Agents Point Guns and Order Home Residents Outside: Understanding the 4th Amendment and Curtilage

Border Patrol agents watched a man climb over the Mexico-United States border fence and followed him as he took a taxi to Heriberto Perea-Rey’s home. An agent watched the suspected undocumented alien walk through the gated entrance to the home and knock on the front door. The agent followed him through the front yard, around the side of the house and into the carport. He found the suspect there, standing with Perea-Rey in front of a side door entrance to the home, and detained both men until other agents arrived. Perea-Rey refused to allow the agents to enter his house. Forgetting for a moment that the Fourth Amendment ordinarily requires that the government obtain a warrant before it conducts a search or seizure, particularly of persons in their homes, the agents, pointing their guns at the home, ordered everyone outside. The individuals who emerged were later found to be undocumented aliens.

Indicted for harboring the aliens in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1324, Perea-Rey moved to suppress evidence of the aliens as the fruit of a warrantless search and seizure. Though the district court found that the agents entered the curtilage of Perea-Rey’s home and that there were no exigent circumstances that might justify the failure to obtain a warrant, the court denied the motion. Perea-Rey entered a conditional guilty plea and filed this appeal. Because the agents physically occupied the curtilage of Perea-Rey’s home without obtaining a warrant, and no exceptions to the warrant requirement otherwise justified the search or seizure, we reverse Perea-Rey’s conviction and remand.
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Where the government “physically occupie[s] private property for the purpose of obtaining information,” that is a “`search’ within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.” United States v. Jones, ___ U.S. ___, 132 S.Ct. 945, 949, 181 L.Ed.2d 911 (2012). “[S]earches and seizures inside a home without a warrant are presumptively unreasonable.” Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 586, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 63 L.Ed.2d 639 (1980). Because the curtilage is part of the home, searches and seizures in the curtilage without a warrant are also presumptively unreasonable. See Oliver v. United States, 466 U.S. 170, 180, 104 S.Ct. 1735, 80 L.Ed.2d 214 (1984).

Although a warrant is not required to observe readily visible items within the curtilage, and “officers [need not] shield their eyes when passing by a home on public thoroughfares,” California v. Ciraolo, 476 U.S. 207, 213, 106 S.Ct. 1809, 90 L.Ed.2d 210 (1986), a warrant is required to enter the home.

Full case here: US v. Perea-Rey, 680 F. 3d 1179 – Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit 2012, https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=3328995699668028305&hl=en&as_sdt=6&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr