State v. Guevara

In State v. Guevara, 349 N.C. 243, 506 S.E.2d 711 (1998), cert. denied, 526 U.S. 1133, 119 S. Ct. 1809, 143 L. Ed. 2d 1013 (1999), law enforcement officers entered the defendant's mobile home, believing that the defendant was wanted on an outstanding arrest warrant. The defendant shot at the officers, killing one officer and injuring another. Id. at 248-49, 506 S.E.2d at 715-16. The defendant was charged with first-degree murder and assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury. Id. at 247, 506 S.E.2d at 715. At trial, the defendant moved to suppress one officer's eyewitness account of the shooting, claiming that the officers' entry was unlawful, and thus the testimony should be excluded as the fruit of an illegal entry. Id. at 249, 506 S.E.2d at 716. The trial court denied the defendant's motion, and the defendant was convicted of both charges against him. On appeal, the Supreme Court of North Carolina affirmed the defendant's convictions. The Court first noted that it was unnecessary to consider whether the police officers' entry into the defendant's mobile home was unlawful because, under Miller, the exclusionary rule would "'not require the exclusion of evidence obtained after an illegal entry when that evidence is offered to prove the murder of one of the officers making the entry.'" Id. at 249-50, 506 S.E.2d at 716 (quoting Miller, 282 N.C. at 641, 194 S.E.2d at 358). Therefore, regardless of whether the police officers' entry into the defendant's mobile home ran afoul of Fourth Amendment limitations, an officer's "eyewitness account of the events which transpired subsequent thereto was not barred by application of the exclusionary rule." Id. at 250, 506 S.E.2d at 716.