Warrantless Arrest in Doorway of Defendant’s Apartment Did Not Violate the Payton Rule

The Second Department determined the warrantless arrest of the defendant in the doorway of his apartment did not violate the “Payton” rule which prohibits warrantless arrests in the home:

Contrary to the defendant’s contention, his arrest did not violate his rights under Payton v New York (445 US 573) and People v Levan (62 NY2d 139, 144). “The rule announced in Payton and applied in Levan is clear and easily understood: a person enjoys enhanced constitutional protection from a warrantless arrest in the interior of the home, but not on the threshold itself or the exterior” … . As pertinent to this case, where the defendant lived in the upstairs apartment of a building containing two separate apartments, there is clearly a “distinction between homes and common areas such as halls and lobbies . . . which are not within an individual tenant’s zone of privacy” … .

Here, the hearing evidence demonstrated that the police entered the building the defendant lived in through the front door. Thereafter, they passed through a vestibule before climbing the stairs to the defendant’s upstairs apartment. One of the officers knocked on the closed apartment door, the defendant opened it, and the officer effectuated the arrest in the doorway. The arresting officer did not go inside the defendant’s apartment …, or reach in to pull the defendant out … . Since the defendant was arrested at the threshold of his apartment, after he “voluntarily emerged [and thereby] surrendered the enhanced constitutional protection of the home” …, his warrantless arrest did not violate Payton and Levan … . People v Garvin, 2015 NY Slip Op 05695, 2nd Dept 7-1-15