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Serving Northern St. Louis County, Minnesota

Warrantless search nixes case against Greaney couple

David Colburn
Posted 1/23/25

GREANEY- Charges of theft and receiving stolen property filed against a Greaney couple were dismissed recently following a judge’s ruling that officers violated their Fourth Amendment rights by …

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Warrantless search nixes case against Greaney couple

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GREANEY- Charges of theft and receiving stolen property filed against a Greaney couple were dismissed recently following a judge’s ruling that officers violated their Fourth Amendment rights by failing to get a necessary warrant to enter their home and search their property.
Martin Voss and Stormie Kottom were charged with the crimes in August 2023 after St. Louis County deputies tracked a stolen Argo utility vehicle and trailer to their property using GPS locators affixed to each. The items had been reported stolen from a work site in Cook by their owner, Zielies Tree Service.
According to the probable cause statement, when officers arrived at the residence at 7:45 a.m. on Aug. 16, the GPS trackers indicated the Argo and trailer were on the property, though not visible from the front of the property. When one of them ran the license plate for a Dodge Ram pickup in the driveway that was equipped with a trailer hitch, he learned that it had been listed as stolen in June 2023. He also observed a license plate on the ground that was subsequently matched to the stolen trailer.
When deputies knocked on the door, Kottom called out and refused to come to the door, indicating that Voss was also there but too sick to come to the door. Additional officers were then requested.
While walking behind the residence to secure the back, one of the officers discovered the trailer that was stolen that morning, with the Argo nearby. Officers also found another trailer and six-wheeler that had been reported stolen in August 2019.
After other deputies arrived and tried multiple times to “gain compliance” from Kottom and Voss, officers forced the door and entered the residence. The couple was on a bed with a dog, which appeared aggressive, and when Kottom and Voss refused to come out they were told that they were under arrest. Both Kottom and Voss were argumentative and uncooperative, but eventually Voss complied and left the house. When Kottom pulled away from an officer’s grasp, she allegedly kicked her legs at him, and he responded by tasing and handcuffing her.
Both suspects were charged with felony theft and felony receipt of a stolen motor vehicle.
Motion to dismiss
Last September, Assistant Public Defender James Perunovich filed a motion in district court to have the charges against Voss and Kottum dismissed. He argued that evidence was obtained in what he asserted were warrantless and illegal searches and arrests should be suppressed. Perunovich contended that the trailer license plate, Dodge Ram, Argo, and trailer were found on the property curtilage, an area of the property for which owners have a reasonable right to privacy and which therefore serves as an extension of the home. As a person’s home is a constitutionally-protected area, any evidence discovered during a warrantless curtilage search cannot be introduced at trial, he argued. A similar argument was made for evidence resulting from the forced entry of the home and the arrests.
In a counter-filing, Assistant County Attorney Jeffrey Vlatkovich conceded that the warrantless entry into the residence and arrests were unconstitutional violations of Voss’s and Kottom’s Fourth Amendment rights.
But Vlatkovich argued that the evidence discovered outdoors should all be permissible. The Dodge Ram and the trailer license plate were in “plain view” of officers, an established exception to needing a warrant, he wrote. The Argo and trailer were found far from the house in the “back corner of the lot,” and the lack of any evidence the area was used for private activities meant that the area did not meet the tests to define it as protected curtilage, Vlatkovich argued. His conclusion was that both the Argo and the trailer were discovered as part of a legal search and should be admissible as evidence of theft.
Ruling tosses evidence
Judge Rachel Sullivan’s ruling in November, as documented in court records, gave wins to both sides, although Voss and Kottom got the greater benefit.
Using footage from three body cams and written narratives from two investigators to inform her deliberations on the filings, Sullivan found that the disputed land behind the residence did meet the four-factor test for declaring it to be curtilage and not an open field as prosecutors had claimed. There was a well-worn tracked trail and an appearance that the back lot had been mowed regularly, it was enclosed by densely wooded tree lines and was gated, and the area was regularly used for storage of personal property, all contributing that Voss and Kottom had a “reasonable expectation of privacy” for the area where the Argo and trailer were found.
“Because the search occurred on the curtilage of Defendant’s home, law enforcement was not constitutionally permitted to conduct a warrantless search of the area unless the search came within a recognized exception to the warrant requirement,” Sullivan wrote. “While it is true that law enforcement likely had probable cause – based on their discovery of the truck and license plate along with the discovery of what appeared to be Argo tracks – to conduct a search of Defendant’s home and property, law enforcement failed to secure a warrant and conducted a constitutionally impermissible search that ran afoul of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article 1, Section 10 of the Minnesota State Constitution.”
With the evidence suppressed, the theft case quickly fell apart. And while prosecutors had already conceded the point, Sullivan also ruled the warrantless entry into the residence as impermissible and suppressed any evidence obtained from that action.
Quoting a state Supreme Court ruling, Sullivan wrote, “A warrantless, nonconsensual intrusion of one’s dwelling is not to be lightly regarded; indeed, such an entry is considered presumptively unreasonable, and the United States Supreme Court has stressed the state bears a ‘heavy burden’ to establish exigent circumstances. The State has failed to meet that burden here.”
Sullivan did agree with prosecutors that the plain view doctrine applied to the trailer license plate and Dodge Ram, although the license plate without the supporting evidence of the trailer it came from would be inconsequential.
With the stolen Dodge Ram still allowed as evidence, a subsequent hearing on the charge of receiving stolen property was scheduled, but that charge was dismissed in December at the request of prosecutor Vlatkovich. No rationale for the dismissal was included in the related court filing. During her initial arrest, Kottom told officers that the truck had been in the driveway for over a month and that it belonged to someone named Nicky, a person she said she had never met.