CRONE, J.
On April 4, 2009, at approximately 11:46 p.m., Carmel Police Officer David Henry responded to a complaint of gunshots fired in a backyard near 146th Street and Towne Road. . . . .
Officer Henry noticed in the distance a campfire at the location where he believed the shots may have been fired. Officer Henry proceeded up a gravel driveway to a one-story home with a large attached pole barn. The campfire was just north of the home beyond a small tree line. Officer Henry activated his police vehicle’s rear deck red and blue emergency lights to alert the responding Westfield police officers. Officer Henry then exited his vehicle and approached an individual who was sitting in a lawn chair by the campfire. The individual, identified as Barry Dircks, stood up as Officer Henry approached. Dircks informed Officer Henry that his cousin, Trotter, was inside the residence using the bathroom. On a picnic table next to the campfire, Officer Henry observed a .45 caliber handgun, ammunition for that gun, as well as shotgun shell boxes. A gallon bottle of hard liquor was sitting on the picnic table, and Dircks was holding a plastic cup.
Officer Henry asked Dircks if he had been “shooting off any rounds,” and Dircks responded that he had not. Tr. at 15-16. Officer Henry assured Dircks, “I’m not going to try to hem you up over this,” but informed him that the home was close to residential areas and that shooting off rounds was not safe. Tr. at 16. Dircks then apologized and explained that he and Trotter were just having some fun. Dircks showed Officer Henry two AR-15 magazines from another weapon he had been using. Officer Henry suggested that he and Dircks go talk to Trotter. As the pair was about to do so, additional Carmel and Westfield police officers arrived at the scene. Officer Henry explained the situation to the responding officers and turned over his investigation to Officer Broc Larrison and Officer Jeremy Butterfield of the Westfield Police Department.
In addition to noticing the firearm and ammunition on the table, Officers Larrison and Butterfield noticed shell casings on the ground and a propane tank that appeared to have recently been shot. The Westfield officers spoke to Dircks but believed that he may have been intoxicated and was behaving somewhat belligerent. The officers placed Dircks in handcuffs and began to look for Trotter. Officer Larrison checked doors on the east side of the residence and the pole barn and discovered that those entrances were locked. Officer Larrison also looked into the windows of a recreational vehicle on the property but determined that nobody was inside. Officer Larrison then discovered that a door on the southeast corner of the pole barn was unlocked. Officer Larrison informed Officer Butterfield that he had located an unlocked door, and the officers decided to go in.
Officer Butterfield opened the door and announced that they were officers with the Westfield Police Department. Although Officer Larrison testified that he knocked on the doors when he originally checked them, Officer Butterfield, who was the first to enter through the unlocked door, did not knock on the door prior to opening it. Once inside, the officers shined their flashlights around the dark pole barn. The officers heard a rustling sound and again announced that they were police officers. They heard no response. However, after shining their flashlights in the direction of the noise, the officers observed Trotter approximately fifteen feet away from them standing behind some construction equipment with a rifle pointed at them. Trotter exclaimed something along the lines of, “You don’t need to be here. Get out.” Id. at 43. The officers ran out of the pole barn. A standoff between Trotter and police ensued for several hours and involved the S.W.A.T. team from the Noblesville Police Department. Trotter eventually surrendered.
The State charged Trotter with class D felony pointing a firearm and class D felony criminal recklessness. . . . [A]lthough the trial court maintained its original conclusion that the warrantless entry into the residence was unconstitutional, the trial court determined that suppression of the evidence was not necessary based upon the doctrine of attenuation. . . . .
. . . .
. . . The trial court properly determined that the officers’ warrantless entry into the residence was neither justified by exigent circumstances nor supported by probable cause. Accordingly, the officers’ warrantless entry violated the Fourth Amendment.
. . . .
Similarly, we agree with the trial court that the officers’ warrantless entry also violated Trotter’s rights pursuant to our state constitution. . . . .
. . . .
. . . Fourth Amendment jurisprudence has recognized an exception to the exclusionary rule in cases where the connection between the illegal police conduct and the subsequent discovery of evidence “become[s] so attenuated that the deterrent effect of the exclusionary rule no longer justifies its cost.” Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 609 (1975) (Powell, J., concurring). Specifically, “[i]n some situations, the causal chain is sufficiently attenuated to dissipate any taint of [the illegal police activity], allowing the evidence seized during a search to be admitted.” Cole v. State, 878 N.E.2d 882, 887 (Ind. Ct. App. 2007). This is known as the attenuation doctrine. See Quinn v. State, 792 N.E.2d 597, 601 (Ind. Ct. App. 2003) (citing Brown, 422 U.S. 590, 603-04), trans. denied.
