica, seeing a rifle, real or otherwise, should be at least reasonable suspicion for further examination, if not outright probable cause. The officer doesn't have to prove fact on the scene; they just need probable cause for a seizure and arrest. – reirab Oct 06 '21 at 21:05
  • @supercat At any rate, my answer wasn't meant to address the questions of fact, which have already been examined by a jury at trial, but rather just the question of law that was posed by the OP. – reirab Oct 06 '21 at 21:07
  • @reirab: Are defendants allowed to have the jury instructed to consider such issues, and disregard evidence they find was obtained unreasonably? I'm unware of any jury instructions ever doing such a thing. – supercat Oct 06 '21 at 21:07
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I am not a lawyer. Impartial observations follow.

It seems that consent is not strictly required to be "informed" consent. An LEO in plain clothes has no duty of disclosure in these circumstances. The "plain sight" rule stands even if plain sight would not have been possible from without. There is no privileged confidentiality here.

The onus is upon the convicted felon to assume anyone entering is law enforcement and challenge them before inviting them in, that and keeping things out of sight, or not "possessing those things".

mckenzm
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    Beginning an answer by saying your opinion is unqualified is not a good way to answer questions. What you say can still be good and true but it is not the tone you want set in an answer. – Neil Meyer Oct 06 '21 at 17:59
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It doesn't matter in this situation whether the police officer was identified or on duty or even if they weren't in fact a police officer. Any citizen who observes another citizen doing something illegal has the power to arrest or testify against them otherwise they risk becoming an accomplice or co-conspirer. So while there are certain procedures that officers have to abide by, it doesn't take away from any rights that any citizen has. The fact that a person saw this other person break the law is sufficient

Lance
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    As it’s currently written, your answer is unclear. Please [edit] to add additional details that will help others understand how this addresses the question asked. You can find more information on how to write good answers in the help center. – Community Oct 07 '21 at 22:13
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    This doesn't answer the question. We are a Q&A site, not a forum, we expect answers to directly address the question raise, not raise tangential issues. – Dale M Oct 07 '21 at 23:07
  • I think the point here is that inviting a stranger into one's house, and allowing that stranger to observe you commit a crime, would potentially have the same consequence regardless of whether that stranger is an undercover police officer. The stranger could go to the police to say what he saw, and testify that's what he saw if it went to trial. So there is a question of whether the fourth amendment is even relevant if the police officer's "search" is not something he would need to be a police officer to do anyway. – kaya3 Oct 08 '21 at 11:34