Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca1-24-01052/USCOURTS-ca1-24-01052-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Dario Giambro
Appellant
United States
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

For the First Circuit

No. 24-1052

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Appellee,

v.

DARIO GIAMBRO,

Defendant, Appellant.

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF MAINE

[Hon. George Z. Singal, U.S. District Judge] 

Before

Rikelman, Lynch, and Aframe,

Circuit Judges.

Edward S. MacColl, with whom Marshall J. Tinkle and Thompson, 

MacColl & Bass, LLC, P.A. were on brief, for appellant.

Brian S. Kleinbord, Assistant United States Attorney, with 

whom Darcie N. McElwee, United States Attorney, was on brief, for 

appellee.

January 15, 2025

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RIKELMAN, Circuit Judge. Dario Giambro appeals his 

conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), the felon-in-possession 

statute, on two grounds. First, Giambro argues that the district 

court erred in denying his motion to suppress evidence found by 

police officers after they forcibly entered his Hebron, Maine home 

without a warrant. The district court concluded that the entry 

fell within the emergency aid exception to the Fourth Amendment's 

warrant requirement, which would apply here only if the officers 

had an objectively reasonable basis to believe that Giambro's wife, 

Arline, was inside the couple's home and in need of immediate aid. 

Giambro argues that the exception cannot apply because the 

information reported by Arline's family to the police officers was 

exactly the opposite: that Arline was not in the home and that she 

had died at least one day earlier. Second, he argues that the 

district court erred in denying his motion to dismiss the charge 

against him on Second Amendment grounds. 

We agree with Giambro that the officers' entry into his 

home cannot be justified under the emergency aid exception to the 

warrant requirement and thus violated his Fourth Amendment rights. 

Considering the record facts here, there was no objectively 

reasonable basis for the officers to conclude that they needed to 

enter the home to render emergency assistance to Arline. Further, 

the officers conducting the search knew that Arline's adult son 

and husband were nearby and available for questioning immediately 

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before the warrantless entry, yet they never tried to speak to the 

family members. We conclude that officers may not ignore obvious 

and available options for gathering facts to determine if an 

emergency actually exists. Accordingly, we reverse the district 

court's denial of Giambro's motion to suppress the evidence used 

against him and remand for further proceedings. Given our ruling 

on the Fourth Amendment issue, we do not reach Giambro's Second 

Amendment claim.1

I. BACKGROUND

The events leading up to the warrantless entry and search 

of Giambro's home began when Antonio, his son,2 visited his 

parents' trailer in Hebron, Maine on the morning of January 26, 

2022. Antonio had returned from a week-long vacation the day 

before and, understandably, wanted to check on his parents, both 

of whom were in their seventies. After arriving in Hebron, Antonio 

spoke to his father inside the trailer, and his father told him 

that his mother had died while Antonio was on vacation. During 

their conversation, Antonio became concerned about his father's 

mental health and decided to drive him to a hospital in a nearby 

town, about 15 minutes away. Importantly, Antonio did not see his 

1 At oral argument, Giambro agreed that if we reverse the 

district court's Fourth Amendment ruling, we need not address his 

Second Amendment claim.

2 To avoid confusion, we refer to Giambro's wife and son by 

their first names; we mean no disrespect in doing so.

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mother inside his parents' trailer that morning. Antonio also did 

not call 911 or take any other steps indicating that he was worried 

that his mother was still alive and in need of aid. 

Instead, the hospital where Antonio brought Giambro 

called the police and asked for an officer to respond to the 

hospital. At noon, about 45 minutes after that initial call by 

the hospital, police officers broke into Giambro's home without a 

warrant. The underlying facts about what transpired on January 26 

come from hearing testimony on Giambro's motion to suppress. We 

recite those facts as found by the district court. 

A. Initial Entry into the Hebron Trailer

At about 11:12 a.m. on January 26, the Oxford County 

Regional Communication Centers Dispatch ("Dispatch") received a 

non-emergency call from Stephens Memorial Hospital (the 

"Hospital") in Norway, Maine. A Hospital employee requested that 

an officer come to the Hospital. The employee recounted that an 

individual (Antonio) had "just brought in his father to the 

hospital because [his father] is confused but he said that his 

mother is at the house deceased and . . . they don't know what 

happened to the mother." Dispatch then spoke to Corporal Robert 

Federico, an officer from the Norway Police Department, and relayed 

that "Antonio Giambro brought his dad Dario Giambro in who is ill 

and is stating that the mother is at their residence. I don't 

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have that information. She is deceased and they are not sure what 

happened." Cpl. Federico then proceeded to the Hospital. 

Ten minutes later, Cpl. Federico arrived at the hospital 

and spoke with Antonio in the lobby of the emergency department 

while Giambro waited in Antonio's car. As the district court 

summarized, Antonio relayed the following information to Cpl. 

Federico:

[Antonio] had recently returned from vacation 

and, the night prior, had gone to plow the 

snow outside the residence of his parents, 

Dario and Arline Giambro ("Arline"), in Hebron

("the residence"). However, he was unable to 

make contact with either of them despite 

knocking on the front door of the residence 

and calling throughout the evening. It was 

not until the following morning, January 26, 

that Dario answered the phone. Because Dario 

sounded "off" during that phone conversation, 

Antonio again traveled to his parents' 

residence. Once there, Antonio did not see 

his mother (and Dario's wife), Arline, but 

spoke with Dario. Dario commented that Arline 

had died while Antonio had been away on 

vacation. When Antonio attempted to inquire 

as to what specifically had happened to 

Arline, Dario would offer only cryptic or 

evasive answers to the effect of "she didn't 

wake up" and "these sorts of things happen." 

Antonio asked whether any ambulance or police 

had been by the house, and Dario responded 

that they had not. He also asked where 

Arline's body was, and Dario responded that 

she was not in the house and that they lived 

"on a homestead." Antonio told his father 

that he would take him to lunch but instead 

brought him to Hospital. 

United States v. Giambro, No. 2:22-CR-00044, 2023 WL 3123001, at 

*2 (D. Me. Apr. 27, 2023) (summarizing testimony of Cpl. Federico). 

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After speaking with Antonio for about five minutes, Cpl. 

Federico reached back out to Dispatch. At 11:26 a.m., Cpl. 

Federico informed Dispatch that the residence at issue was in 

Hebron and that "the father is telling the son that the mother 

died but she's not in the house and he won't say where she is." 

He suggested that Oxford County, which had jurisdiction over 

Hebron, "may wish to have a deputy come here to talk to him." 

Thus, Cpl. Federico requested that an Oxford County deputy come to 

the Hospital to speak to Giambro (or Antonio). Dispatch responded 

that they would "let the . . . deputy know and have somebody go 

there and meet with him." 

Several minutes later, Cpl. Federico called Dispatch

again and stated: "Oxford just may want to let the deputy know 

that the subject has multiple comments in his [names] file, they 

might want to review that." A "names file" is a computerized 

record that allows local law enforcement to enter and view comments 

about an individual. On the morning of January 26, Giambro's names 

file contained two "miscellaneous comments" that were both more 

than a decade old: (1) that "GIAMBRO has shot a subject, created 

a police standoff, is VERY anti-law enforcement and in the past 

has possessed more than 100 firearms," dated May 29, 2010, and (2) 

that "[s]ubject [is] on [f]ederal [p]robation with Mat Brown. 

Brown thinks subject could be a problem with [law enforcement 

officers]. Brown also thinks subject is armed. Mat does not have 

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search conditions on subject but is going to try and get that 

changed," dated November 18, 2008. 

Cpl. Federico contacted Dispatch for a third time to 

request that the deputy "give[] me a call [so] I can explain 

better, I just don't want to put it out over the air." Cpl. 

Federico then spoke via his personal cell phone to Deputy Brandon 

Tiner of the Oxford County Police Department. Cpl. Federico and 

Deputy Tiner discussed "everything [Cpl. Federico] had learned up 

to that point as far as what Antonio had told [him]," the comments 

in Giambro's names file, and their concerns that Arline may still 

be alive. 

Deputy Tiner did not go to the Hospital as Cpl. Federico 

had requested through Dispatch; instead, he proceeded directly to 

the Giambro property, located in Hebron, Maine. Two other officers 

from the Oxford County Police Department met him there, as well as 

one additional officer from the Maine State Police Department. 

All four arrived at Giambro's home in Hebron between 11:46 a.m. 

and 11:54 a.m. 

Located on the Giambro property were "[a] beige brown 

trailer domicile which [could] not be seen from the road" and 

"[o]utbuildings [including] a large metal two bay garage." Two 

officers walked around the back of the trailer to look for any 

tracks in the snow but did not see any. The officers attempted to 

look through the trailer's windows, but blinds and plastic obscured 

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their view. One officer looked through the garage windows but did 

not see anybody inside. He also knocked on the trailer's door, 

yelled "Sheriff's Office," and repeatedly instructed anyone inside 

to answer the door.3

At this point, the only information the officers had 

received about Arline was that she had died. The officers also 

knew "that [Antonio] had been at the house that morning," that "he 

had not made any emergency calls to law enforcement or ambulance 

[services]," and that "instead of doing those things, [Antonio] 

decided to take his dad to the hospital." Nevertheless, the 

officers remained concerned that Arline was "unaccounted for." To 

attempt to verify Arline's condition, they reached back out to

Dispatch, which confirmed that no medical calls or requests for 

assistance had been made on Arline's behalf. The officers made no 

efforts, however, to discuss their concerns that Arline may still 

be alive with her family members, even though Antonio and Giambro 

remained at the Hospital with Cpl. Federico and were readily 

available to the officers via Cpl. Federico's cell phone 

immediately before and during the search. 

3 The dissenting opinion suggests that the officers conducted 

a thorough search of the property before forcibly entering the 

home. But the record indicates only that the officers looked in 

through the windows of the garage and briefly checked around the 

trailer for footprints in the snow. After they broke into the 

trailer and did not find Arline, the officers continued their 

search, including by inspecting the "exterior perimeter of the 

garage." See infra Section B. 

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At around 11:57 a.m., two officers decided to force open 

the door of the trailer. Once inside, the officers walked through 

the kitchen/living area, the hallway, and a bedroom off the 

hallway. They also forced open an interior locked door. The 

officers did not locate Arline but did observe many firearms in 

plain view throughout the trailer, as well as behind the locked 

door. The officers exited the trailer at around 12:05 p.m. The 

search concluded without any officer at the site ever speaking to

Antonio or Giambro. 

B. Discovery of Arline's Body

Soon after, one officer departed and the others 

continued to search the area surrounding the trailer. As one of 

the remaining officers was attempting to open the garage door, 

another officer stepped over a snowbank at the edge of the driveway 

and observed old tracks in the snow on the other side. He followed 

the tracks and found an unhinged door lying on top of the snow. 

