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IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF ALASKA 

IVAN J. SNOWDEN, 

Appellant, 

v. 

STATE OF ALASKA, 

Appellee. 

Court of Appeals No. A-10971 

Trial Court No. 4FA-08-820 CR 

O P I N I O N

 No. 2456 — June 19, 2015 

Appeal from the Superior Court, Fourth Judicial District, 

Fairbanks, Robert B. Downes, Judge. 

Appearances: Colleen A. Libbey, Libbey Law Offices, 

Anchorage, for the Appellant. Timothy W. Terrell, Assistant 

Attorney General, Office of Special Prosecutions and 

Appeals, Anchorage, and Michael C. Geraghty, Attorney 

General, Juneau, for the Appellee. 

Before: Mannheimer, Chief Judge, Allard, Judge, and 

Hanley, District Court Judge. * 

Judge MANNHEIMER. 

* Sitting by assignment made pursuant to Article IV, Section 16 of the Alaska 

Constitution and Administrative Rule 24(d). 
 

 

 

 

 

A little after 3:00 in the morning on March 14, 2008, the Fairbanks police 

received an “open-line” 911 call. That is, someone called 911, but when the dispatcher 

answered the call, there was no response — just an open telephone line (although the 

dispatcher heard a sound like a cough). 

The 911 dispatcher determined that the call originated from Mom’s 

Kitchen, a local restaurant, and police officers were dispatched to this restaurant to 

investigate the call. During this investigation, the officers entered the residence of Ivan 

J. Snowden, who lived in an apartment downstairs from the restaurant. The police found 

no emergency, but they did find drugs in plain view. Based on the discovery of these 

drugs, Snowden was convicted of third- and fourth-degree controlled substance 

misconduct. 

In this appeal, Snowden contends that the police entry into his apartment 

was unlawful, and that the superior court therefore should have suppressed the drugs. 

For the reasons explained in this opinion, we conclude that the entry into Snowden’s 

apartment, and the ensuing search of the apartment, were justified under the emergency 

aid exception to the warrant requirement. We therefore uphold the search, and we affirm 

Snowden’s convictions. 

Underlying facts 

At 3:16 in the morning on March 14, 2008, the Fairbanks 911 dispatch 

received a 911 call from Mom’s Kitchen. When the 911 dispatcher answered the call 

and asked what was the nature of the emergency, she heard no response — although the 

caller did not hang up the phone. As the dispatcher listened to the open line, she heard 

what she believed was a cough. 

Several Fairbanks police officers went to Mom’s Kitchen to investigate. 

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Mom’s Kitchen occupied the upper floor of a two-story building. The 

bottom floor of the building was rented as an apartment — although the officers did not 

know this until later. 

The building had a front entrance that went into the restaurant. The 

building also had a back entrance (an arctic entry) that led inside to a landing. From this 

landing, stairs went up directly into the restaurant (with no intervening door), and stairs 

also went down into the apartment, but one had to go through an intervening door to get 

into the apartment. 

Around the time the officers arrived at Mom’s Kitchen, a taxi cab pulled 

up to the rear of the building. The taxi driver told the officers that he was there to pick 

up a man named “Jay” — but this person never showed up. 

The officers went to the front of the building to try the door, but it was 

locked. The officers then proceeded to the back entrance, where they discovered that the 

door was standing open about three to four inches. Speaking through the open door, the 

officers announced themselves, but there was no response. 

The officers then entered the building and went up the stairs to the 

restaurant portion. There, they found a cordless phone sitting on a table in one of the 

restaurant booths. This was the phone that had been used to make the 911 call, and its 

line was still open — but there was no one in the restaurant. The police saw no sign of 

an emergency (or of any criminal activity). 

The officers then proceeded down the stairs to search the lower floor of the 

building. Finding that the door to the lower floor was locked, the officers knocked on 

the door and announced themselves. They were greeted with silence. 

At this point, the officers still did not know that the lower floor of the 

building was an apartment. But when they contacted one of the owners of the building 

(Lee Brown), Brown informed them that he was renting the lower floor to a man named 

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“Ivan Peterson”. Brown came to the building and brought keys so that the officers could 

enter and inspect the lower floor. 

When Brown arrived on the scene, he met the officers in the restaurant 

portion of the building. Brown told the officers that there was a photograph of Ivan 

Peterson on the restaurant wall. When Brown pointed out this photograph, one of the 

officers recognized “Peterson” as a man named Ivan Snowden — a man who was known 

to the police because of his involvement with drugs. 

When the officers asked Brown if Snowden’s apartment was self-contained, 

Brown told them that it was not: Snowden had access to the restaurant because there was 

no bathroom in his apartment, so he used the one upstairs in the restaurant. 

The officers returned to the door that led downstairs into the apartment. 

They knocked loudly on the door, and they announced themselves as police officers. In 

response to their announcement, the officers heard movement inside the apartment; they 

then heard someone “fiddling” with the door, and Snowden opened the door. 

The officers had Snowden step out of the door, and they frisked him for 

weapons. Following this frisk, the officers asked Snowden what was going on inside his 

apartment. Snowden replied that he was just watching a movie with two of his friends. 

The officers then placed Snowden in handcuffs, and one of them took Snowden upstairs 

to the restaurant. 

After restraining Snowden, the police entered Snowden’s apartment to see 

if anyone inside needed assistance. Inside the apartment, the officers smelled both burnt 

and fresh marijuana. They also found a man and a woman, both of whom appeared to 

be intoxicated, sitting in the apartment. 

In response to the officers’ questions, the man and the woman declared that 

they had not called 911. In addition, neither of the two was named “Jay” (the person that 

the taxi driver was waiting for). 

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The man and the woman told the officers that there was no one else in the 

apartment. Nevertheless, the officers looked through the apartment. They found no 

other people — although they did see some marijuana in plain view. During their 

examination of the apartment, the officers discovered that the apartment contained an 

office area, which was locked. Because the officers were concerned that there might be 

a person inside this office area, they unlocked the office (with a key that they had seized 

from Snowden during the frisk). The office was empty, and it contained no evidence of 

either an emergency or criminal activity. 

After inspecting the office, the officers looked behind a bar area in the 

apartment. At this point, one of the officers smelled the odor of cocaine and noticed a 

white, powdery substance on one of the counters. When the officer took a swab of the 

substance and tested it with a drug kit, the substance tested positive for cocaine. 

Based on this drug evidence, the police obtained a search warrant. The 

ensuing search of the apartment (under the authority of the warrant) yielded 20.8 grams 

of cocaine, 7.6 grams of methamphetamine, 130.4 grams of marijuana (about 41⁄2 

ounces), and two tablets of MDMA. 

The legality of the officers’ warrantless entry into Snowden’s apartment 

Under both the Alaska constitution and the federal constitution, police 

officers can enter a dwelling without a warrant if their entry is for the purpose of 

investigating or responding to what they reasonably believe is an ongoing emergency. 

State v. Gibson, 267 P.3d 645, 658-59 (Alaska 2012); Gallmeyer v. State, 640 P.2d 837, 

841-42 (Alaska App. 1982); Brigham City v. Stuart, 547 U.S. 398, 403; 126 S.Ct. 1943, 

1947; 164 L.Ed.2d 650 (2006). 

– 5 – 2456
 
 

 

 

 

 

In State v. Gibson, our supreme court laid out a three-part test to govern the 

question of whether, under the Alaska constitution, a warrantless entry into a residence 

is justified under this emergency aid exception to the warrant requirement: 

[T]he Alaska Constitution requires that warrantless searches 

under the emergency aid doctrine satisfy [the] three ... prongs 

specified in Gallmeyer: (1) the police must have reasonable 

grounds to believe there is an emergency at hand and an 

immediate need for their assistance in the protection of life or 

property; (2) the search must not be primarily motivated by 

the intent to arrest a person or to seize evidence; and (3) there 

must be some reasonable basis, approximating probable 

cause, to associate the emergency with the area or place to be 

searched. 

Gibson, 267 P.3d at 659. 

In the present case, the superior court expressly applied the Gibson test to 

the facts of Snowden’s case and concluded that the police could validly conduct a 

warrantless entry of the building, and later of Snowden’s apartment, to investigate the 

“open-line” 911 call. More specifically, the superior court concluded that the police 

could reasonably suspect that the telephone line was left open because “the person who 

had made the call was interrupted [while] making the call”, or because the caller “[put] 

the phone down and ran”, or because the caller “was immediately grabbed or seized, and 

the phone ... wasn’t hung up.” 

On appeal, Snowden argues that an open-line 911 call is not sufficient, 

standing alone, to justify a warrantless entry into a dwelling. Snowden further argues 

that there was nothing else about the facts of his case to affirmatively corroborate the 

existence of an emergency (i.e., an “immediate need for [police] assistance in the 

protection of life or property”). Gibson, 267 P.3d at 659. 

– 6 – 2456
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We agree with Snowden’s first assertion: An open-line 911 call is not 

sufficient, standing alone, to justify a warrantless entry into a dwelling. We 

acknowledge that an open-line call to an emergency operator is obviously a suspicious 

circumstance. But whenever the State seeks to justify a warrantless entry under the 

emergency aid exception to the warrant requirement, the proposed justification for the 

entry must be assessed in light of the totality of the circumstances. As our supreme court 

stated in Gibson: 

Application of the emergency aid exception to the warrant 

requirement cannot be evaluated with across-the-board, rigid, 

and formalistic standards; it is a flexible doctrine that ... must 

be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, balancing the 

competing interests in light of the actual facts, perceived 

dangers, and circumstances encountered by police. 

267 P.3d at 661. 

But we disagree with Snowden’s assertion that there was nothing else to 

affirmatively corroborate the police officers’ suspicions of an emergency. 

Here, the 911 call was made in the middle of the night — shortly after 3:00 

in the morning. When the police arrived at Mom’s Kitchen in response to the call, they 

found the back door to the building standing ajar. In addition, the police knew that a taxi 

had been summoned to that address, but the customer never appeared. 

Before the police entered the building through the back door, they 

announced themselves, but they received no response. Inside the restaurant (i.e., on the 

upper floor), the officers located the cordless phone that had been used to make the 911 

call. This phone still had an open line, but there was no one in the restaurant. 

At this point, the police turned their focus to the lower floor of the building 

— which, they learned, was rented by Snowden. When the officers knocked on the door 

and announced who they were, Snowden opened the door and told the police that 

– 7 – 2456
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

nothing was wrong; he told the officers that he was just watching a movie with two of 

his friends. 

As both a factual and legal matter, this was a turning point in Snowden’s 

case. As a factual matter, the police officers had to make a decision: they could either 

accept Snowden’s statement, and simply write off the 911 call as unexplained, or they 

could enter Snowden’s apartment to investigate further. 

The related legal issue — the issue that this Court must resolve — is 

whether, after Snowden told the officers that he was simply watching a movie with 

friends, the officers still had reasonable grounds to believe that an emergency was 

occurring, as well as “some reasonable basis, approximating probable cause, to associate 

[that] emergency” with Snowden’s apartment. Gibson at 659. 

We have found a few other court decisions dealing with similar facts: a 

warrantless police entry prompted by a suspicious 911 call (either an open-line call like 

the one in this case, or a call where the caller immediately hung up and did not answer 

the 911 operator’s return call), where the occupant of the home told the police that there 

was no emergency. 

For instance, in the New Jersey case of State v. Frankel, 847 A.2d 561 

(N.J. 2004), a police dispatcher received an open-line 911 call from a telephone number 

listed in the defendant’s name. Because the dispatcher could not make contact with the 

911 caller, an officer was dispatched to the defendant’s residence. Id. at 574. 

When an officer arrived at the front door, he found that someone had hung 

a sheet inside the house, obstructing his view of the interior. In response to the officer’s 

knocking, the defendant poked his head out from behind this sheet and told the officer 

that he lived alone, and that he did not make the 911 call. Ibid. Fearing that there was 

an incapacitated victim inside the house, the officer asked the defendant to explain the 

– 8 – 2456
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

911 call. According to the officer, when the defendant responded to this question, he 

was unusually nervous and agitated, and he stumbled over his words. Ibid. 

The New Jersey court noted that a 911 call “is tantamount to a distress 

call[,] even when there is no verbal communication over the telephone to describe the 

nature of the emergency.” Ibid. Thus, “[a] responding police officer is not required to 

accept blindly the explanation ... offered by the resident answering the door, but must 

base his decision on the totality of the circumstances.” Ibid. The court held that, given 

the circumstances in this case, the officer “did not have to give uncritical acceptance to 

defendant’s belated explanation that his computer modem may have caused a false 911 

transmission”, and that the officer could justifiably enter the house to investigate. Id. at 

574-75. 

Similarly, in People v. Greene, 682 N.E.2d 354 (Ill. App. 1997), a police 

dispatcher received a “hang-up” call to 911. When the dispatcher made a return call to 

that number, the dispatcher was connected to an answering machine. The dispatcher 

thereupon sent officers to the residence where the call originated. Id. at 355-56. 

The officers knocked on the screen door to the defendant’s porch, and they 

received no response. They then opened the porch door and proceeded to the front door. 

Ibid. Looking through a window in the front door, the officers saw the defendant seated 

on a couch in the living room. When they knocked on the door and announced their 

presence, the defendant walked to the door, locked the dead bolt lock, and then returned 

to the couch, at which time he appeared to hide something under a cushion. Ibid. 

The officers persisted in their knocking until the defendant returned to the 

door and opened it. The officers told the defendant that they had received a 911 call 

from his house — to which the defendant replied that he had not called 911, and that he 

was alone in the house. The police nevertheless entered the house to investigate, and 

they found drugs. Ibid. 

– 9 – 2456
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Illinois court upheld this warrantless entry: 

We conclude that these peculiarities made it reasonable 

for the police to believe that someone within the house was 

attempting to call 911 for help but was prevented from 

completing the call. Accordingly, the officers’ entrance was 

justified by the exigent circumstances presented to them. If 

we were to adopt the rule urged by defendant, the police 

would never be authorized to enter and offer assistance in 

such a situation. 

Greene, 682 N.E.2d at 358-59. 

In State v. Pearson-Anderson, 41 P.3d 275 (Idaho App. 2001), the court 

upheld a warrantless entry into a dwelling in a case where the police received a 

suspicious 911 call from the defendant’s house: the initial 911 call was a hang-up call, 

and when the 911 operator called back, someone picked up the phone but then 

immediately hung up. Id. at 275-76. 

When police officers arrived at the residence, they observed the defendant 

and her live-in boyfriend struggling with one another on the floor across the threshold 

of the back door. Id. at 276. The defendant told the police that she was fighting with her 

boyfriend because he “had given a key to the home to another woman”, and this woman 

had entered the house and damaged some of the defendant’s belongings. Ibid. The 

defendant told the police that this other woman had been there “earlier”, but she had left. 

Ibid. 

One of the officers decided to enter the home to see if any third persons 

were present in the home and in need of assistance. Id. at 277. The officer found no one 

in distress, but he did discover a meth lab. Ibid. 

The Idaho court upheld the warrantless entry into the home. The court 

reasoned that the initial hang-up 911 call, followed by someone hanging up the phone 

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when the dispatcher called back, “suggested that someone in the home ... was in need of 

help” and that this person “had been prevented by another person from communicating 

with the operator.” Id. at 278. The court rejected the defendant’s contention that the 

officers were barred from entering the home after someone at the scene offered a 

seemingly plausible explanation for the hang-up call and assured the officers that no one 

was in distress. Id. at 276, 278. 

See also State v. Lynd, 771 P.2d 770 (Wash. App. 1989), where the court 

upheld a warrantless entry into a dwelling in a case where a police dispatcher received 

a hang-up 911 call, the line was busy when the dispatcher called back, and the defendant 

admitted to the police that he and his wife had been fighting, but the defendant claimed 

that his wife was no longer at home. 

As we said earlier in this opinion, the law does not allow police officers to 

enter a home without a warrant simply because the police have received a suspicious 911 

call. There will be times when the explanation offered by the people in the home, 

coupled with the officers’ observations at the scene, will dispel any reasonable ground 

for believing that there is an ongoing emergency. But the police are not required to set 

aside their reasonable concerns that people are in danger simply because someone at the 

home claims that there is no emergency. 

In Snowden’s case, someone called 911 from Mom’s Kitchen at 3:00 in the 

morning. After this person made the 911 call, they left the line open, they left the phone 

on the table of the empty restaurant, and then they seemingly disappeared. A taxi cab 

was waiting outside the building for a customer who never showed up. The police 

searched the upper floor of the building, and they found no one. The only place left to 

look was the lower floor — Snowden’s apartment. 

It is true that Snowden disclaimed any knowledge of the 911 call, and he 

told the police that he had simply been socializing and watching a movie. But given the 

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other suspicious circumstances, the police were not required to uncritically accept 

Snowden’s statement. 

In the end, the question here is whether the totality of the circumstances, 

including Snowden’s statement, left the police with reasonable grounds to believe that 

there was an emergency at hand (i.e., an immediate need for their assistance in the 

protection of life or property), and a reasonable basis, “approximating probable cause”, 

to associate this emergency with Snowden’s apartment. 

We conclude that the answer to this question is “yes”, and we therefore 

conclude that the officers’ warrantless entry into Snowden’s residence was justified 

under the emergency aid exception to the warrant requirement. 

The scope of the officers’ search of the apartment 

In his brief to this Court, Snowden presents the alternative argument that 

even if the officers’ entry into his apartment was justified, the officers’ search of the 

apartment was at least partially unlawful — under the theory that the scope of this search 

exceeded the kind of search that would be justified by the apparent emergency. 

Although Snowden mentioned this argument in passing when he argued his 

suppression motions in the superior court, he obtained no ruling from the superior court 

on this issue. Snowden therefore failed to preserve this claim for appeal. And under the 

supreme court’s decision in Moreau v. State, 588 P.2d 275, 280 (Alaska 1978), Snowden 

can not raise this claim for the first time on appeal. We therefore do not reach the merits 

of this claim. 

Conclusion 

The judgement of the superior court is AFFIRMED. 

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