NEW YORK — Oct 30, 2014, 7:52
PM ET
By LARRY NEUMEISTER Associated
Press
A Connecticut city's reputation
as one of America's most dangerous communities did not give police officers the
right to invade a yard where they killed a family dog after getting an
erroneous tip that guns were hidden in an abandoned car behind the home, a
federal appeals court said Thursday.
In reversing a jury verdict,
the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan put a spotlight on the
Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures,
especially in high-crime neighborhoods.
A three-judge panel said a
trial can decide damages owed by the city of Hartford after two police officers
lacking a warrant or probable cause entered the yard in December 2006, where a
12-year-old girl was playing after school with Seven, her St. Bernard.
The girl, identified in papers
only as "K.H.," testified she heard two shots shortly after the dog
ran around to the front yard. She said she found Officer JohnMichael O'Hare
with the dog, which was lying in the grass, panting, with its tail wagging and
its tongue out. She recalled screaming: "Don't shoot my dog!"
She said the officer
"looked at me, leaned over, and he shot him in the head."
Then, she added, he told her:
"Sorry, Miss, but your dog's not going to make it."
In a pretrial deposition, O'Hare
testified the dog had "rushed in rage right at us" and made "a
low growl, like a dog would do when it was about to attack."
"It was snapping its teeth
and it was growling, it was coming to get me," the officer said. He said
he saw the girl after the shots were fired and said nothing to her.
The appeals court said lawyers
for the city and officers had "overvalued" Hartford's high crime rate
as an "exigent circumstances" justification to enter the yard.
"Taken to its logical end,
this argument would permit exigent circumstances anytime there is a tip about
illegal guns being located somewhere in a high-crime neighborhood or city, and
would allow the exception to swallow the rule," Circuit Judge Rosemary
Pooler wrote.
The city of Hartford's attorney
declined to comment. Lawyers for the officers did not immediately return
messages.
The girl's father, Glenn
Harris, testified at a May 2012 trial that his daughter needed hospitalization
and antidepressants afterward and still believes she should have prevented the
shooting.
In a statement issued Thursday
by attorney Jon L. Schoenhorn, the girl thanked her father, who brought the
lawsuit, for "getting Seven the justice he deserves."
She said the dog's death had
been hard on her entire family, especially herself.
"Seven was my brother, my
companion, my everything," she added.
Harris said in a statement that
he wanted to thank a Hartford Police Department employee who came to the home
to apologize after the shooting. He said the ruling "reaffirms that your
rights are the same, regardless of where you live."
Schoenhorn called the decision
significant for making clear that areas outside a home are protected from
unreasonable searches.