Underneath the door was a body-sized object wrapped in cloth and 

plastic, which was later determined to be Arline's body. An 

autopsy revealed she had died of natural causes.4

4 The suppression record indicates that, while at the 

Hospital, Antonio had spoken to Cpl. Federico about whether local 

law would permit individuals to bury deceased family members on 

family property, in a homestead burial. 

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C. Search Warrant and Indictment

That same evening, the Maine State Police applied for a 

search warrant for the Giambro property, including the trailer and 

garage. The officers' earlier search of the property, including 

the firearms and ammunition they observed after entering the 

trailer, was the only basis for their warrant request. In 

executing the warrant, the government seized firearms and 

ammunition. Ultimately, Giambro was indicted on one count of 

possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1) and 

924(a).5 

D. Motion to Suppress

Giambro timely moved to suppress the firearms seized 

from his trailer as the fruits of an illegal search. The district 

court conducted an evidentiary hearing on the motion, and Cpl. 

Federico and two of the officers who conducted the warrantless 

entry testified for the government.6 The government did not call 

Deputy Tiner as a witness, even though he was the only officer 

5 Giambro had previously been convicted of possession of an 

unregistered firearm in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 5861(d), a crime 

punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year, see id.

§ 5871. 

6 The government presented one additional witness, Oxford 

County Police Officer Adam Fillebrown. Officer Fillebrown had 

reported to the Hospital and later accompanied Antonio and Giambro 

to the Oxford Police Department for an interview, but he did not 

communicate with any of the four officers who entered Giambro's 

home. 

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conducting the search who had spoken directly to Cpl. Federico 

that morning.

During the hearing, the officers recounted what they 

knew about Arline's condition at the time of their warrantless 

entry into Giambro's home. One of the officers, Lt. Chancey Libby,

admitted that he had not been told anybody was alive or in need of 

medical attention at the home, and that he knew that Antonio had 

been inside the trailer earlier that morning and had placed no

calls requesting emergency assistance. 

The second officer, Sgt. Daniel Hanson, explained that 

he had been briefed on the situation by an officer from the Maine 

State Police Department. That officer

advised [Hanson] that a subject had gone to 

check on his parents, had found his father at 

the residence, found his father ill, could not 

find his mother, and brought his father to the 

hospital. His father had relayed to him that 

his mother was deceased but did not give any 

indication of where she was and didn't advise 

him of where she was. 

When asked by counsel why none of the officers had contacted 

Giambro before entering the trailer, Sgt. Hanson responded that

although it "would be assumed that [Giambro] would know" where 

Arline was located, asking Giambro "wasn't something that I had 

thought of at that point in time."

Sgt. Hanson also testified that he had received 

information about a possible homicide. But he quickly explained 

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that this information was shared in an earlier conversation, before 

all the facts were communicated, and he denied any basis for 

believing a crime had occurred before he entered the trailer that 

morning. 

For his part, Lt. Libby testified that he knew "nothing"

about reports of a homicide. 

E. District Court's Order

The district court denied Giambro's motion to suppress. 

It concluded that the officers properly relied on the emergency 

aid exception in entering Giambro's home without a warrant so that 

they could confirm that Arline was no longer alive. Giambro, 2023 

WL 3123001, at *5. The court explained:

[L]aw enforcement received information from 

Defendant's own son, Antonio, that his mother 

(Defendant's wife) was missing and that 

Defendant was acting strangely. Antonio also 

reported that Defendant offered only evasive 

and cryptic answers in response to inquiries 

about his mother's whereabouts but also 

indicated she had died without providing the 

location of her body. Viewing these facts 

objectively, the Court finds that a reasonable 

officer could have understood Defendant's 

evasiveness and shifting statements about his 

elderly wife's whereabouts -- coupled with her 

unexplained absence -- as an indication that 

she was potentially in danger and in need of 

immediate aid.

Additionally, because the officers knew that 

Defendant and Arline resided together at the 

residence, the officers had a reasonable basis 

to believe that they would locate her there. 

Id. at *4 & n.20. 

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Giambro timely appealed the district court's rulings 

denying his motion to suppress and his motion to dismiss the 

indictment.

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

"When reviewing a challenge to the district court's 

denial of a motion to suppress, [w]e view the facts in the light 

most favorable to the district court's ruling . . . , and we review 

the district court's findings of fact and credibility 

determinations for clear error." United States v. Camacho, 661 

F.3d 718, 723 (1st Cir. 2011) (quotation marks and citation 

omitted). We review de novo the district court's ultimate legal 

conclusion that the emergency aid exception justified the 

officers' warrantless entry into Giambro's home based on the record 

facts. See United States v. Almonte-Báez, 857 F.3d 27, 31 (1st 

Cir. 2017). 

III. DISCUSSION

Giambro argues that the district court legally erred in 

concluding that the emergency aid exception was met here. And 

because the officers invoked the exception to justify the 

warrantless entry that led to their discovery of the firearms, 

Giambro contends the evidence seized by the officers in their 

subsequent search must be suppressed.

A. Emergency Aid Exception

To explain why we agree with Giambro, we lay out the 

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legal standard governing the emergency aid exception. The Fourth 

Amendment protects individuals against "unreasonable searches and 

seizures." U.S. Const. amend. IV. "'At the very core' of the 

Fourth Amendment 'stands the right of a man to retreat into his 

own home and there be free from unreasonable government 

intrusion.'" Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27, 31 (2001) 

(quoting Silverman v. United States, 365 U.S. 505, 511 (1961)). 

It follows that "searches and seizures inside a home without a 

warrant are presumptively unreasonable." Brigham City v. Stuart, 

547 U.S. 398, 403 (2006) (quoting Groh v. Ramirez, 540 U.S. 551, 

559 (2004)).

"Nevertheless, because the ultimate touchstone of the 

Fourth Amendment is 'reasonableness,' the warrant requirement is 

subject to certain exceptions." Id. The United States Supreme 

Court has identified the need to render emergency aid as one such 

exception, explaining that "the need to protect or preserve life 

or avoid serious injury is justification for what would be 

otherwise illegal." Id. (quoting Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385, 

392 (1978)). "Thus, law enforcement officers 'may enter a home 

without a warrant to render emergency assistance to an injured 

occupant or to protect an occupant from imminent injury.'" 

Michigan v. Fisher, 558 U.S. 45, 47 (2009) (quoting Brigham City, 

547 U.S. at 403).

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To justify warrantless entry under the emergency aid 

exception, it is the government's burden to establish an

"'objectively reasonable basis for believing' that 'a person 

within [the house] is in need of immediate aid.'" Id. (first 

quoting Brigham City, 547 U.S. at 406; and then quoting Mincey, 

437 U.S. at 392).7 The government must justify its belief as to 

(1) the existence of an emergency and (2) the reason "for linking 

the perceived emergency with the area or place into which [the 

officers] propose to intrude." United States v. Martins, 413 F.3d 

7 The dissenting opinion mistakenly suggests that the critical 

question under this legal standard is whether officers can wait 

the several hours it would take to obtain a warrant before entering 

a home to conduct a search. But that analysis applies only in an 

ordinary exigent circumstances case, where the police have 

probable cause to believe a crime has been committed -- a belief 

expressly disclaimed by the testifying officers here -- but not 

enough time to obtain a warrant because, for example, they are in 

"hot pursuit of a felon" or faced with the "imminent destruction 

or removal of evidence." Bilida v. McCleod, 211 F.3d 166, 171 

(1st Cir. 2000). It is not the correct analysis in this case. 

Indeed, although the dissent points to Justice Alito's concurrence 

in Caniglia v. Strom, 593 U.S. 194, 200 (2021) for support, the 

concurrence says the opposite. It notes that in many situations 

where police seek to invoke the emergency aid exception, a warrant 

could never be obtained because the police are not investigating 

a crime, "and warrants are not typically granted for the purpose 

of checking on a person's medical condition." See id. at 203

(Alito, J., concurring). Thus, to rely on the emergency aid 

exception, the government must show that the officers who forcibly 

entered the trailer had a reasonable basis to believe that a person 

inside the home needed emergency aid at that time. See Fisher, 

558 U.S. at 47; Brigham City, 547 U.S. at 403.

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139, 147 (1st Cir. 2005), abrogated in part by Hill v. Walsh, 884 

F.3d 16, 23 (1st Cir. 2018).8 

B. Analysis

Accepting the facts as found by the district court, we 

conclude as a matter of law that the government failed to carry 

its burden to establish that the emergency aid exception justified 

the officers' warrantless entry into the Hebron trailer.9 We part 

ways with the district court's analysis because the key facts the 

officers had before entering the trailer indicated that (i) Arline 

had died and (ii) she was not inside the trailer. Thus, although 

we well understand the officers' subjective concerns, on these 

facts, it was not objectively reasonable for them to enter the 

home without a warrant, at least not without first speaking to 

Arline's available family members. That is especially so given 

that Antonio had been inside the home that very morning. 

8 Martins, which was decided before Brigham City and Fisher,

held the officers to a standard of proof approximating probable 

cause. See 413 F.3d at 147. Hill later rejected that standard of 

proof. See 884 F.3d at 23 (holding that "objectively reasonable 

basis" "need not approximate probable cause" (quotation marks 

omitted)).

9 The dissenting opinion suggests that we have failed to 

credit the district court's factual findings, but that is not 

correct. To the contrary, we rely on those findings and credit 

them fully. We disagree only on the legal question of whether 

those facts are sufficient to demonstrate that the emergency aid 

exception applies. 

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We evaluate each prong of the emergency aid exception in 

turn. 

1. There Was No Evidence of an Ongoing Emergency

For a search to qualify for the emergency aid exception, 

there must be an emergency. Framing the critical legal question 

in terms of the facts of this case, a forced, warrantless entry 

into Giambro's home would have been justified only if the police 

officers had a reasonable basis to believe that Arline was alive 

and in need of assistance. See Fisher, 558 U.S. at 47. We conclude 

there was no such reasonable basis here because the facts 

communicated to the police were exactly the opposite: that Arline 

had died at least one day earlier. 

To be sure, the officers knew that when Giambro told his 

son that Arline had died, Giambro seemed confused and said only 

that Arline "didn't wake up" one morning and that her body was not 

in the house. But the report of a death, standing alone, does not 

support a reasonable belief in an urgent, ongoing emergency. See

United States v. Richardson, 208 F.3d 626, 631 (7th Cir. 2000).10 

10 In Richardson, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh 

Circuit explained that, generally, "[f]aced with a report that 

there is a corpse in a house, it is hard to see why it is 

objectively reasonable to search in the hopes of finding a person 

who is still alive." 208 F.3d at 631. That said, after noting 

that "[w]e find this a very close case," the court held that it 

was objectively reasonable for officers to conclude there were 

"exigent circumstances on the[] particular facts" there. Id. at 

631. Those facts included that the police had received a 911 call 

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Again, although we understand the officers' concerns, 

there simply were no facts suggesting that Arline might still be 

alive. Most importantly, as the officers knew, Arline's adult son 

Antonio had been in his parents' home just hours earlier, and, 

upon learning his mother had died while he was on vacation, did 

not demonstrate any anxiety that his mother could still be alive 

and in need of aid.11 Instead, Antonio showed concern about his 

father's mental health and drove his father to a hospital 15 

minutes away. 

