Case Title: Guererri v. State

Citation: 

Docket Number: 375, 2006

State: delaware

Court: Delaware Supreme Court

Date: 2007-03-29T00:00:00Z

Document:
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE 
 
JASON GUERERRI, 
 
 
) 
 
 
 
 
 
 
)  No. 375, 2006 
 
 
Appellant,  
 
) 
 
 
Defendant Below,  
)  Court Below:  Superior Court 
 
 
 
 
 
 
)  of the State of Delaware 
v. 
 
 
 
 
 
)  in and for New Castle County 
 
 
 
 
 
 
) 
STATE OF DELAWARE, 
 
)  Cr. ID No. 0502010828 
 
 
 
 
 
 
) 
 
 
Appellee, 
 
 
) 
 
 
Plaintiff Below. 
 
) 
 
Submitted:  December 20, 2006 
Decided: March, 29, 2007 
 
Before STEELE, Chief Justice, HOLLAND and JACOBS, Justices. 
 
Upon appeal from the Superior Court.  AFFIRMED. 
 
David J. Haley, Wilmington, Delaware for appellant. 
 
Elizabeth R. McFarlan, Department of Justice, Wilmington, Delaware for 
appellee. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
STEELE, Chief Justice: 
 
 
2
Jason Guererri appeals his conviction and sentence on the following drug 
charges: Possession with Intent to Deliver Marijuana, Maintaining a Dwelling for 
Keeping Controlled Substance, Use of a Vehicle for Keeping Controlled 
Substances, Second Degree Conspiracy, and Possession of Drug Paraphernalia.  
On appeal, Guererri claims that the Superior Court judge erred as a matter of law 
when he denied Guererri’s motion to suppress evidence derived from a police 
officer’s allegedly illegal search of his residence. Because the emergency doctrine 
exception to the Fourth Amendment justified the officers’ broad search of 
Guererri’s home, we affirm the Superior Court’s judgment.   
FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY 
 The material facts in this case are undisputed.  On February 13, 2005, 
around 4 a.m., New Castle County Police Officers Cajuste, Jackson and Sergeant 
Dolan dispatched to Thomas Jefferson Boulevard in Newark, Delaware in response 
to a 911 call that indicated someone had fired gunshots in that area.  Upon arrival, 
the officers observed a SUV that had been hit by shotgun fire parked on the lawn 
of 30 Jefferson Boulevard.  The police found shell casings in the street.  They also 
observed that shotgun pellets had struck the one-story ranch-style home at 30 
Jefferson Boulevard and that shotgun pellets apparently had broken one of the 
home’s storm windows.   
 
3
The officers spoke to neighbors awakened by the gunfire.  They told the 
officers that they believed that there were people inside the residence because of 
the SUV parked on the lawn.  The officers called the house, but no one answered 
the telephone.  The police knocked on the doors and windows of the home, but 
received no response.  The officers became concerned that someone in the house 
might have been injured and was in need of emergency assistance.  Finally, after a 
supervisor arrived, one of the officers kicked open the front door and the police 
entered the house with their weapons drawn, intending to search the entire home 
for any person in need of emergency assistance.   
Upon entry, the police encountered an agitated pit bull and Guererri, who 
secured the dog.  Guererri did not appear to be injured or in need of assistance.  
The officers also did not observe any broken glass, shotgun pellets or blood 
immediately inside the house.  Upon questioning, Guererri informed the officers 
that he had been asleep all night and that his roommate might be in the basement.   
The officers called down to the basement and initially received no response.  
Within minutes, Guererri’s roommate, Raymond White, came upstairs.  White did 
not appear to be injured or in need of emergency assistance, but was upset that the 
police were in the house.  White became irate and the police handcuffed him.  
Although Guererri and White indicated that no one else was in the house, two 
officers went downstairs to finish “clearing the house.”  As soon as the first officer 
 
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reached the bottom of the stairs, he smelled marijuana.  In a back room of the 
basement, the officer also observed marijuana plants in plain view.   
The police then detained Guererri and White, contacted a magistrate, and 
obtained a warrant to search the defendants’ house and their vehicles.  As a result 
of the search, the police discovered several packages that contained marijuana.  
Police then “Mirandized” Guererri and interviewed him.  Guererri gave an 
incriminating statement. 
The police arrested Guererri and a grand jury later indicted him on several 
drug charges.  The Superior Court judge denied Guererri’s pretrial motion to 
suppress the evidence the police had seized from his house.  Thereafter, Guererri 
went to trial, was convicted and sentenced.  Guererri appeals from that conviction.   
DISCUSSION 
Guererri presents two issues on appeal, (1) whether the police violated his 
Fourth Amendment rights when they conducted a sweep of the entire residence for 
injured persons; and (2) assuming the police conducted an illegal search, whether 
the judge erred by not suppressing the evidence seized as the fruits of an illegal 
search.   
As we noted in Lopez v. State, we apply a dual standards of review to this 
case:  : 
Findings of historical fact are subject to the deferential “clearly 
erroneous” standard of review.  This deferential standard applies not 
 