In Webster v. State, 908 N.E.2d 289, 293 (Ind. Ct. App. 2009), trans. denied, another panel of this Court questioned, without affirmatively deciding, whether the attenuation doctrine exception to the exclusionary rule has any application under the Indiana Constitution. Although the Indiana exclusionary rule has historical ties to the federal rule, it was independently founded upon Article 1, Sections 11 and 14 of the Indiana Constitution. See Callender v. State, 193 Ind. 91, 96, 138 N.E. 817, 818-19 (Ind. 1923). In Webster, we surmised that “a defendant’s actions during a police encounter are considered as part of the totality of the circumstances in determining whether the police acted reasonably.” Id. We noted that our supreme court has declared that the “[f]ocus of the exclusionary rule under the Indiana Constitution is the reasonableness of the police conduct.” Id. (quoting Hardister v. State, 849 N.E.2d 563, 573 (Ind. 2006)). We further acknowledged that regarding the exclusion or admission of evidence the court has stated that “[a]dmissibility is lawful if the court can declare the process reasonable.” Id. (quoting Brown, 653 N.E.2d at 79).
Recently, our supreme court reiterated Indiana’s unique commitment to protecting personal rights, stating that because our jurisprudence focuses on what is “reasonable” under the “totality of the circumstances,” Article 1, Section 11 in some cases confers greater protections to individual rights than the Fourth Amendment affords. Shotts v. State, 925 N.E.2d 719, 726 (Ind. 2010). Along those lines, and in agreement with the reasoning in Webster, we conclude that the attenuation doctrine as it currently exists as a separate analysis to circumvent the exclusionary rule for Fourth Amendment purposes has no application under the Indiana Constitution.
. . . .
Although we hold that the attenuation doctrine has no application under the Indiana Constitution, even if we were to consider the doctrine, we do not believe that it would apply in this case. Both the State and the trial court rely on our decision in Cole, 878 N.E.2d 882, to support application of the attenuation doctrine to the facts here. The court in Cole addressed the Fourth Amendment; however, we presume that if we were to recognize the attenuation doctrine under Article 1, Section 11, we would likely mirror the federal analysis. In determining whether the attenuation doctrine applies, three factors are considered: “’(1) the time elapsed between the illegality and the acquisition of the evidence; (2) the presence of intervening circumstances; and (3) the purpose and flagrancy of the official misconduct.’” Cole, 878 N.E.2d at 887 (quoting Quinn, 792 N.E.2d at 600) (citation omitted). “The important consideration in the third factor is whether the evidence came from the exploitation of that illegality or instead by means sufficiently distinguishable to be purged of the primary taint.” Id.
Regarding the first factor enunciated in Cole, the time that elapsed between the illegal entry and the officers’ alleged observations of Trotter pointing a firearm was not significant. Regarding the second factor, we disagree with the trial court’s conclusion that Trotter’s alleged act of pointing a firearm constituted an intervening circumstance. . . . Here, the evidence in question – the officers’ observations – was obtained almost simultaneously with the unlawful entry. Trotter’s alleged act of pointing a firearm was merely a response to the police misconduct, had a direct and immediate causal connection to the misconduct, and clearly was not an independent intervening circumstance. A person has the right to point a firearm at an intruder in his residence until he is able to confirm the intruder’s identity and purpose, even during a warrantless intrusion in the middle of the night by persons claiming to be police officers. In sum, nothing occurred between the illegal entry and the officers’ observations to break the causal chain.
Regarding the third factor, we agree with the trial court that the record does not suggest that the officers’ unlawful entry was flagrant misconduct. Still, although officers may not have expected Trotter to respond as he did, it is clear that the entry was made without probable cause and at the expense of Trotter’s protected rights. We cannot conclude that the officers’ observations were obtained by means “sufficiently distinguishable from their misconduct to be purged of the primary taint.” Id. at 887. In sum, we find no attenuation at all, much less sufficient causal attenuation so as to dissipate the taint of the unconstitutional entry. If the officers’ observations of Trotter’s alleged act of pointing a firearm is not fruit of the poisonous tree, then nothing is.
FRIEDLANDER, J., and BARNES, J., concur.