On top of Antonio's actions that morning, the officers 

knew that neither law enforcement nor medical personnel had been 

summoned to the Giambro property in the days leading up to the 

warrantless entry: There had been no calls for emergency aid from 

Giambro or Arline, and nobody had requested a welfare check. Cf.

Caniglia v. Strom, 593 U.S. 194, 207-08 (2021) (Kavanaugh, J., 

concurring) (reasoning that a scenario in which a "concerned 

from someone who identified himself by name, id. at 630; the caller 

reported a "rape[] and murder[]" and specified that the alleged 

victim could be found in the basement of the address he gave the 

officers, id. at 627-28; and "[t]his [was] not a case where the 

report indicated the body had been languishing in the house for 

several days," id. at 631. None of those facts are present here.

11 Indeed, when officers finally asked Antonio and his father 

further questions after they broke into the trailer, Antonio told 

them that his mother had been ill for a long time, that his father 

had been caring for her, and that Antonio had no doubt Arline was 

deceased. Given that the officers did not know these facts before 

the search, however, we rely only on Antonio's actions on the 

morning of January 26.

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relative calls the police and asks the officers to perform a 

wellness check" could give rise to emergency aid exception); 

Gaetjens v. City of Loves Park, 4 F.4th 487, 490 (7th Cir. 2021) 

(holding that warrantless search was lawful where neighbor called 

police because she was concerned that missing woman was 

experiencing medical emergency). Finally, there were no signs of 

recent violence or disturbance at the Giambro residence when the 

officers arrived at the property. Cf., e.g., Brigham City, 547 

U.S. at 400-01; Fisher, 558 U.S. at 48 (upon arrival to the scene, 

officers "encountered a tumultuous situation" and "signs of a 

recent injury"); United States v. Maxwell, 85 F.4th 1243, 1245 

(7th Cir. 2023) (officers responded to reports of gunshots and saw 

"bullet holes in [the apartment's] front door," prompting them to 

fear for a potentially injured occupant). 

Instead, Deputy Tiner proceeded to Hebron, rather than 

to the Hospital as Cpl. Federico had suggested, only after 

reviewing the information in Giambro's names file. But the 

comments that Cpl. Federico had flagged for Deputy Tiner in the 

names file were over twelve years old, and they did not discuss 

Arline or Giambro's relationship with Arline. The comments did 

describe Giambro's past interaction with law enforcement, 

including his prior use of force against another man who came 

uninvited to his property, and the potential that he still owned 

firearms. But no officer even implied at the suppression hearing 

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that those facts were relevant to their concerns about Arline on 

January 26; to the contrary, both Sgt. Hanson and Lt. Libby denied 

any basis to believe a crime had occurred. As Sgt. Hanson summed 

it up, "we had no crime." 

Finally, we view one last fact as critical here. To the 

extent that the officers had questions about Arline's well-being, 

her adult son and husband were with a police officer, Cpl. 

Federico, immediately before the warrantless entry and available 

for questioning. See Hopkins v. Bonvicino, 573 F.3d 752, 765 (9th 

Cir. 2009) ("[I]f [police officers] otherwise lack reasonable 

grounds to believe there is an emergency, they must take additional 

steps to determine whether there [i]s an emergency that justifie[s] 

entry in the first place.") (quotation marks and citation omitted). 

And there is no indication in the record that Antonio was 

uncooperative or evasive with Cpl. Federico.

We do not mean to suggest that law enforcement must 

conduct additional investigation if the facts on hand already 

indicate an objectively reasonable basis to invoke the emergency 

aid exception. Cf. Deaton v. Town of Barrington, 100 F.4th 348 

(1st Cir. 2024) ("[O]nce police officers are presented with 

probable cause . . . , no further investigation is required at 

that point." (quoting Forest v. Pawtucket Police Dep't, 377 F.3d 

52, 57 (1st Cir. 2004))). We merely emphasize that officers may 

not ignore obvious and available options for gathering facts to 

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determine if an emergency actually exists. See Hopkins, 573 F.3d 

at 765. 

The government nevertheless argues that a report of a 

dead body can justify warrantless entry into a residence. We 

appreciate the variety of factual circumstances law enforcement 

may face, but the government's argument cannot be squared with 

Supreme Court precedent regarding the emergency aid exception, 

which focuses on providing aid to an individual who is "seriously 

injured or threatened with such injury." Fisher, 558 U.S. at 47. 

The Supreme Court has been cautious about expanding the scope of 

exceptions to the warrant requirement, most recently by holding 

that law enforcement's general community caretaking functions do 

not merit such an exception. See Caniglia, 593 U.S. at 199 

(quoting Collins v. Virginia, 584 U.S. 586, 596 (2018)); see also

Mincey, 437 U.S. at 394-95 (rejecting a "murder scene exception"). 

Instead, we reiterate that the emergency aid exception 

justifies warrantless entry only in the narrow set of circumstances 

when law enforcement must "render emergency assistance to an 

injured occupant or . . . protect an occupant from imminent 

injury." Fisher, 558 U.S. at 47. And a report that someone has 

died cannot always satisfy this standard because the report of a 

death generally indicates that emergency assistance is no longer 

needed. See Richardson, 208 F.3d at 631. 

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The cases the government cites are not to the contrary 

because in each case law enforcement either entered a home for 

other reasons or had information that reasonably led them to 

believe an individual could still be alive and in need of immediate 

aid. For example, in United States v. Beaudoin, a 911 caller 

described "a drug deal gone bad at the Kozy 7 Motel, Room 10" and 

reported that "there [wa]s a dead body in there." 362 F.3d 60, 62

(1st Cir. 2004), cert. granted, judgment vacated on other grounds 

sub nom. Champagne v. United States, 543 U.S. 1102 (2005). But by 

the time the officers entered the motel room without a warrant, 

they did so based on a far more developed set of facts: the 

defendant voluntarily opened the door to his motel room to speak 

with the officers; the officers questioned the defendant and 

discovered he was carrying weapons and drug paraphernalia; and the 

officers observed a second man through the open door who may have 

been "searching for a weapon or trying to hide evidence." Id. at 

63-64. Ultimately, we concluded that the officers' warrantless 

entry was justified due to the officers' fears for their own safety 

and did not rely on the report of the 911 caller as critical to 

our Fourth Amendment analysis. Id. at 71 (declining to "adopt[] 

a broad emergency aid doctrine"). 

Next, in United States v. Stafford, a fire alarm 

technician entered an apartment covered in blood, feces, and 

hundreds of hypodermic needles; he contacted maintenance because 

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he became concerned "there might be a dead body" inside the unit; 

and the maintenance person in turn told the property manager, who 

called the police. 416 F.3d 1068, 1071-72 (9th Cir. 2005) 

(emphasis added). The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit 

held that on these facts, the report of a "possible dead body" was 

sufficient to justify warrantless entry. Id. at 1071. 

Finally, in Wayne v. United States, police received an 

emergency call reporting an "unconscious woman" at an apartment. 

318 F.2d 205, 211 (D.C. Cir. 1963). The call was placed at the 

request of the woman's sister. Id. at 207. On this information, 

the officers "could not assume the woman was dead" rather than

critically injured and so were justified in entering the apartment 

to attempt to render aid. Id. at 212-13. 

To be sure, "[e]ven the apparently dead often are saved

by swift police response," and officers should not be forced to 

choose between saving a life and violating the Constitution. Id.

at 212. But there were simply no facts in this case indicating 

that Arline might still be alive, and thus no objectively 

reasonable basis for believing that she was. Thus, the government 

failed to carry its burden to meet the first prong of the emergency 

aid exception.

The dissenting opinion's conclusion to the contrary 

rests on three critical errors. First, the opinion misstates the 

record. The dissent's suggestion that the officers conducted the 

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warrantless search because they had reason to believe that Arline 

was a victim of domestic violence is incorrect. There is no 

evidence in the suppression record to support this claim. In fact, 

the record conclusively refutes it. None of the officers said a 

word about domestic violence at the suppression hearing, and 

instead they testified consistently that they had no basis to 

believe that a crime had been committed before they entered 

Giambro's home. 

To be clear, it is not just that the suppression record 

does not mention domestic violence "in so many words," as the 

dissent suggests; it is that the record contains nothing at all 

indicating that suspicions of domestic violence motivated the 

search. If concerns about domestic violence had played any role 

that day, one would have expected the issue to dominate the 

suppression hearing from beginning to end, but there was no mention 

of it. The dissenting opinion also points to Giambro's two-page 

names file, but the names file says nothing about domestic violence 

or Arline. It does list a welfare check at the Giambros' home in 

2021, but neither the names file itself nor any other part of the 

record indicates that the welfare check had anything to do with 

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domestic violence.12 And the district court certainly made no such 

finding. 

Critically, the government has disavowed the dissenting 

opinion's domestic violence theory to justify the search. It has 

never suggested, either to the district court or to us, that 

domestic violence concerns prompted the search of the Giambro home. 

To the contrary, the first and only time the domestic violence 

theory was raised in this case was when the panel asked the 

government about it at oral argument, and the government 

forthrightly rejected it, stating that there was nothing in the 

suppression record about "domestic violence or anything like 

that."13

12 The dissent's suggestion that Sgt. Hanson and Deputy Tiner 

had reason to believe that Arline was a victim of domestic violence 

rests on speculation. Neither officer voiced such a concern. Sgt. 

Hanson testified at the suppression hearing and said nothing about 

domestic violence. Deputy Tiner did not even testify, and there 

is no affidavit or other statement from him in the suppression 

record. And the brief testimony by Cpl. Federico and Sgt. Hanson 

about their conversations with Deputy Tiner that morning, on which 

the dissent seems to rely, does not mention any domestic violence 

concerns. See supra p. 7.

13 In footnote 28, the dissent also refers to Arline's 

statements from the 1980s, which were mentioned in Giambro's 

Presentence Investigation Report (PSR) -- a document that did not 

exist at the time of the search or the suppression hearing and was 

created nearly two years after the search. (The PSR also contains 

Antonio's statement that although his parents argued and pushed 

each other when he was little, he had not seen "anything like this 

in years.") As the dissenting opinion acknowledges, the officers 

conducting the search did not know the contents of the PSR. Thus, 

the PSR cannot possibly support the "reasonableness" of any actions 

by Deputy Tiner leading up to the search. It is black-letter law 

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Second, the dissenting opinion relies on cases that 

undermine its conclusion or rest on facts that are just not present 

here. For example, the dissent relies repeatedly on concurring 

opinions in Caniglia. But Caniglia reversed a decision by our 

court upholding a warrantless search and held that the general 

community caretaking functions of law enforcement do not justify 

warrantless entries into the home. 593 U.S. at 198-99. The 

dissent also contends that Brigham City approved the analysis of 

a concurring opinion in Wayne. But Brigham City's only reference 

to Wayne is to cite it indirectly for the basic rule that the need 

to preserve life or avoid serious injury can justify a warrantless 

search. See Brigham City, 547 U.S. at 403 (citing Mincey, 437 

U.S. at 392; and then citing Wayne, 318 F.2d at 212). 

