Monday, June 15, 2026
Page 1
Court of Appeal:
Arrest Is ‘In-Home’ Where Coercive Tactic Drives Suspect Out
Justices Decline to Follow 1985 Decision by Differently Constituted Panel of Same Division, Say Police Methods Used to Force Suspect to Exit Apartment May Render Warrantless Detention Outside Residence Constitutionally Infirm
By Kimber Cooley, associate editor
Div. Four of the First District Court of Appeal held Friday that a party’s arrest outside of an apartment may be an “in-home” apprehension if he only exits the residence due to coercive police tactics taken while he was still inside his residence, declining to follow a 1985 decision by a different panel of the same division that found no Fourth Amendment violation where the officers did not enter the home before taking custody of the defendant.
Justice Jeremy M. Goldman, writing for the court, recounted the circumstances surrounding the arrest as follows:
“With an arrest warrant in hand, a Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team held a perimeter around the apartment of defendant Lawrence Hayes [Jr.]….The team used a public announcement system to order him to surrender. After several hours, the team deployed a drone, a robot, and a chemical gas irritant into the apartment, ultimately causing defendant to come out. Following the team’s instructions, he walked 20 yards from his apartment to an arresting officer.”
Under those facts, he declared:
“[W]e reject the Attorney General’s argument that the trial court properly treated defendant’s arrest as one made outside the home….To enter a suspect’s home for purposes of arrest, police need either a warrant or probable cause and exigent circumstances.”
Prior Decision
Acknowledging the 1985 decision by the same division in People v. Trudell, which held that an arrest was not made in the suspect’s home by virtue of police officers using a public announcement system to order him out of the residence, Goldman wrote:
“We are mindful that, ‘[a]bsent a compelling reason, the Courts of Appeal are normally loath to overrule prior decisions from another panel of…the same division.’…Nonetheless, a case from our own division does not bind us, and we need not follow it when we conclude it was wrongly decided.”
Adopting the contrary approach taken by Div. Two of the Fourth District in the 2014 case of People v. Lujano, which found persuasive Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals jurisprudence indicating that it is the location of the arrestee at the point of police contact that matters, he opined:
“It appears to us that defendant submitted to the police assertion of authority while he was inside the apartment by following police orders to exit and then walking to the arresting officer.”
Hayes was arrested in April 2022 after Morva Jimerson called 911 to report that someone had shot at their garage while she was watching television inside. She informed responding officers that, a few hours before the shots were fired, her husband was aggressively approached by a stranger in front of their home.
Gunshots Heard
She said that the man ran away after her husband retrieved a firearm from the garage. Passersby heard the gunshots and said that they noticed two men outside a nearby apartment complex who stopped to change clothes and place the discarded items into a vehicle before they entered one of the units
After officers discovered that Hayes was a resident of that unit, they showed his photograph to Jimerson, who identified him as the aggressive man from earlier that day. Fairfield Police Department Detective Christopher Beck prepared a warrant application and, in his accompanying affidavit, said that Jimerson’s husband observed Hayes “shooting a firearm at him” and that Jimerson had herself identified him as the shooter.
After he was arrested and charged with shooting at an inhabited dwelling, the defendant moved to traverse the arrest warrant based on the inclusion of allegedly false statements in Beck’s affidavit and sought suppression of allegedly incriminating jailhouse recordings as fruit of the poisonous tree.
Solano Superior Court Judge Wendy Getty traversed the warrant but denied the motion to suppress, reasoning that the arrest was lawful, based on probable cause alone, because the police did not arrest the defendant inside his home. Last June, Hayes pled no contest, admitted a prior strike allegation, and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
On appeal, he challenges the denial of the motion to suppress.
Incorrect Ruling
Saying that “[w]e will affirm the judgment because we agree with the Attorney General that the trial court incorrectly traversed the arrest warrant because the warrant affidavit still set forth sufficient facts to establish probable cause even after the false statements were excised,” Goldman concluded:
“[T]he police lawfully could arrest defendant in his home or by forcing him from it, as they did.”
As to whether the arrest qualified as one made inside the suspect’s home, he wrote:
“In this case, it makes no difference that the officers never personally crossed the threshold and instead handcuffed defendant outside….Defendant exited his apartment only after police had surrounded it for hours and broadcast orders for him to come out with his hands up, and the SWAT team had deployed a ‘flash bang’ near the apartment’s front door, broken several rear windows and delivered a chemical gas irritant through them, and sent a robot and drone inside. This was not a case of someone voluntarily stepping outside to talk at the invitation of the police.”
Addressing the questions of probable cause in an unpublished portion of the opinion, the jurist remarked:
“Here, the affidavit continued to establish probable cause after the trial court removed the false statements. The excised affidavit still included the following information:…husband had been involved in a verbal altercation with a man outside of his and wife’s house; an hour later, husband heard a bang on the garage door;…police found multiple bullet holes in the house; police located a suspect and learned…that he had an extensive criminal history that included convictions involving firearms; and…wife identified the suspect as the man from the earlier verbal altercation. These facts suffice to cause a reasonable person to conclude that there was a fair probability that defendant was the shooter.”
Based on that conclusion, he said:
“Because the excised affidavit continued to establish probable cause to arrest defendant, the trial court erred by traversing the warrant….The warrant was valid when the police arrested defendant, and therefore the arrest was lawful even though it was effectively made in his home….For this reason, the result of the hearing at issue—the denial of defendant’s motion to suppress—was correct.”
Presiding Justice Tracie L. Brown and Justice Jon B. Streeter joined in the decision.
The case is People v. Hayes, A173642.
Copyright 2026, Metropolitan News Company