The Value of a Good Alarm System

The motion to suppress in People v. McNair probably would have gone down in the usual way,  Via Eric Dolan’s RocLaw:


At the suppression hearing, Officer Ryan Hartley testified that he received a tip from a “concerned citizen” that the defendant “sells cocaine and carries a handgun.” Based on that tip, Officer Hartley and other members of the Rochester police department went to the defendant’s home, and watched as the defendant arrived in a minivan, entered the residence, and then exited about 15 minutes later and drove away.

So Rochester Police made up an excuse to stop Christopher McNair, as Whren encourages them to do, No, driving a minivan is not, in itself, a crime in New York, though it should be. Upon being stopped, the defendant, naturally, acted in a way absolutely determined to reveal a crime.


The defendant jumped out of his car and appeared “to place something under the vehicle.” Said “something” turned out to be a bag of crack. Defendant was arrested, and the arresting officer took the defendant’s keys to Officer Hartley, who was still back at the defendant’s house.

In the meantime, Hartley remained at McNair’s house and dutifully safeguarded it while all constitutional protections were afforded the defendant.


At the suppression hearing, Officer Hartley testified that, at about 8:00pm, he used the defendant’s keys to open the porch door of defendant’s house, but only so that he could knock on the inner door to see if anyone else was in the house. Officer Hartley “testified that knocking on the door caused the door to open and an audible alarm was triggered.” As the police had yet to obtain a warrant to search the defendant’s house, Officer Hartley testified that “the perimeter of the location was secured,” some other officers went to get a warrant, and the house was not entered and searched until the warrant was obtained at about 11:00pm, at which time the guns and drugs were found.

Slam dunk, right?  Maybe even a medal for Best Police Officer Ever?  Not so fast.  As the