Similarly, the dissenting opinion cites cases in which 

officers did have an objectively reasonable basis for concluding 

there was an emergency. But the facts that were critical to the 

outcomes of those cases are not present in this case.14 For 

that a court cannot rely on "post-entry information . . . to 

'cinch' or 'strengthen' [a] finding that the officers reasonably 

believed" they had a basis for a warrantless search. United States

v. Young, 835 F.3d 13, 20 (1st Cir. 2016) (citing Payton v. New 

York, 445 U.S. 573, 590 (1980); and then citing United States v. 

Graham, 553 F.3d 6, 14 (1st Cir. 2009)). 

14 Because the facts of these cases are so different, and 

given the fact-dependent nature of the emergency aid exception 

analysis, our holding in no way creates a circuit split, contrary 

to the suggestion in the dissenting opinion.

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example, when officers arrived at the Giambro residence, there 

were no signs of violence or disturbance. Nobody called the police 

and nobody reported hearing screams or threats. Contra United 

States v. Guillen, 755 F. App'x 643, 645 (9th Cir. 2018); Harrison

v. Davidson Hotel Co., 806 F. App'x 684, 686 (11th Cir. 2020). 

And although the dissenting opinion asserts that our holding is 

irreconcilable with Hill and the reasoning of Justice Kavanaugh's 

concurrence in Caniglia,15 we disagree. In Hill and the 

hypothetical situations discussed by Justice Kavanaugh (as well as 

in Wayne), a relative or neighbor asked officers for assistance, 

expressing concern for a person who was unaccounted for and whose 

health status was either unknown or unstable. See also Gaetjens, 

4 F.4th at 490. The exact opposite is true here: No relative or 

neighbor asked for police assistance or expressed concern that 

Arline might need emergency aid. Thus, the critical facts that 

could justify invoking the emergency aid exception in those 

situations are precisely the facts that are missing here.

Third, although the dissenting opinion admits that the 

legal standard requires courts to evaluate what the officers knew 

at the time of the search, it fails to apply that standard. 

According to the dissent, the facts at the time of the search were 

"ambiguous at best." But pointing to ambiguity is not enough to 

15 We put to the side that Justice Kavanaugh was writing only 

for himself in his concurring opinion.

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meet the government's burden to demonstrate an objectively 

reasonable basis for believing a person inside Giambro's home 

needed immediate aid. And that is precisely why the officers 

should not have proceeded with a forced, warrantless entry that 

morning, especially when they had an obvious and available option 

for gathering additional information: speaking to Antonio, who had 

been inside the home just hours earlier. 

2. There Was No Evidence that Arline Was Inside the Trailer

The second requirement of the emergency aid exception is 

that officers have an objectively reasonable basis to believe that 

an individual who needs emergency aid is in the place that they 

decide to search. See Martins, 413 F.3d at 147. Here, all the 

available facts indicated that Arline was not in the trailer. 

As the district court found, Antonio had been inside the 

trailer that very morning and had not seen his mother, even though 

the trailer was not a large home. Giambro, 2023 WL 3123001, at 

*1. And Giambro told Antonio that Arline's body "was not in the 

house." Id. The officers knew these facts before entering the 

trailer, and they had no information to the contrary. 

The government points to several facts in the record 

that it contends support the officers' decision to search the 

trailer. It notes that Giambro was confused and would not directly 

answer Antonio's questions regarding Arline's death, and Arline 

lived in the trailer and reportedly had died in her sleep. It 

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also emphasizes, understandably, that Arline's body was 

unaccounted for according to Antonio. But the difficulty with the 

government's argument is that Arline was unaccounted for precisely 

because Antonio had not seen her inside the trailer that morning 

and because Giambro would say only that she was not in the house.16 

So, again, the actual facts before the officers indicated that of 

all the places Arline could be on the Giambro property, she was 

not in the trailer. See United States v. Timmann, 741 F.3d 1170, 

1181 (11th Cir. 2013) (concluding that "it was not reasonable for 

the officers to believe that someone inside Timmann's apartment 

was in danger and in need of immediate aid" when officers had no 

evidence of any ongoing emergency or disturbance inside the 

apartment). 

The government relies on Hill v. Walsh to argue that 

when officers are trying to locate a missing person, it is 

reasonable for them to begin the search at any potential location 

where that person might be, and their decisions must be evaluated 

based on what the officers knew at the time, not based on 

hindsight. We agree. But Hill does not help the government here. 

16 The dissenting opinion's suggestion that Antonio had not 

looked around the trailer and thus did not really know if his 

mother was inside is not supported by the record. As the district 

court found and one of the officers testified, Antonio "could not 

find his mother" that morning and was concerned about the location 

of her body. Given Antonio's concern, there is no basis for 

speculating that he would have failed to look around the trailer, 

which comprised just a few rooms, to try and find his mother. 

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To begin, we decided Hill based on qualified immunity 

grounds and so did not resolve the ultimate merits question of 

whether the facts of that case satisfied the emergency aid 

exception. See 884 F.3d at 23 ("[W]here there is reasonable debate 

about the constitutionality of the officers' actions, there is 

qualified immunity."). In any event, the facts in Hill are 

critically different. There, the officers had information that 

the subject of the search -- Matthew Hill -- could be found at two 

possible locations, either the Hill residence or Morton Hospital, 

both of which were listed on the face of the civil warrant the 

officers were attempting to execute.17 Id. at 19. Officers were 

dispatched to the Hill residence; upon arrival, they saw movement 

inside the home, but nobody responded to their knocking. Id. at 

20. Officers then tried to verify their suspicion that Hill was 

inside, first by walking around the property calling his name, and 

then by calling dispatch "to see if the dispatchers had any 

17 Pursuant to Massachusetts law, a person may petition a 

state court for an order of civil commitment of a person who has 

an alcohol or substance use disorder; in this case, Matthew Hill's 

sister filed such a petition on behalf of Matthew. Hill, 884 F.3d 

at 19. If "there are reasonable grounds to believe that such 

person will not appear" at their hearing, and that "any further 

delay in the proceedings would present an immediate danger to the 

physical well-being of the respondent," then the state court may 

issue a section 35 warrant "for the apprehension and appearance" 

of the person. Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 123, § 35. Our court in Hill

expressly declined to decide whether the "section 35 warrant [wa]s 

sufficient per se to justify warrantless entry into the home" and 

treated the warrant only as evidence regarding Hill's location. 

884 F.3d at 22 n.2.

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additional information about Matthew." Id. at 20. When they could 

not obtain any additional information about Hill's location one 

way or the other, they entered the home. Id. at 20-21. 

By contrast, here, Antonio and Giambro had both stated 

just that morning that Arline was not inside the trailer, and the 

officers could not observe anybody inside the home when they 

arrived. Further, unlike in Hill, the officers did not attempt to 

gather more information about Arline's location, and they easily 

could have done so. A police officer was at the Hospital with 

Antonio and Giambro during the hour preceding the search, and by 

all accounts Antonio was reliable, cooperative, and willing to 

speak to the police. In sum, the officers had no reason to believe 

Arline was inside the trailer and, to the extent they remained 

concerned that she nevertheless might be, they easily and quickly 

could have elicited additional information about her location. 

Those facts taken together undermine the objective reasonableness 

of their decision to forcibly enter the trailer without a warrant. 

Considering the facts in the record, which indicated 

that Arline was not in the Hebron trailer and had died at least 

one day earlier, there was no objectively reasonable basis for the 

officers to believe that they needed to enter the trailer to 

"render emergency assistance to an injured occupant or to protect 

an occupant from imminent injury." Caniglia, 593 U.S. at 198. 

Their warrantless entry into the trailer therefore violated 

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Giambro's Fourth Amendment rights. And because Giambro was 

convicted solely on the basis of evidence obtained from that entry, 

his conviction also cannot stand. See Wong Sun v. United States, 

371 U.S. 471, 487-88 (1963).18

IV. CONCLUSION

For all these reasons, we reverse the district court's 

order denying Giambro's suppression motion, vacate Giambro's 

conviction and sentence, and remand to the district court for 

proceedings consistent with this opinion.

-Dissenting Opinion Follows18 The government made no argument that the fruits of the 

search could be saved by the independent source doctrine, which 

permits the introduction of evidence "obtained independently of 

any impermissible police conduct." United States v. Rose, 802 

F.3d 114, 123 (1st Cir. 2015). Even if it had, such an argument 

would fail, because "the agents' decision to seek the warrant was 

prompted by what they had seen during their initial [illegal] 

entry" -- the numerous firearms located inside the trailer. United 

States v. Dessesaure, 429 F.3d 359, 367 (1st Cir. 2005) (quoting 

Murray v. United States, 487 U.S. 533, 542 (1988)).

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LYNCH, Circuit Judge, dissenting. With the greatest 

respect for my colleagues, their holding of a Fourth Amendment 

violation in this case departs from binding caselaw as to the 

emergency aid doctrine. I fear that their result will discourage 

officers from going to the aid of persons in need of such aid. 

Each of the four officers who entered Giambro's residence had an 

objectively reasonable belief that Giambro's wife, Arline, may 

have been in the trailer and in need of immediate medical 

attention. 

The majority view conflicts with Supreme Court caselaw. 

The Supreme Court's first opinion on the emergency aid exception, 

Brigham City v. Stuart, 547 U.S. 398, 403 (2006), approvingly cited 

Chief Justice (then Judge) Burger's opinion in Wayne v. United 

States, in which he stated:

[A] warrant is not required to break down a 

door to enter a burning home to rescue 

occupants or extinguish a fire, to prevent a 

shooting or to bring emergency aid to an 

injured person. The need to protect or 

preserve life or avoid serious injury is 

justification for what would be otherwise 

illegal absent an exigency or emergency. 

Fires or dead bodies are reported to police by 

cranks where no fires or bodies are to be 

found. Acting in response to reports of "dead 

bodies," the police may find the "bodies" to 

be common drunks, diabetics in shock, or 

distressed cardiac patients. But the business 

of policemen and firemen is to act, not to 

speculate or meditate on whether the report is 

correct. People could well die in emergencies 

if police tried to act with the calm 

deliberation associated with the judicial 

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process. Even the apparently dead are often 

saved by swift police response. 