5
only to historical facts that are based upon credibility determinations 
but also to findings of historical fact that are based on physical or 
documentary evidence or inferences from other facts.  “Where there 
are two permissible views of the evidence, the factfinder’s choice 
between them cannot be clearly erroneous.”  Once the historical facts 
are established, the issue is whether an undisputed rule of law is or is 
not violated.  Accordingly, appellate courts review de novo whether 
there is probable cause for an arrest, as a matter of law.1  
The United States Supreme Court has noted that “physical entry of the home 
is the chief evil against which the wording of the Fourth Amendment is directed.”2  
Under certain limited circumstances, however, police are justified in making a 
warrantless entry and conducting a search of the premises to provide aid to people 
or property.  The United States Supreme Court has upheld a warrantless search of a 
house after the occurrence of a violent crime when it was reasonable to believe that 
dangerous people or victims were on the premises.3  We have recognized this so-
called “emergency doctrine” exception to the warrant requirement.4 
                                                 
1  
Lopez v. State, 861 A.2d 1248-49 (Del. 2004) (citations omitted). 
2  
Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 585 (1980), quoting United States v. United States 
District Court, 407 U.S. 297, 313 (1972). 
 
3  
Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385, 392 (1978). 
 
4  
Patrick v. State, 227 A.2d 486 (Del. 1967) (holding that officers’ entry into an apartment 
without a warrant based on a tip that there was an individual dying or dead within the apartment 
was lawful, and “[t]he preservation of human life is paramount to the right of privacy protected 
by search and seizure laws and constitutional guaranties;  it is an overriding justification for what 
otherwise may be an illegal entry.  It follows that a search warrant is not required to legalize an 
entry by police for the purpose of bringing emergency aid to an injured person.”) Id. at 489. 
 
 
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Although Delaware courts have not yet done so, other jurisdictions have 
articulated the showing required to establish the legality of a warrantless search 
under the emergency doctrine.  Specifically, the State must show, by a 
preponderance of the evidence, that: 
(1)  The police must have reasonable grounds to believe that there is 
an emergency at hand and an immediate need for their assistance for 
the protection of life or property.  (2)  The search must not be 
primarily motivated by intent to arrest and seize evidence.  (3)  There 
must be some reasonable basis, approximating probable cause, to 
associate the emergency with the area or place to be searched.5 
 
A warrantless entry into and following search of a person’s home do not 
violate the Fourth Amendment if this three-pronged test is satisfied. 
Applying that test, which we now adopt, to these facts, the warrantless entry 
into Guererri’s home satisfies the test’s first prong.  As Guererri concedes, the 
Superior Court judge properly held that the police entered his home without a 
warrant because they reasonably believed that someone in the home might be in 
need of emergency assistance.  Guererri’s Fourth Amendment claim instead 
focuses on the extensive search of his entire home.  Guererri agues that “[t]he 
police had no basis in fact, in reasonable inferences, or in totality of the 
circumstances, to justify a search of the entire residence after both residents were 
                                                 
5  
People v. Bondi, 474 N.E.2d 733, 736 (Ill. App. Ct. 1984), quoting 2 W. LaFave, Search 
& Seizure sec. 6.6(a), at 469 (1978); See United States v. Deemer, 354 F.3d 1130, 1132 (9th Cir. 
2004); State v. Frankel, 847 A.2d 561, 569 (N.J. 2004); State v. MacElman, 834 A.2d 322, 326 
(N.H. 2003); People v. Cook, 117 A.D.2d 748, 749 (N.Y. App. Div. 1986); State v. Resler, 306 
N.W.2d 918, 923 (Neb. 1981). 
 
