Judge Criticizes TV-Style Tactics in Drug Raid

A state appeals court, suggesting that an Orange County sheriff’s narcotics team may have seen too many TV cop shows, reversed the convictions of three people arrested in a 1988 drug raid in which a deputy masqueraded as a florist’s deliveryman to gain entry to a house.

In an opinion issued last week but made public Monday, the 4th District Court of Appeal here ruled that the drugs discovered in the house could not be used as evidence against the defendants because the officer failed to announce himself as a deputy with a search warrant when he knocked on the door of the house in Orange.

The ruling effectively scuttles the case against Vienna Hansel, Kevin Berlin and Loreen Goetz, who were arrested Dec. 23, 1988. The charges against them in the case cannot be brought again, authorities said.

State law allows an officer to break down a door or window of a house to execute a warrant if, “after notice of his authority and purpose, he is refused admittance.”

In a bitingly sarcastic opinion, the court criticized the prosecutors in the case for failing to make clear in court why the officer took such an unusual step to serve the warrant.

Deputy Christopher Elliott, who led the raid, announced to Hansel when she answered the door that he was delivering a bouquet of flowers that she would have to sign for. Before she could respond, however, Elliot dropped the flowers and yelled that he was a deputy with a search warrant and pulled her out of the doorway.

Within 15 seconds, other deputies wearing jackets clearly identifying them as sheriff’s deputies burst from a nearby van and rushed into the house with Elliott.

The appeals court noted that during a preliminary court hearing, the prosecutor did not ask why the officers felt the need to use such an unusual tactic.

“Either the officers did have an exceptional concern for their safety or that evidence would be destroyed, or they have been watching too much television,” Justice Thomas F. Crosby Jr. wrote.

Crosby noted that even though the entry team was wearing raid gear, there was little or no opportunity for the occupants to be aware of the garb because the deputies had burst into the house without a request to enter.

The occupants, Crosby said, could have “drawn another plausible impression--that a robbery was in progress.”

Crosby wrote that the court was surprised to see that the prosecution did not simply refile the charges to develop a more thorough record after the lower court suppressed use of the narcotics evidence.

“The prosecution of this ill-advised appeal is . . . fatal to initiating new charges,” Crosby said.