318 F.2d 205, 212 (D.C. Cir. 1963) (emphasis added). 

The Supreme Court's Stuart decision, and its approval of 

Wayne, are still good law.19 The Court followed Stuart in Michigan

v. Fisher. 558 U.S. 45, 46 (2009). Importantly, in Fisher, the 

Supreme Court reversed a lower court which had held that the 

emergency aid exception did not apply because that lower court 

erred by "replac[ing] [an] objective inquiry into appearances with 

its hindsight determination that there was in fact no emergency." 

Id. at 46-47, 49. The majority makes the same mistake here. The 

emergency aid exception "must be applied by reference to the 

circumstances then confronting the officer, including the need for 

a prompt assessment of sometimes ambiguous information concerning 

potentially serious consequences." 3 Wayne R. LaFave, Search and 

Seizure: A Treatise on the Fourth Amendment § 6.6(a) (6th ed. 

2024). "This means, of course, that it 'is of no moment' that it 

turns out there was in fact no emergency." Id. (quoting State v. 

19 The majority opinion states its view that Wayne is no 

longer good law because "the report of a death, standing alone, 

does not support a reasonable belief in an urgent, ongoing 

emergency," citing United States v. Richardson, 208 F.3d 626, 631 

(7th Cir. 2000). A circuit court decision cannot overrule the 

Supreme Court. And as I discuss in greater detail in Part II, 

this case involves many relevant facts other than just a report of 

a dead body. Further, this circuit and others have continued to 

recognize that officers may rely on the emergency aid doctrine 

when investigating reports of a potentially dead body.

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DeMarco, 88 A.3d 491, 509 (Conn. 2014)). See also State v. Karna, 

887 N.W.2d 549 (N.D. 2016) (deputies had a reasonable belief that 

defendant's father was in immediate need of assistance where 

dispatcher received a call from defendant's brother that defendant 

had shot their father and had denied doing so, reasoning the 

deputies could not ascertain whether the father had been shot 

before they entered the home).

The Supreme Court again made it clear in Caniglia v. 

Strom, 593 U.S. 194 (2021) that exigent circumstances justifying 

warrantless entries include providing emergency aid, though 

community caretaking concerns do not. As Justice Kavanaugh,

concurring, stated, a report of an elderly person who "is 

uncharacteristically absent" and does not respond to phone calls 

or knocks on their door remains a paradigmatic example of a 

circumstance in which officers would be justified in conducting a 

warrantless search. Id. at 207-08 (Kavanaugh, J. concurring). 

Both of these circumstances were present here. Chief Justice 

Roberts, also in concurrence, likewise stressed that "[a] warrant 

to enter a home is not required . . . when there is a 'need to 

assist persons who are seriously injured or threatened with such 

injury." Id. at 199-200 (Roberts, C.J., concurring) (quoting 

Stuart, 547 U.S. at 403). "[R]easonableness . . . must be judged 

from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather 

than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight." Graham v. Connor, 490 

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U.S. 386, 396 (1989). "An appeals court should [also] give due 

weight to a trial court's finding that [an] officer was credible 

and [their] inference[s were] reasonable." Ornelas v. United 

States, 517 U.S. 690, 700 (1996). The trial judge who heard the 

testimony and the evidence and found the officers credible held 

that the officers' decision to enter was based on each officer's 

objectively reasonable belief. See United States v. Giambro, No. 

2:22-CR-00044, 2023 WL 3123001, at *1 n.2, *4 (D. Me. Apr. 27, 

2023). The majority's decision second-guesses both the responding 

officers and the trial court, marking a substantial and unfortunate 

curtailment of the emergency aid exception.20

Applying those standards to the facts of this case, it 

is clear that the officers made entirely reasonable decisions based 

on the information available to them. The officers were directed 

to the scene after receiving reports from other officers that the 

son reported his mother had been ill; he could not find her; that 

his father had once stated that she was dead, but then was evasive; 

his father's confused mental state and erratic statements caused 

the son to take him quickly from the home to the hospital; and 

20 Because the Government has not advanced any argument 

that the fruits of their search were admissible as evidence under 

United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897 (1984) and the "good faith" 

exception to the exclusionary rule, I do not address those issues. 

But see United States v. Moore-Bush, 36 F.4th 320, 359 n.33 (1st 

Cir. 2022) (good faith issue not waived when officers' actions 

comported with the law of the circuit at the time of the search).

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they did not know where the mother was. A security officer, 

hearing the son and the father at the hospital, initially contacted 

the police and asked for their intervention. Four officers from 

different law enforcement agencies, with more than thirty years of 

combined law-enforcement experience, first tried to find Arline 

outside the trailer to determine whether she was in need of aid. 

Only then did the officers conduct a warrantless entry into the 

trailer and then into the locked bedroom. Each officer stated he 

and the group acted out of concern that there "could have [been] 

a victim inside that needed medical attention." 

The officers had information that was ambiguous at best 

as to whether there was, in fact, a dead body inside the trailer. 

They had, from the information they were given, no reason to 

believe that the father's statement established that his wife was, 

in fact, beyond any need of help. See Wayne, 318 F.2d at 212 

("Even the apparently dead often are saved by swift police 

response."). The officers also had information that the son had 

said Arline, who had been ill, was unaccounted for, and that her 

last known location was the trailer. When officers choose to 

search for a missing person in a particular location, "it is not 

necessary that the officer be in possession of facts that would 

warrant the belief that what is sought will be found;" rather, 

"[i]t is only necessary that the facts would warrant the belief 

that it is appropriate to look to see if there is evidence that 

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would lead to the missing person." State v. Beede, 406 A.2d 125, 

130 (N.H. 1979). 

The officers were well-trained in Fourth Amendment law 

and reasonably decided these steps were needed. That two members 

of this Court second guess the decision by these four law 

enforcement officers, a decision upheld by an experienced district 

court judge, does not make the officers' judgment calls on the 

scene objectively unreasonable. 

I.

The majority errs when it looks only to the facts 

explicitly stated by the district court. In Fourth Amendment 

suppression cases, our rule is that the appellate court must 

consider "facts and inferences . . . taken from the bench decision 

. . . as well as testimony at [the suppression] hearing."21 United 

States v. Murdock, 669 F.3d 665, 667 (1st Cir. 2012); see also

United States v. Arnott, 758 F.3d 40, 44 (1st Cir. 2014) (affirming 

21 Indeed, the rule applies more broadly. In reviewing 

denials of qualified immunity, as the Supreme Court established in 

Johnson v. Jones, 515 U.S. 304 (1995), when the district court 

fails to articulate a relevant finding of fact, a court of appeals 

reviews the record "to determine what facts the district court, in 

the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, likely assumed." 

Id. at 319; see also Begin v. Drouin, 908 F.3d 829, 832 (1st Cir. 

2018) (observing that, on interlocutory review of the denial of a 

motion for summary judgment on qualified immunity grounds, when 

the district court fails to articulate a relevant finding of fact, 

"we review the record 'to determine what facts the district court, 

in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, likely 

assumed'" (quoting Johnson, 515 U.S. at 319)). 

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district court's suppression hearing decision based not 

exclusively on the findings of fact but on other facts in the 

record).

The evidence of record establishes that the officers had 

an objectively reasonable basis for thinking they needed to search 

for Arline. That alone should lead to an affirmance in this case.

Even beyond that, at least two of the officers also had 

reason to believe that Arline, who had been the subject of a 

welfare check by one of them the prior year, may well have been 

the victim of domestic violence. That the Government's appellate 

counsel at oral argument before us may have erroneously said the 

welfare check was not in the record at the suppression hearing 

does not support the majority's position. When the record 

contradicts a government concession, we are not bound by it. 

United States v. Borrero-Acevedo, 533 F.3d 11, 15 n.3 (1st Cir. 

2008) ("This court is not bound by a party's concessions.").

I recite the facts of record. Each of the responding 

officers had been given somewhat different information when they 

made the decision to enter Giambro's home. The two most 

experienced law enforcement officers on the scene, State Police 

Sgt. Hanson and MDEA Agent Lt. Libby, testified at Giambro's 

suppression hearing. Deputies Tiner and Pelton were not called to 

testify, but other evidence establishes what they knew before 

entering the trailer. Nothing in the record contradicts the 

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officers' testimony as to their concern for Arline's wellbeing and 

their motivation for conducting a warrantless search. 

The police intervention which ultimately led to the 

search at issue was initially sought by a security guard at 

Stephens Memorial Hospital in Norway Maine, who was present when 

Giambro and his son Antonio arrived and who apparently spoke with 

Antonio about the situation. The security officer communicated to 

police dispatch for Oxford County, which included the town of 

Norway, that Antonio "brought in his father to the hospital because 

he is confused but he said that his mother is at the house deceased 

. . . he is here with the father and they don't know what happened 

to the mother." Because of the security guard's call, Norway 

Police Department Corporal Robert Federico was dispatched to 

Stephens Memorial Hospital. Upon arriving at the hospital, Cpl. 

Federico spoke with Antonio in the lobby of the ER. 

During his conversation with Antonio, Norway Police Cpl. 

Federico learned that Giambro had been brought to Stephens Memorial 

Hospital from his trailer in the nearby Oxford County town of 

Hebron. Norway Police Cpl. Federico then had several conversations 

with Oxford County dispatch or the Oxford County Sheriff's Office, 

the county with jurisdiction over the trailer. Although Cpl. 

Federico initially asked that an officer from Hebron come to the 

hospital, that changed when he contacted Oxford County Deputy Tiner 

by phone. 

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During that conversation, Norway Cpl. Federico told 

Oxford County Deputy Tiner that Antonio had gone to plow his 

father's driveway the night before "and when he went to knock on 

the door he didn't get any answer." That "concerned [Antonio] 

enough that he attempted to call several times and didn't get any 

answer to the phone calls until the following morning." Deputy 

Tiner was informed that, when Antonio did speak with his father, 

"his father sounded off," which "was concerning for him enough 

that he drove [to his parents' home] to meet with him in person." 

Deputy Tiner was told that Giambro had told Antonio "that the 

mother had died while [Antonio] was on vacation" and that Giambro 

would not elaborate other than to say that "she just didn't wake 

up." And Antonio had stated he felt his father "was being evasive 

toward him." Deputy Tiner was also aware of notes in Giambro's 

electronic file that Giambro had previously "shot a subject." Cpl. 

Federico testified that "at that point really nobody knew exactly 

what was going on, and there w[ere] some concerns for the wife, if 

she was dead or not or maybe unconscious and just nobody knew." 

Even Cpl. Federico, on whom the majority so strongly relies, 

reinforces that the officers shared concerns that Arline might not 

be dead but unconscious and, so, in need. 