 
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unharmed and accounted for on the first floor.”  Thus, the issue is whether the 
warrantless search of Guererri’s house satisfied the second and third prongs of the 
emergency doctrine test. 
Under the second prong of the emergency doctrine test, officers must 
conduct the search primarily to achieve a community caretaking function, rather 
than to pursue a law enforcement objective.6  That was the officers’ purpose here.  
Confronted with a crime scene suggesting several shotgun firings, unresponsive 
residents and the neighbors’ speculation that people were in the house, the officers’ 
entered Guererri’s house in response to facts revealing a probable emergency 
situation.  The facts here do not fairly suggest a motivation to apprehend and arrest 
Guererri or to seize evidence.  The officers were not acting with law enforcement 
motivations; when they began their search, they had no reason to believe any crime 
had been committed or was being committed by Guererri in his home.  The record 
is consistent with a good faith effort to aid potential victims of shotgun fire and 
with the officers’ primary concern for health and safety of any people that might be 
found in Guererri’s house. 
                                                 
6  
Cady v. Dombrowski, 413 U.S. 433, 441 (1973); Commonwealth v. Waters, 456 S.E.2d 
527, 530 (Va. Ct. App. 1995). 
 
 
8
To satisfy the third prong of the test, there must be a “direct relationship 
between the area to be searched and the emergency.”7  Thus, the search may 
include not only a search of the premises to find people in need of aid, but also a 
protective sweep to ensure that no further danger is present.8  The scope of a 
warrantless search under the emergency aid exception is limited to “those areas 
necessary to respond to the perceived emergency.”9 
 
In Tierney v. Davidson,10 the Second Circuit decided a case involving almost 
identical issues under similar facts and circumstances.  In Tierney, the police 
responded to a report of a domestic dispute.  People outside of Tierney’s home 
advised the police that shouting had ended just before the police arrived.  An 
officer then entered Tierney’s home without knocking or identifying himself.  
After Tierney assured the officer that there had been no fight, the officer continued 
to search the premises.  Tierney later brought a § 1983 action11 against the officer, 
claiming that his search was unlawful.  The Second Circuit held that the search of 
the home was justified because the officer reasonably believed he was locating the 
                                                 
7  
People v. Mitchell, 347 N.E.2d 607, 610 (N.Y. 1976). 
 
8  
Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385, 392 (1978); Michigan v. Tyler, 436 U.S. 499, 509-10 
(1978). 
 
9  
United States v. Stafford, 416 F.3d 1068, 1075 (9th Cir. 2005). 
 
10  
133 F.3d 189 (2d. Cir. 1998). 
 
11  
42 U.S.C.A. § 1983. 
 
 
9
other people involved in the domestic dispute, a search that was necessary to 
ensure the safety of the occupants.12 
 
Tierney is persuasive.  Both Tierney and Guererri claim that the 
investigating officers should have accepted their representations that no one else 
was in the house or in need of emergency assistance.  Like the officer in Tierney, 
the officers here reasonably disbelieved Guererri’s statements because 
“defendants’ behaviors and their answers to questions did not make any sense.”13  
As the Tierney court noted, it may be a dereliction of duty for the officers to have 
left Guererri’s premises without searching for potentially injured parties.14 
 
There also was a reasonable nexus between the emergency and the area 
searched.  At the time the officers entered Guererri’s house, they had no 
knowledge of how many people were actually inside, nor did they know if anyone 
had been injured during the shootings.  Thus, the police properly restricted their 
search to areas inside Guererri’s house where they might find potential gunshot 
victims.  Their search was not unlimited or random, such as, for example, peering 
                                                 
12  
Tierney, 133 F.3d at 199. 
 
13  
The trial judge noted that “[f]or example, it was off that many neighbors heard the 
shooting, but Defendants did not.  Thus, the police had reason to doubt anything Defendants told 
them, including anything they said about no one else being in the house.”  State v. Guererri, 
I.D.#: 0502010828 (Dec. 15, 2005, J. Silverman). 
 
14  
Tierney v. Davidson, 133 F.3d 189, 198 (2d. Cir. 1998). 
 
 
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into drawers, cupboards or wastepaper baskets.15  Here, after the police confronted 
the defendants who apparently were in no need of emergency assistance, it was 
reasonable for them to check the rest of the house “to see if there was anybody else 
down or hurt inside the residence.”  The police had reason to search the basement 
for potential victims and did so without exceeding the bounds of their authority 
under the emergency doctrine.  Therefore, because the officers had a reasonable 
basis for an emergency search and the scope of their search was likewise 
reasonable under the circumstances, they did not violate the Fourth Amendment. 
 
Our finding that the search was proper disposes of Guererri’s second claim 
that the trial court erroneously denied his motion to suppress the evidence seized as 
a result of the unlawful search.  Guererri concedes that the police saw the 
contraband in “plain view” during the search of his house.  Because “the police 
may seize any evidence that is in plain view during the course of their legitimate 
emergency activities,”16 they properly seized the contraband.   
CONCLUSION 
 
Because the emergency doctrine exception to the Fourth Amendment 
justified the officers’ broad search of Guererri’s home, we AFFIRM the judgments 
of the Superior Court. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                 
15  
State v. Rankle, 847 A.2d 561, 568 (N.J. 2004). 
 
16  
Mincey, 437 U.S. at 393; Tyler, 436 U.S. at 509.