United States v. McGhee, 2025 WL 649897 (8th Cir. 2025)
In Davenport, Iowa, Jaylyn McGhee and his six-year-old son were sitting in a parked car outside his home. Someone shot at McGhee, injuring his son, who McGhee drove to a nearby hospital.
Officers responded to the scene, unaware the shooting had caused injuries. The officers found shell casings, suspected narcotics and money outside McGhee’s house. They also saw blood spatter and a powdery substance on the deck and stairs leading to a side door of the house. Looking through a window, they could see blood spatter inside the house as well.
Neighbors and the 911 callers reported a vehicle had arrived at the house and briefly parked on the side of the street. Then another vehicle pulled up next to it. The witnesses said they heard eight shots fired before both vehicles sped away. At the same time, officers received information from the hospital about a boy with multiple injuries from gunshots.
“Curtilage” has been defined by the courts as “the area into which extends the intimate activity associated with the sanctity of a man’s home and the privacies of life.”
Officers obtained a search warrant for McGhee’s house. Serving the warrant, they found 5.48 grams of cocaine base and 17.96 grams of heroin and fentanyl in the kitchen. The officers followed a blood trail into the nearby master bedroom, where they found two guns. McGhee was charged with drug offenses and being a felon in possession of firearms.
The trial judge denied McGhee’s motion to suppress the evidence found in his home, ruling the officers’ observations from the front yard were lawful and exigent circumstances justified their entry into the side yard. The information gathered by the officers’ observations supported probable cause for the search warrant. McGhee pled guilty, then appealed the denial of the motion to suppress.
The court of appeals agreed that the officers’ initial observations were lawful and that exigent circumstances justified their entry into the yard and looking into McGhee’s window. McGhee claimed the officers unlawfully intruded on the curtilage of his home. “Curtilage” has been defined by the courts as “the area into which extends the intimate activity associated with the sanctity of a man’s home and the privacies of life” (Oliver v. United States, 466 U.S. 170 (1984)). Curtilage is treated as part of the home itself for Fourth Amendment purposes (Hester v. United States, 265 U.S. 57 (1924)). According to the Supreme Court, an area such as an open field that is outside of a residence’s “curtilage” may be subject to a free peek, and may be searched without any suspicion or probable cause.
The scope of a house’s curtilage is determined by considering the proximity to the home, whether it is fenced or otherwise enclosed, the nature of the use of the area, and the efforts the resident takes to screen the area from public view (United States v. Dunn, 480 U.S. 294 (1987)). The front porch of a residence is generally part of the curtilage, requiring a warrant, consent or some other Fourth Amendment warrant requirement exception. (For example, in Florida v. Jardines (569 U.S. 1 (2013)) the Supreme Court found that a detector dog sniff of a residential front door was a search and required a warrant.)
Agreeing with the trial court that the officers did not intrude on the curtilage, the appellate court noted McGhee’s front yard “was not protected by a fence or any other enclosure, and no efforts were taken to shield the yard from public observation or entry.” However, the side yard was fenced, partially obstructed from further view by trees, and had a grill, suggesting it was for family use. The court held the side yard was part of the curtilage.
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The officers saw the blood spatter and powdery substance from the front porch. Their entry into the curtilage of the side yard to more closely examine what they saw was then justified by the exigent circumstances exception to the warrant requirement. The court noted that, in responding to shots-fired calls, the officers found eight shell casings in front of McGhee’s house. Based on their observations, they had reason to believe there was at least one victim. Furthermore, one officer testified that the “ultimate reason” they followed that blood trail was “to see if there were any victims that potentially could have ran into the house or ran to the backyard who were obviously bleeding.” The court held these facts were sufficient to lead a reasonable officer to believe a person “is in need of immediate aid,” thus triggering the exigent circumstances exception to the warrant requirement.