The most experienced officer who made the warrantless 

entry was Sgt. Daniel Hanson with the Maine State Police, who had 

more than 21 years of experience in the State Police and prior 

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experience with the Paris Maine Police Department. Sgt. Hanson 

had undergone extensive training at police academies and completed 

on-going in-service training. He had been called by Lt. Tilsley, 

who had in turn been called by the Oxford County Sheriff's 

Department asking for assistance at the Giambro property, located 

at 692 Paris Road. The information he received from Lt. Tilsley 

prior to arriving at the scene is described as follows:

[Antonio had] gone to check on his parents, 

had found his father at the residence, found 

his father ill, could not find his mother, and 

brought his father to the hospital. 

[Antonio's] father had relayed to him that his 

mother was deceased but did not give any 

indication of where she was and didn't advise 

him of where she was. 

Sgt. Hanson testified repeatedly and without challenge 

that he and Deputies Tiner and Pelton, and the newly arrived MDEA 

Agent Lt. Libby, "were trying to find Arline" because "she was 

unaccounted for" so they could "verify[] her welfare." When asked 

what that meant, he answered: "Well, the information we had 

received was she was supposedly deceased, but we don't know that 

to be fact. We have to try and verify that she's okay and the 

possibility that she may need medical assistance." When asked 

next "what concern[s], if any, do you have in terms of identifying 

the need for medical treatment . . . at that point in time," he 

replied: "There's no response from the residence. If she had been 

in there and she was okay, we would most likely expect that there 

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would be some kind of a response, a voice, something, anything, 

and there was an absence of that." 

State Police Sgt. Hanson then was asked "[w]hy was the 

decision made not to get a warrant but to enter the residence?" 

He answered: "There was potential that we could have a victim 

inside that needed medical attention." 

After cross examination as to why he had not waited and 

instead relayed a request to Cpl. Federico to ask Giambro for 

permission to enter, he explained:

Because, I mean, this is a concerning 

situation. We don't take entering into a 

residence lightly, and you have to know what 

-- you know, where those lines are. And that 

was evaluated in this situation, just like it 

is in any other, that we have to exhaust those 

means to try and verify. That's what -- we 

were checking into rescue calls, looking to 

see if there had been anything further, what 

do we have for information. And we got to 

that point and we're like, you know, we really 

don't have any other option but to go in and 

verify if she's in there and if she -- what 

her status is.22 

Sgt. Hanson's report following the search corroborates the 

testimony he provided at the motion hearing. Sgt. Hanson's report

memorialized that he and the officers "knew Arline Giambro was 

unaccounted for and Antonio was concerned for her welfare as she 

22 Sgt. Hanson was an officer with many experiences serving 

warrants. In his experience, obtaining a warrant takes "a couple 

hours" and a couple of hours' wait, in light of the circumstances, 

was just too long.

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should have been at the residence and his father told him she was 

deceased." At "1157hrs Agent Libby forced the front door and we 

entered to check the welfare of Arline." The officers "exited the 

residence at 1205 hrs after not locating Arline inside." 

MDEA Special Agent Lt. Libby also testified. When he 

arrived, Deputies Tiner and Pelton and Maine State Police Sgt. 

Hanson were in the driveway outside Giambro's trailer.23 Lt. Libby 

began working in law enforcement in 1997, including roughly 15 

years with the MDEA. He attended the police academy and the MDEA 

academy, and completed supplemental training annually. 

Like Sgt. Hanson, Lt. Libby testified repeatedly and 

without contradiction that he and the other officers were there to 

"confirm whether [Arline] needed medical attention or not." Before 

entering the trailer, Lt. Libby and Sgt. Hanson walked "around the 

back side of the trailer to see if [they] could see tracks in the 

snow." The two were "trying to see if there [were] tracks leading 

off in the snow, a place where we could go check, look for somebody, 

look for Arline" to "confirm whether she needed medical attention 

or not." Lt. Libby and Sgt. Hanson saw no tracks behind the 

trailer. Lt. Libby then looked in the windows of the trailer, but 

23 Lt. Libby was informed by Deputy Tiner that Antonio had 

been at the house earlier that morning and that he and Giambro 

went to the hospital, where Giambro said that his wife "had gone 

to greener pastures or something along [those] lines" but was 

"being cryptic about it." 

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"could not see in any windows" because "[t]here was plastic over 

the windows and/or there was like curtains or something on the 

inside." Lt. Libby next "went down" to "a garage to the left of 

the house" and "looked around there, too" to "try to see if [he] 

could find Arline" including by looking in the windows of the 

garage, but he "didn't see anybody." 

Only then did Lt. Libby return to the trailer, where he 

"banged on the door very loud, very hard" while "yelling 

[']sheriff's office.[']" When asked why he was "knocking on [the] 

door and announcing [him]self," Lt. Libby testified that he "was 

under the impression that Arline might need medical attention" and 

he "needed to confirm whether she did or not." 

Lt. Libby testified that Sgt. Hanson then made the 

decision to enter the trailer "[t]o go in and confirm whether 

Arline was deceased or not or needing medical attention." When 

asked "why a warrant wouldn't be appropriate or why you didn't 

seek a warrant at that point," Lt. Libby testified that it was 

because of "exigent circumstances to see if somebody needed medical 

attention or not" because "if she was injured or hurt and she 

needed help, [the officers] needed to get help to her as fast as 

[they] could." Lt. Libby testified that "what [he] had learned 

from [Deputy] Tiner was that Antonio had brought his father to the 

hospital and made some vague statements, something to like the 

effect of like mom has gone on to greener pastures . . . . And we 

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needed to confirm whether Arline did or did not need medical 

attention." Lt. Libby "didn't want to base" any conclusion as to 

Arline's status on "[Giambro's] opinion of whether somebody was 

dead or not . . . [Lt. Libby] wanted to confirm that with [his] 

own eyes." 

Lt. Libby "shouldered the door open" at 11:57 A.M., and 

testified that at this time he "knew nothing about firearms" inside 

the residence. Once inside, Lt. Libby found "a secured door off 

the kitchen" and "stayed there at that door until the rest of the 

trailer was cleared." After the trailer was cleared, Sgt. Hanson 

"tried opening . . . that door" at which point Lt. Libby went 

toward the back of the trailer "because [he] thought [he] heard 

one of the deputies still clearing the room at the far end of the 

trailer." While walking through the trailer, Lt. Libby passed a 

middle bedroom in which he "observed a pillow sitting on the bed 

with what appeared to be dried brown stains." Lt. Libby testified 

that he "ma[de] a mental note of what [he] saw" because he was 

"there because Arline might be possibly dead" and he thought the 

stains "might be blood." 

Lt. Libby left the residence at 12:05 P.M., "spoke for 

a few minutes" with the other officers in the driveway, then 

"departed and headed to the sheriff's office" where he did his 

report. After he had left, he received a call from someone on the 

Giambro property notifying him that they had located Arline's body. 

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The undisputed facts show the responding officers first 

conducted a search for Arline outside the trailer and did not find 

her before they decided they had to search the trailer. The 

officers "bang[ed] on the [trailer] door" repeatedly, "hollered 

. . . banged on walls, windows," and got no response. The officers 

"walk[ed] around the back side of the trailer to see if [they] 

could see tracks in the snow." The officers observed "[n]othing 

behind the trailer" or around the nearby garage. The officers 

attempted to look in the trailer's windows, but "[t]here was 

plastic over the windows and/or there was like curtains or 

something on the inside" which meant they could not see inside.24 

"The only recent activity was right there by the house, and none 

of it in the snow." 

Before the officers entered the trailer, they also 

"checked with dispatch to see if there had been any rescue calls" 

and "verified that there was no recent medical calls or requests 

24 The majority concludes the officers were unreasonable 

because they did not first break into the garage and because they 

failed to find her body in the woods behind the garage. None of 

this renders the officers' actions objectively unreasonable. The 

footprints that led the officers to Arline's body were obscured 

behind sizeable snowbanks and had been covered by "recent storms." 

The officers discovered those prints while searching for something 

they could use to dig out snow blocking the garage's side door. 

As to the garage itself, the officers almost certainly needed a 

warrant or an applicable exception to enter the garage just the 

same as to enter the trailer. See United States v. Dunn, 480 U.S. 

294, 300-01 (1987) (laying out test for determining whether an 

outbuilding is within a home's curtilage and therefore "should be 

treated as the home itself"). 

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for assistance at the residence." Officers also knew Giambro had

not called either emergency services or a funeral home following 

Arline's purported death, as would normally be the case. The 

majority points to these facts as evidence that Antonio was not 

"worried that his mother was still alive and in need of aid." The 

majority then posits that this should have told the officers there 

was not an "urgent, ongoing emergency." But these facts led the 

officers to the even more reasonable interpretation that if Arline 

were truly dead, any husband would have called a funeral home (or 

emergency services). And the lack of any such call only added to 

the uncertainty as to whether Arline was in need of assistance.

See United States v. Camacho, 661 F.3d 718, 723 (1st Cir. 2011)

("When reviewing a challenge to the district court's denial of a 

motion to suppress, '[w]e view the facts in the light most 

favorable to the district court's ruling.'" (quoting United States

v. Soares, 521 F.3d 117, 118 (1st Cir. 2008) (alteration in 

original)). 

The officers were not objectively unreasonable in 

concluding that the information they had that Giambro had said 

Arline was dead did not establish that she was indisputably dead. 

Further, the officers had no information that Antonio had searched 

the entire trailer for Arline before taking his father to the 

hospital. And the record does not establish that Antonio did, in 

fact, conduct such a search. On the contrary, Cpl. Federico, who 

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spoke with Antonio at the hospital and relayed those initial 

interactions to Deputy Tiner, did not recall "ask[ing] Tony any 

questions about whether he'd looked around the house." The trailer 

was large and comprised of several rooms, including a bathroom and 

multiple bedrooms separated by a hallway. Indeed, when the 

officers did enter, they found "a room to the north side that was 

locked" and, thinking Arline might be there, entered the room 

looking for her. 

Beyond that, there is no evidence that the four 

responding officers received any further information from officers 

at the hospital in the approximately "six or seven minutes" that 

elapsed between their arrival on the scene and their decision to 

enter the residence. 

II.

"[L]aw enforcement officers may enter private property 

without a warrant . . . to 'render emergency assistance to an 

injured occupant." Caniglia, 593 U.S. at 198 (quoting Kentucky v. 

King, 563 U.S. 452, 460 (2011)). This emergency aid doctrine is 

a subcategory of the exigent circumstances exception to the warrant 

requirement. Missouri v. McNeely, 569 U.S. 141, 149 (2013) ("A 

variety of circumstances may give rise to an exigency sufficient 

to justify a warrantless search, including law enforcement's need 

to provide emergency assistance to an occupant of a home . . . .") 

Under the emergency aid doctrine, a warrantless entry is 

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permissible when "there [is] 'an objectively reasonable basis for 

believing' that medical assistance [is] needed."25 Fisher, 558 

U.S. at 49 (quoting Stuart, 547 U.S. at 406). 

Entry for the purpose of rendering aid is reasonable "to 

seek an occupant reliably reported as missing." 3 Wayne R. LaFave, 

Search & Seizure: A Treatise on the Fourth Amendment § 6.6(a) (6th 

ed. 2024). See also Hunsberger v. Wood, 570 F.3d 546, 555 (4th 

Cir. 2009) (entry lawful when there was evidence a minor was in 

the home, it was the middle of the night, her stepfather said she 

was not supposed to be there, and the fact that she was not 

answering her cell phone suggested she might be hurt or otherwise 

in need of aid); People v. Rogers, 209 P.3d 977, 995-96 (Cal. 2009) 

(search of 3 storage rooms under defendant's apartment lawful given 

defendant's lack of concern over the whereabouts of his child's 

25 The majority asserts that any consideration by the 

officers of the delay it would take to apply for and obtain a 

search warrant is completely irrelevant to the emergency aid 

doctrine. Not so. Exigent circumstances and emergency aid are at 

least overlapping doctrines. As the Supreme Court said in Stuart, 

the need to render emergency aid is "[o]ne exigency obviating the 

requirement of a warrant." 547 U.S. at 403. But "caselaw has not 

been entirely clear regarding the distinctions." William E. 

Ringel, Searches and Seizures, Arrests and Confessions § 10:8.10 

(2d ed. 2024). Justice Alito, concurring in Caniglia, stated "[w]e 

have held that the police may enter a home without a warrant when 

there are 'exigent circumstances.' But circumstances are exigent 

only where there is not enough time to get a warrant, and warrants 

are not typically granted for the purpose of checking on a person's 

medical condition." 593 U.S. at 203 (Alito, J., concurring) 

(internal citations omitted). I see no basis in Justice Alito's 

concurrence for the majority's characterization of it.

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mother, his threat to lock her in the basement, and his physical 

reaction when police mentioned that threat); State v. Horn, 91 

P.3d 517, 520-26 (Kan. 2004) (entry lawful when police possessed 

information that 90-year-old woman had broken her routine and had 

not been seen in several days and her son, against whom she once 

had a protection order but with whom she now lived, had refused to 

allow a neighbor to see his grandmother), overruled on other 

grounds by State v. Neighbors, 328 P.3d 1081 (Kan. 2014).

"[T]he Fourth Amendment's reasonableness requirement 

gives officers facing exigent circumstances ample 'breathing space 

to do the best they could with the information they had.'" United 

States v. Cooks, 920 F.3d 735, 743 (11th Cir. 2019) (quoting 

Montanez v. Carvajal, 8889 F..3d 1202, 1210 (11th Cir. 2018)). 

"[I]n reviewing a challenge to a warrantless search under the 

emergency aid exception to the warrant requirement, the court 

examines the conduct of the officers in light of what was 

reasonable under the fast-breaking and potentially lifethreatening circumstances that were faced at the time, and will 

avoid viewing the events through the distorted prism of hindsight." 

79 C.J.S. Searches § 79 (2024). "[I]t's not our role to armchair 

quarterback the officers' decision." Cooks, 920 F.3d at 743. 

Prior decisions in this Circuit and elsewhere have recognized that 

"breathing space," and the majority departs from clear precedent.

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To give one example, this court held that officers had 

an objectively reasonable basis for entering plaintiff Matthew 

Hill's home to seize him after a warrant was issued for his civil 

commitment following a report from his sister that Hill had been 

"behind his building . . . on the verge of an overdose" and "was 

going to kill himself if he didn't get help." Hill v. Walsh, 884 

F.3d 16, 19 (1st Cir. 2018). When officers arrived at Hill's 

parents' house, one "thought he had seen a shadow of a person 

inside," and entered the residence only to find that Hill was not 

at home. Id. at 20. We rejected Hill's argument that since "the 

face of the . . . warrant clearly indicated that Matthew was 

'CURRENTLY AT MORTON HOSPITAL'" the officers lacked an objectively 

reasonable basis for their belief that Hill needed aid because 

"Matthew's history of overdosing and resisting the police, the 

subject line of the warrant [which listed Hill's address], and the 

appearance of a person inside the home" could lead a reasonable 

officer to "reasonably conclude[] that her entry was lawful." Id.

at 23. And in United States v. Beaudoin, we observed that "society 

expects police to investigate reports of dead bodies, and to do so 

promptly" because "the reportedly 'dead' body might yet be alive 

and prompt action could save the person." 362 F.3d 60, 70 (1st 

Cir. 2004), vacated on other grounds sub nom. Champagne v. United 

States, 543 U.S. 1102 (2005).

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The majority opinion further departs from this Court's 

own precedent by cherry-picking from the record. This Court's 

precedent establishes that "[t]he requisite inquiry must be 

undertaken in light of the totality of the circumstances

confronting the [official], including, in many cases, a need for 

an on-the-spot judgment based on incomplete information and 

sometimes ambiguous facts bearing upon the potential for serious 

consequences." United States v. Infante, 701 F.3d 386, 392 (1st 

Cir. 2012) (alteration in original) (emphasis added) (quoting 

United States v. Martins, 413 F.3d 139, 146 (1st Cir. 2005) 

abrogated on other grounds by Hill, 884 F.3d at 19. For all of 

these reasons, the majority is simply wrong.

But the record shows even more undercutting the 

majority's position. Before entering, Deputy Tiner knew, and 

shared with at least Sgt. Hanson, that "about a year before" he 

had "done a welfare check on [Arline]" during which "he could not 

get actual contact with her, that she was only able to talk to him 

through a window and that . . . he was not allowed to have any [] 

face-to-face contact with her." Giambro's electronic file 

includes information about that welfare check and lists Giambro as 

"[i]nvolved." These crucial pieces of evidence from the 

suppression hearing were not incorporated into the majority's 

analysis and demonstrate that at least two of the entering officers 

had reason to think that Arline might well be a victim of domestic 

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violence.26 Deputy Tiner knew that: (1) a welfare check on Arline 

at the Giambro residence had been requested for an incident 

involving Giambro; (2) when Deputy Tiner went to the property to 

conduct that check, Arline was prevented from coming to the door 

and from allowing Deputy Tiner to enter; (3) Giambro's electronic 

file contained a note from 2010 documenting that he had previously 

shot someone; (4) Arline was unaccounted for; and (5) Giambro was 

now behaving evasively toward his son. Deputy Tiner related at 

least some of this information to at least one other officer. 

These facts provided an objectively reasonable basis for 

concluding that Arline may have been the victim of domestic 

violence.27 

26 Deputy Tiner's prior experience at the Giambro residence 

also helps to explain why he "did not go to the Hospital as Cpl. 

Federico had requested through Dispatch" and instead "proceeded 

directly to the Giambro property." 

27 Courts have repeatedly recognized that "[d]omestic 

violence situations require police to make particularly delicate 

and difficult judgments quickly." Commonwealth v. Gordon, 29 

N.E.3d 856, 864 (Mass. App. Ct. 2015). "Domestic violence presents 

unique challenges to law enforcement" in that those situations 

"can be volatile and quickly escalate into significant injury" and 

"often, if not usually, occur[] within the privacy of a home." 

State v. Schultz, 248 P.3d 484, 487 (Wash. 2011) (en banc). 

Evidence that someone "may have been the victim of domestic 

violence is a factor that police may consider in determining 

whether an emergency exists involving a particular individual and 

whether a warrantless entry is reasonably necessary to render 

assistance." Gordon, 29 N.E.3d at 865. Because of "the 

combustible nature of domestic disputes," courts "have accorded 

great latitude to an officer's belief that warrantless entry was 

justified by exigent circumstances when the officer had 

substantial reason to believe that one of the parties to the 

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The events that occurred during Deputy Tiner's prior 

welfare check are classic signs of domestic abuse. See Giles v. 

California, 554 U.S. 252, 380 (2008) (Souter, J., concurring) 

(noting that "in the classic abusive relationship" the abuser 

attempts to "isolate the victim from outside help, including the 

aid of law enforcement"); United States v. Nwoye, 824 F.3d 1129, 

1138 (D.C. Cir. 2016) (observing that "batterers often isolate 

their victims"); State v. Rodriguez, 636 N.W.2d 234, 345 (Iowa, 

2001) ("[I]t is very common for the abuse to . . . isolate the 

victim from others so they do not know what is going on. This 

isolation . . . commonly extends to controlling the victim's . . . 

access to medical care and treatment."). An officer would 

reasonably draw an inference from the circumstances of the welfare 

check on Arline that she was a victim of domestic violence. It is 

typical for domestic violence victims, especially when they are in 

the presence of their abusers, to be too afraid to speak to 

officers. It is obvious that Deputy Tiner thought his prior 

welfare check was relevant to the events that were unfolding 

because he took the time to tell Sgt. Hanson about it. That the 

written record of the welfare check does not, in so many words, 

dispute was in danger." Tierney v. Davidson, 133 F.3d 189, 197 

(2d Cir. 1998); see also Cotten v. Miller, 74 F.4th 932, 934-35 

(8th Cir. 2023) ("[I]t was reasonable for the officers to believe 

that a woman . . . in the . . . apartment was a victim of domestic 

violence, and was injured or threatened with future injury.").

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state a conclusion that this was an incident of domestic violence 

does not change this fact.28

The majority attempts to justify its conclusion by 

saying the officers testified consistently that they had no basis 

to believe a crime had been committed before they entered the 

residence. That misses the point -- the officers' testimony was 

that they acted under the emergency aid exception.29 

The majority also omits important facts when it 

criticizes Deputy Tiner's decision to go directly to the residence 

rather than first going to Stephens Memorial Hospital to talk 

directly with Giambro. The record evidence shows that, when he 

first called dispatch, Cpl. Federico said they "may wish to have 

a deputy come [to the hospital] to talk to [Giambro]," (emphasis 

added) but he also testified that he "explained to [dispatch] that 

whatever it was that was going on appeared that it was at the 

parents' residence." Cpl. Federico then placed a second call to 

dispatch, informing them that they "may want to let the deputy 

28 We know from further evidence at sentencing, which we do 

not consider on a motion to dismiss, that Arline was, in fact, 

previously a victim of domestic violence at Giambro's hands. 

This evidence was not known to the officers when they entered the 

residence, but it clearly reinforces the reasonableness of Deputy 

Tiner's concerns.

29 The majority also overstates the record. Sgt. Hanson 

testified only that he "thought [he] did not have probable cause 

to expect any criminal activity" and Lt. Libby said "nobody told 

[him] it was a crime scene." 

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know that the subject has multiple comments in his [names] file, 

they might want to review that." Cpl. Federico then asked dispatch 

to have Deputy Tiner call him, which Deputy Tiner did. Cpl. 

Federico testified that, during that phone call, the two "did talk 

a little bit about the concerns as to whether . . . [Arline] really 

was dead or not, if she could be there needing assistance" and 

"the information that [Giambro] had in his names file," and that 

there was also "talk of him trying to have somebody, whether it be 

[Deputy Tiner] or I don't know who, but go to the residence." 

