United States Fourth Circuit

Conviction for drug and weapons offenses is reversed and remanded where: 1) requiring defendant to open the door to his apartment constituted a warrantless search; 2) no exigent circumstances justified the officers' demand that defendant open his apartment door; and 3) the evidence seized pursuant to the search warrant that the officers eventually obtained was not admissible under the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule.

Appellate Information

• Decided 01/25/2008
• Published 01/25/2008

Judges

• Before MICHAEL and TRAXLER, Circuit Judges, and JAMES P. JONES, Chief United States District Judge for the Western District of Virginia, sitting by designation.

Court

• United States Fourth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellees:
  
• ARGUED:  Paresh S. Patel, Office of the Federal Public Defender, Greenbelt, Maryland, for Appellant.  Stacy Dawson Belf, Assistant United States Attorney, Office of the United States Attorney, Greenbelt, Maryland, for Appellee.   ON BRIEF:  James Wyda, Federal Public Defender, Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellant.  Rod J. Rosenstein, United States Attorney, Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellee.