Hicks v. State

No exigent circumstances justified the warrantless search of the defendant's entire residence after officers handcuffed him and placed him outside the residence with an officer watching him.

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Following a jury trial, Ernest Hicks appeals his conviction for possessing a firearm while a convicted felon.1 His sole enumeration is that the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress certain evidence found in a warrantless search of his home. We agree that under the Fourth Amendment, no exigent circumstances justified the police’s warrantless search of Hicks’s entire residence after they had handcuffed him and placed him outside the residence under the watchful eye of an officer. Their failure to obtain a warrant invalidates the subsequent search and compels us to reverse his conviction, which was obtained based on the discovery of a shotgun under his bed during this search. The case is remanded for a new trial, in which the illegally-obtained evidence may not be introduced. “On reviewing a trial court’s ruling on a motion to suppress, evidence is construed most favorably to uphold the findings and judgment. The court’s findings of fact will not be disturbed if there is any evidence to support them.” Owens v. State .2 See Tate v. State .3 We consider evidence from both the motion to suppress hearing and the trial. White v. State .4

So construed, the evidence shows that one night, Hicks’s neighbor called police when someone at Hicks’s residence fired two shots from a shotgun toward the neighbor’s house. Police arrived 15 minutes later and learned from the neighbor that Hicks had also fired shots some weeks earlier and had threatened the neighbor in a letter. Knowing that Hicks was a convicted felon and that he had previously had violent altercations with police, the officers went to Hicks’s residence and spoke to Hicks the home’s only occupant, who denied shooting any guns and also denied possessing any guns. Hicks consented to the officers’ searching his residence.

Hicks v. State

No exigent circumstances justified the warrantless search of the defendant's entire residence after officers handcuffed him and placed him outside the residence with an officer watching him.

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