Contrary to the majority's characterization, both Deputy Tiner and 

Cpl. Federico had concerns as to whether Arline was in need of 

aid, and Deputy Tiner discussed with Cpl. Federico the need for a 

deputy to go to the residence. It is also clear that Cpl. Federico, 

like Deputy Tiner, thought that the content of the names file was 

important context for the situation and communicated that to Deputy 

Tiner. 

Further, there is no evidence that the other three 

officers were ever aware that Cpl. Federico ever first suggested 

a deputy come to the hospital. Lt. Libby testified that he decided 

to go to the house on his own when he learned officers were there. 

Sgt. Hanson testified that he was contacted by Lt. Tilsley and 

instructed to go to the residence. 

The majority also departs from our circuit precedent 

requiring deference to the trial judge's credibility findings that 

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the officers' stated reasons were their reasons and that these 

reasons were objectively reasonable. Where the trial court took 

testimony from the officers who entered the residence, and "[t]he 

suppression hearing transcript discloses abundant support for the 

district court finding" such "[t]rial court credibility 

determinations are prime candidates for appellate deference." 

United States v. Nunez, 19 F.3d 719, 724 (1st Cir. 1994); see also

United States v. John, 59 F.4th 44, 48 (1st Cir. 2023) (when 

reviewing a district court's denial of a motion to suppress, 

appellate courts "give appropriate weight to the inferences drawn 

by the district court and the on-scene officers, recognizing that 

they possess the advantage of immediacy and familiarity with the 

witnesses and events." (quoting United States v. Tiru-Plaza, 766 

F.3d 111, 115 (1st Cir. 2014))).

The majority's holding also creates a circuit split. As 

the Seventh Circuit has noted, the need for emergency aid justified 

a warrantless entry where the entering officer knew that a neighbor 

and doctor were "unable to get in touch" with a person, leading 

the neighbor to report to police that Gaetjens may have been 

"experiencing a medical emergency." Gaetjens v. City of Loves 

Park, 4 F.4th 487, 493 (7th Cir. 2021). The warrantless entry was 

justified when police "could not see anyone inside" Gaetjens's 

house and were told by the concerned neighbor that "perhaps 

Gaetjens was at her other home." Id. at 490. The Seventh Circuit 

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stressed that "[p]olice knew nobody had heard from Gaetjens, her 

neighbor was concerned about a medical emergency, and the mail and 

garbage at her house were piling up. It was therefore reasonable 

for police to believe she was inside, despite any evidence 

suggesting otherwise." United States v. Maxwell, 85 F.4th 1243, 

1247 (7th Cir. 2023) (en banc) (discussing Gaetjens, 4 F.4th 487).

Like the officers in Gaetjens, the officers who entered 

Giambro's trailer had reliable information that Antonio had been 

unable to get in touch with his mother, did not know where she 

was, and that she might or might not be alive, and for the reasons 

described earlier she might well be in need of aid. The officers 

had no reason to believe that the son had exhaustively searched 

the large trailer, including its separate bedrooms and the locked 

room, nor could they eliminate the possibility that if Arline had 

been outside the trailer that she returned to the trailer after 

Antonio left. The officers had no reason to believe Giambro, 

described as being "evasive," was being truthful, and even if he 

were, no reason to believe that his assessment of Arline's 

condition was accurate. Indeed, his statement she "just did not 

wake up" was far from a circumstance in which "the report indicated 

that the body had been languishing in the house for several days" 

or "where other evidence might have made it clear that the victim 

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was indeed dead, and not hovering on the verge of death."30 

Richardson, 208 F.3d at 631. In light of this uncertainty, Lt. 

Libby testified that he did not want to assume Arline was dead 

based solely on Giambro's "opinion of whether somebody was dead" 

he "wanted to confirm that with [his] own eyes." See id.

(crediting officers' testimony that "in their experience, 

laypersons without medical knowledge are not in a position to 

determine whether a person is dead or alive. Someone who appeared 

to be dead might revive with immediate medical treatment," 

therefore the officers "assume that anyone reported dead might be 

alive unless the report comes from qualified personnel").

In Sutterfield v. City of Milwaukee, the Seventh Circuit 

held that officers "had objectively reasonable grounds" for 

entering Krysta Sutterfield's home after receiving a call from 

Sutterfield's physician "express[ing] concern for Sutterfield's 

well-being" because of Sutterfield's suicidal thoughts and 

"declar[ing] a need for intervention on [Sutterfield's] behalf." 

751 F.3d 542, 566 (7th Cir. 2014). This was so notwithstanding 

the fact that nine hours had passed since the initial telephone 

30 The majority attempts to rely on Richardson but ignores 

the fact that the Richardson court distinguished between cases 

where there were uncertain reports of a dead body and cases where 

it was obvious to a lay person that the victim is dead and 

acknowledged that the officers' "modus operandi that is designed 

to save potential fatalities, where it is objectively reasonable 

to think that this is possible, is permissible." 208 F.3d at 631.

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call, id. at 562, statements from Sutterfield to the police that 

"she was fine and that she did not want anyone to enter her 

residence," id. at 547, and a follow-up phone call from 

Sutterfield's doctor "advis[ing] [police] that Sutterfield had 

called her some minutes earlier stating she was not in need of

assistance and that the doctor should 'call off' the police search 

for her," id. at 545. The Seventh Circuit observed that "it [was] 

not at all clear . . . that the mere passage of time without 

apparent incident was sufficient to alleviate any concern" and 

that "it was objectively reasonable for the officers to believe 

that their intervention was required in order to prevent 

Sutterfield from harming herself, notwithstanding her own 

protestations to the contrary." Id. at 566; see also Nowell v. 

State, 663 S.W.3d 369, 371 (Ark. 2023) (police had objectively 

reasonable basis to enter trailer during welfare check conducted 

twenty minutes after mother of defendant's girlfriend called 

police to report she had received a suicide note from girlfriend 

dated three days earlier). The court stressed that they were "not 

in any position . . . to second guess the police." Id.

The Ninth Circuit held officers had an objectively 

reasonable basis for believing someone might be in need of 

immediate assistance when they received a 911 call about someone 

"screaming at the top of his lungs and threatening somebody" inside 

a house. United States v. Guillen, 755 Fed. Appx. 643, 645 (9th 

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Cir. 2018) (unpublished opinion). Upon arriving at the house, 

police encountered Guillen, who "appeared upset" and "told the 

officers he had been 'blowing off steam.'" Id. at 646. When 

Guillen "refused to say what those issues were, the officers asked 

whether anybody was inside the house. Guillen responded 

affirmatively, saying his roommate was inside." Id. The Ninth 

Circuit held that "the substance of the 911 call, the nature of 

the encounter . . . outside the house, and its corroboration of 

the 911 call" gave the officers "an objectively reasonable basis 

to conclude somebody inside required their immediate assistance," 

notwithstanding officers' lack of evidence that the roommate was 

the individual being threatened and Guillen's assurance that he 

was just "blowing off steam." See id.

The Eleventh Circuit held that exigent circumstances 

justified entry into Eric Harrison's hotel room because the 

officers "reasonably believed [Harrison's] mental state made him 

a danger to himself" when the officers knew that Harrison: (1) 

"told a family member he spent the day with their long-dead 

grandmother"; (2) "told guests and hotel staff that he owned the 

hotel"; (3) "was regularly ordering room service and timing how 

long it took to arrive"; (4) "was speaking in a garbled manner and 

laughing maniacally as the officers approached his room"; (5) "did 

not seem to understand that [the responding officers] were police 

officers instead of hotel employees"; and (6) where "a guest in a 

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neighboring room reported hearing screaming and glass breaking" in 

the room "throughout the day." Harrison v. Davidson Hotel Co., 

LLC, 806 Fed. Appx. 684, 688 (11th Cir. 2020) (unpublished 

opinion). The risk posed to Harrison by his mental health issues, 

which largely involved confusion rather than overtly dangerous 

behavior, was considerably more speculative than the risk that

Arline Giambro was gravely ill or injured.

The Fourth Circuit held that officers had an objectively 

reasonable belief that Ralph Cloaninger posed a danger to himself 

after officers received a 911 call from a VA doctor requesting 

"police assistance for a suicide threat." Cloaninger ex rel. 

Estate of Cloaninger v. McDevitt, 555 F.3d 324, 332 (4th Cir. 

2009). Police "knew Cloaninger had previously made suicide threats 

and believed Cloaninger had firearms in the house." Id. "[T]he 

initial VA call, coupled with knowledge of Cloaninger's prior 

suicide threats and the belief that he possessed firearms, 

established to an objectively reasonable police officer that 

Cloaninger was a danger to himself." Id. at 334. The officers 

who entered Giambro's residence, like the officers who entered 

Cloaninger's, had reports from a reliable source that someone might 

be in danger, and had knowledge of past events that tended to 

corroborate the report. 

The majority attempts to distinguish these cases by 

pointing to the fact that, in many, a "relative or neighbor asked 

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officers for assistance, expressing concern about a person who was 

unaccounted for and whose health status was either unknown or 

unstable." This ignores the fact that the Security Guard at 

Stephens Memorial Hospital who asked police for assistance and 

reported to police that Antonio and Giambro "d[id]n't know what 

happened to the mother." Such a report is not merely an 

"[a]nonymous tip[], without more," Beaudoin, 362 F.3d at 70, it is 

a report from a reliable source, a hospital security guard, with 

expertise in both medical emergencies and interfacing with lawenforcement. That the Security Guard contacted law enforcement 

supports the officers' actions. 

The majority opinion likewise creates a circuit split as 

to the deference that should be afforded to the trial court's 

credibility determination. Any such "credibility determination is 

within the trial court's purview, and we 'defer to the [trial 

court's] determinations unless [its] understanding of the facts 

appears to be unbelievable.'" United States v. Evans, 958 F.3d 

1102, 1107 (11th Cir. 2020) (quoting United States v. RamirezChilel, 289 F.3d 744, 749 (11th Cir. 2002)) (affirming denial of 

motion to suppress); see also United States v. Hatfield, 333 F.3d 

1189, 1193 (10th Cir. 2003) (noting that, in the context of a 

Fourth Amendment challenge, "[i]t is the province of the trial 

court to assess the credibility of witnesses at the suppression 

hearing and to determine the weight to be given to the evidence 

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presented, and we must give such determinations due deference" 

(quoting United States v. Le, 173 F.3d 1258, 1264 (10th Cir. 

1999)). 

III.

Because the officers' entrance was constitutional, it is 

clear, based on uncontradicted evidence from the suppression 

hearing, that many of Giambro's guns were then in plain view of 

the officers. See Spencer v. Roche, 659 F.3d 142, 149 (1st Cir. 

2011) ("[A] police officer's observation of an item in plain view 

does not constitute a search so long as the officer makes his 

observation from a lawful vantage point."). I respectfully 

dissent.

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