RONALD E. PETERS, PETITIONER V. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA No. 90-6250 In The Supreme Court Of The United States October Term, 1990 On Petition For A Writ Of Certiorari To The United States Court Of Appeals For The Eighth Circuit Brief For The United States In Opposition OPINIONS BELOW The opinion of the court of appeals (Pet. App. A1-A7) is reported at 912 F.2d 208. The magistrate's recommendation (Pet. App. B4-B8), a prior order incorporated therein (id. at B1-B3), and the district court's order adopting the magistrate's recommendation (id. at B9-B10) are not reported. JURISDICTION The judgment of the court of appeals was entered on August 16, 1990. The petition for a writ of certiorari was filed on November 13, 1990. The jurisdiction of this Court is invoked under 28 U.S.C. 1254(1). QUESTION PRESENTED Whether law enforcement agents violated petitioner's Fourth Amendment rights when they looked into his hotel room after he had voluntarily opened the door in response to their knock. STATEMENT Following a jury trial in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, petitioner was convicted of possession of crack cocaine with intent to distribute it, in violation of 21 U.S.C. 841(a)(1). He was sentenced to 160 months' imprisonment, to be followed by five years of supervised release. The court of appeals affirmed. Pet. App. A1-A7. 1. On March 6, 1989, a St. Louis detective received information that drugs were being sold out of Room 206 of the Thrifty Inn in St. Louis, Missouri. The detective learned that the room had been rented to Lafayette Ely and that Ely was the subject of an outstanding arrest warrant issued in connection with a traffic offense. The detective and four other officers went to Room 206 to arrest Ely on the warrant. The officers knocked on the door, and petitioner opened it. Looking into the room through the doorway, the detective saw a clear plastic bag containing what appeared to be crack cocaine on a table two to three feet from the door inside the room. The police arrested petitioner and seized the cocaine, a razor blade, a small portable scale, and a bus ticket. Pet. App. A2, B1-B2. Before trial, petitioner filed a motion to suppress the evidence seized from the hotel room. The district court, acting on a recommendation by a magistrate, denied the motion. Pet. App. B6-B8, B9. Petitioner was tried and convicted of possession of the crack cocaine with intent to distribute it. 2. The court of appeals affirmed. It rejected petitioner's argument that the seizure of the cocaine and other evidence violated the Fourth Amendment. The court explained that "(w)hen an individual voluntarily opens the door of his or her place of residence in response to a simple knock, the individual is knowingly exposing to the public anything that can be seen through that open door and thus is not afforded fourth amendment protection." Pet. App. A2-A3. Consequently, the court continued, "a search did not occur when the detective looked into (petitioner's) room through the open doorway" and the "contraband in 'plain view' * * * was properly seized by the officers under the plain view doctrine." Id. at A3. /1/ ARGUMENT 1. Petitioner contends (Pet. 4-6) that the police conducted a Fourth Amendment search when they looked into petitioner's hotel room after petitioner had opened the door in response to their knock. The court of appeals was correct in rejecting that contention, and its decision does not conflict with any decision of this Court or of another court of appeals. Further review is therefore unwarranted. A knock on a door is the customary means by which any member of the public requests permission to enter a home or other premises. Consequently, a law enforcement officer who merely knocks on a door -- without commanding that it be opened -- does not violate any privacy interest protected by the Fourth Amendment. Davis v. United States, 327 F.2d 301, 303 (9th Cir. 1964). Further, if an occupant opens the door in response to such a knock, he voluntarily exposes to police those areas that are visible from outside the door. By looking at those areas, an officer does not engage in any nonconsensual violation of the occupant's privacy. United States v. Wright, 641 F.2d 602, 604 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 451 U.S. 1021 (1981). See also, e.g., United States v. Lewis, 385 U.S. 206 (1966); United States v. Ressler, 536 F.2d 208, 210-213 (7th Cir. 1976). "What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his or her own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection." Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 351 (1967); see Horton v. California, 110 S. Ct. 2301, 2306 (1990). As the court of appeals held, these principles dispose of petitioner's Fourth Amendment contention. The officers who knocked on the door of petitioner's hotel room did not order him to open it. Thus, when petitioner opened the door, he voluntarily provided the police with a view of what was behind him. From their vantage point outside the room, the police saw crack cocaine on a table inside the room. Pet. App. B2. At that point, the officers had probable cause to arrest petitioner for possession of cocaine; incident to that arrest, the officers were entitled to enter the room and seize contraband in plain view. See Washington v. Chrisman, 455 U.S. 1, 8-9 (1982). Contrary to petitioner's contention (Pet. 4-6), the court of appeals' decision does not conflict with United States v. Winsor, 846 F.2d 1569 (9th Cir. 1988) (en banc). In Winsor, police officers observed incriminating evidence inside a hotel room after they had ordered the occupant to open the door. That demand was the basis for the court's holding that a search had occurred. The court distinguished Davis v. United States, supra, on the ground that knocking on a door -- the technique used to gain entry in Davis and in the instant case -- does not involve any comparable use of official authority (846 F.2d at 1573): (In Davis,) the police did what any person could do -- they knocked on the front door of a residence, but did not use their authority as police officers to command the occupants to open the door. When the occupant opened the door, he did so voluntarily, not, as Dennis Winsor did, in response to a claim of lawful authority. See also id. at 1573 n.3. In this case, as in Davis, petitioner opened the door voluntarily, not in response to a demand by police. Winsor explicitly recognizes that a knock involves no use of official authority to obtain entry to a dwelling without the occupant's consent. Thus, there is no conflict between the court of appeals' decision here and Winsor. 2. The petition also seeks review of two additional questions: (i) whether police may enter a hotel room to execute an arrest warrant without also obtaining a warrant authorizing a search of the room for the individual involved and (ii) whether the execution of an arrest warrant is subject to challenge on the ground that police are motivated by a desire to investigate a different offense. Pet i, 6-9. Those questions are not properly presented by this case, and the court of appeals did not decide them. The police did not rely on the arrest warrant for Ely when they arrested petitioner and seized cocaine and drug paraphernalia from his hotel room. Regardless of what the arrest warrant authorized the police to do, their observation of cocaine in petitioner's room after he had voluntarily opened the door furnished an entirely sufficient basis for petitioner's arrest and the seizure of contraband in plain view. CONCLUSION The petition for a writ of certiorari should be denied. Respectfully submitted. KENNETH W. STARR Solicitor General ROBERT S. MUELLER, III Assistant Attorney General THOMAS E. BOOTH Attorney JANUARY 1991 /1/ The court of appeals also held that the evidence was sufficient to sustain petitioner's conviction and that petitioner's sentence was lawful. Pet. App. A3-A7. The petition does not seek further review of those rulings.