NOTICE: NOT FOR OFFICIAL PUBLICATION.

UNDER ARIZONA RULE OF THE SUPREME COURT 111(c), THIS DECISION IS NOT PRECEDENTIAL

AND MAY BE CITED ONLY AS AUTHORIZED BY RULE.

IN THE

ARIZONA COURT OF APPEALS

DIVISION ONE

STATE OF ARIZONA, Appellee,

v.

DUANE EDWARD BEARDEN, Appellant.

No. 1 CA-CR 21-0464

Appeal from the Superior Court in Maricopa County

No. CR2017-112750-001

The Honorable Eartha K. Washington, Judge Pro Tempore

AFFIRMED

COUNSEL

Arizona Attorney General’s Office, Phoenix

By Jillian Francis

Counsel for Appellee

Maricopa County Public Defender’s Office, Phoenix

By Cory Engle

Counsel for Appellant

FILED 11-22-2022
STATE v. BEARDEN

Decision of the Court

2

MEMORANDUM DECISION

Judge Paul J. McMurdie delivered the Court’s decision, in which Presiding 

Judge Brian Y. Furuya and Judge Jennifer B. Campbell joined.

M c M U R D I E, Judge:

¶1 Duane Edward Bearden appeals from his conviction and 

sentence for producing marijuana. He argues that the superior court abused 

its discretion by denying his motion to suppress evidence obtained during 

a warrantless search. Because the emergency aid exception to the warrant 

requirement applied, we affirm.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

¶2 Around 2:30 a.m., police received a 9-1-1 call from an 

unknown caller. The caller sounded distressed and said, “Help, help, help,”

before the call suddenly ended. The dispatcher traced the call to a specific 

address in Peoria and sent two police deputies for a welfare check.

¶3 When the deputies arrived, they found a large property 

enclosed by a seven-foot-tall block fence with a padlocked, corrugated steel 

gate. The deputies did not see or hear anyone needing help, so they peered 

over the wall but saw no one. Considering the 9-1-1 call, the officers 

concluded that there still may be an ongoing emergency and decided to 

climb the wall to continue their search for the distressed caller.

¶4 The deputies walked outside a residential building and the 

attached garage, looking through windows and open doors for anyone who

needed aid. As they neared one window, a deputy smelled unburnt 

marijuana. Through another window, the deputy saw a closed interior door 

with a bright light emanating from beneath it. The odor of fresh marijuana 

had also grown stronger.

¶5 At this point, the deputies believed marijuana was growing

on the property. And with the 9-1-1 call in mind, they felt this was a 

potentially dangerous situation. They returned to their car and retrieved 

rifles before heading toward a large, open, detached garage. Inside the

garage, they smelled a strong odor of marijuana and noticed a marijuana 
STATE v. BEARDEN

Decision of the Court

3

grow tent. Deeper into the garage, they saw a man lying on a cot and a rifle1

hanging on a nail nearby. The man appeared asleep, uninjured, and not in 

distress. The deputies believed the man might be guarding the marijuana 

and opted not to wake him.

¶6 They left the property and remained outside the wall until 

they obtained a search warrant. Before the search, a SWAT team secured 

the property and found Bearden. When police searched the home, they 

found growing marijuana plants and drug paraphernalia.

¶7 The State charged Bearden with five drug-related counts and 

three counts of misconduct involving weapons. Before the trial, Bearden 

moved to suppress the evidence found during the search, arguing that no 

exigent circumstances existed to justify a warrantless search. The court 

conducted an evidentiary hearing, at which Bearden argued that the 

deputies “didn’t have enough cause . . . to enter and to go over the wall.” 

The superior court disagreed and allowed the evidence, ruling that exigent 

circumstances existed because the deputies believed someone at that 

address had called for help and then gone silent.

¶8 The case proceeded to trial, and the jury found Bearden guilty 

of producing marijuana, a Class 4 felony under A.R.S. § 13-3405.

2 The jury

could not reach a verdict on the remaining counts. Instead of retrial, 

Bearden pled guilty to attempted possession of heroin for sale, a Class 3 

felony, and one count of misconduct involving weapons, a Class 4 felony. 

The remaining counts were dismissed. The court sentenced Bearden to 

concurrent prison terms of five years for attempted possession of heroin for 

sale, five-and-a-half years for producing marijuana, and three years for 

weapons misconduct.

¶9 Bearden appealed his conviction and sentence for producing 

marijuana, and we have jurisdiction under A.R.S. §§ 12-120.21(A)(1), 

13-4031, and 13-4033(A).

1 The rifle was later found to be a paintball or pellet gun.

2 In the time since Bearden’s conviction, Arizona legalized the 

production of marijuana in some cases. See A.R.S. §§ 13-3405(A), 

36-2852(A).
STATE v. BEARDEN

Decision of the Court

4

DISCUSSION

¶10 “We review the denial of a motion to suppress for an abuse of 

discretion” and consider only the evidence presented at the suppression 

hearing, viewing it in the light most favorable to sustaining the court’s 

ruling. State v. Manuel, 229 Ariz. 1, 4, ¶ 11 (2011). In doing so, we review de 

novo the court’s ultimate legal conclusion that the search complied with the 

Fourth Amendment. State v. Jean, 243 Ariz. 331, 334, ¶ 9 (2018).

¶11 Bearden contends the court erred by denying his motion to 

suppress, arguing that the emergency aid exception to the warrant 

requirement does not apply. The Fourth Amendment to the United States 

Constitution and Article 2, Section 8 of the Arizona Constitution protect 

against unreasonable searches and seizures. Warrantless searches and 

seizures inside a home are presumptively unreasonable. Brigham City v. 

Stuart, 547 U.S. 398, 403 (2006). But under exigent circumstances, a 

warrantless search may be justified. Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385, 393–94

(1978). The emergency aid exception allows for a warrantless search if 

“(1) police have reasonable grounds to believe that there is an emergency 

that requires their immediate assistance to protect life or property and 

(2) there is a reasonable basis to associate the emergency with the place to

be searched.” State v. Inzunza, 234 Ariz. 78, 82, ¶ 12 (App. 2014).

¶12 Bearden argues that the first element is not met here because

an anonymous 9-1-1 call “with no other evidence” does not provide police 

with reasonable grounds to believe there is an ongoing emergency. But in a 

similar case, State v. Bennett, 237 Ariz. 356 (App. 2015), we held that the 

emergency aid exception applied.

¶13 In Bennett, police received a 9-1-1 “hang up” call traced to a 

specific address. 237 Ariz. at 357, ¶ 2. When the deputies arrived, they 

knocked on the front door, but no one responded. Id. at 357–58, ¶ 3. The 

deputies proceeded past an unlocked gate and eventually noticed 

marijuana plants inside a window and in the yard. Id. at 358, ¶ 3. The court 

denied the defendant’s motion to suppress the evidence. We affirmed 

because there was “more than only a 911 hang-up call” linked to the 

address to justify a reasonable belief that there was an emergency. Id. at 

358–59, ¶¶ 6, 11. We noted that the deputies knocked but heard no answer, 

leaving them “unable to verify that either there had never been an 

emergency or the emergency had passed.” Id. at 359, ¶ 11.

¶14 Bearden first argues that Bennett should not control because it 

was wrongly decided. He contends that Bennett permits officers to conduct 
STATE v. BEARDEN

Decision of the Court

5

warrantless searches until they verify that no emergency exists. And he

asserts this contradicts the rule that police “must gather evidence” to 

support their belief that there is an ongoing emergency because “[t]he 

absence of proof that no one is in danger is not the same as positive proof 

that someone is at risk of serious harm.” To support this assertion, Bearden

cites cases in which the emergency aid exception was based on more than 

just a 9-1-1 call. But he ultimately cites no case that requires officers to

“gather evidence.”

¶15 Police only need “reasonable grounds” to support the belief

that an emergency exists. Inzunza, 234 Ariz. at 82, ¶ 12. The original 9-1-1 

call from the address with someone crying for help gave the deputies 

reasonable grounds to believe there was an ongoing emergency at the

location. See Bennett, 237 Ariz. at 359, ¶ 11.

¶16 Bearden also argues that Bennett is distinguishable. He relies

only on the fact that the deputies in Bennett knocked on the front door 

before proceeding, unlike the deputies here. But Bennett does not require 

police to knock before investigating a 9-1-1 hang-up call. The knocking 

“gave the deputies additional objective information that the emergency that 

had first brought them to the address had not abated.” Bennett, 237 Ariz. at 

359, ¶ 11. Here, the deputies were informed that a 9-1-1 call came from the 

address and that the caller had said, “Help, help, help.” They saw no one 

out front or over the wall when they arrived. As in Bennett, the 9-1-1 call 

gave the deputies reason to believe there was an emergency at the specific 

location. And like the deputies in Bennett who knocked but heard no 

answer, the deputies here looked for someone needing help but were still 

“unable to verify that either there had never been an emergency or the 

emergency had passed.” See id. The deputies were justified in entering the 

property without a warrant because they reasonably believed that someone 

inside needed emergency aid.

CONCLUSION

¶17 We affirm.