FILED JULY 1, 2011 

S T A T E O F M I C H I G A N 

SUPREME COURT 

PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN, 

 Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v No. 141009 

MARK SLAUGHTER, 

 Defendant-Appellee. 

BEFORE THE ENTIRE BENCH 

YOUNG, C.J. 

In this case, we are called upon to determine whether the community caretaking 

exception to the Fourth Amendment’s requirement that a warrant be obtained before a 

residence can be entered applies to a first-response firefighter answering a 911 call and, if 

so, whether the firefighter’s entry into defendant’s residence was reasonable in the instant 

case. We conclude that the community caretaking exception applies to firefighters no 

less than to police officers when they are responding to emergency situations that 

threaten life or property. We also conclude that the firefighter’s actions in this case were 

reasonable, thus satisfying the community caretaking exception to the warrant 

Michigan Supreme Court

Lansing, Michigan

Opinion Chief Justice: 

Robert P. Young, Jr. 

Justices: 

Michael F. Cavanagh 

Marilyn Kelly 

Stephen J. Markman 

Diane M. Hathaway 

Mary Beth Kelly 

Brian K. Zahra 
2

requirement. Accordingly, we reverse the decision of the circuit court and the Court of 

Appeals’ judgment and remand this case to the circuit court for further proceedings 

consistent with this opinion. 

I. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY 

Defendant, Mark Slaughter, resided in a townhouse in Royal Oak, Michigan.1

 In 

May 2007, defendant’s neighbor, Kathleen Tunner, saw water running down her 

basement wall and over her electrical box. She also heard water flowing behind that 

wall, which adjoined defendant’s townhouse.2

 Tunner attempted to locate defendant by 

knocking on his door, but he was not home. She then called her townhouse management 

company in a further attempt to locate defendant. After this attempt failed, Tunner dialed 

911. The city of Royal Oak dispatched several firefighters to the townhouse, including 

Lieutenant Michael Schunck. After consulting with Tunner about her emergency call, 

Schunck entered defendant’s residence. When he went to the basement to shut off 

defendant’s water and to assess whether any additional measures needed to be taken to 

prevent a fire, Schunck observed, in plain view, grow lights and several dozen plants that 

appeared to be marijuana. He then reported what he saw to the Royal Oak police. 

 

1

 Although one of the issues at defendant’s preliminary examination concerned whether 

defendant actually resided at the Royal Oak townhouse, defendant admitted during his 

testimony at the suppression hearing that he had lived at the townhouse for “a year or 

two” before his arrest. 

2

 Defendant’s and Tunner’s townhouses are adjoining units in a single structure 

containing approximately 12 individual units. 
3

The Royal Oak Police Department dispatched an officer to secure defendant’s 

townhouse while another officer procured a search warrant. After entering defendant’s 

townhouse, officers seized 48 marijuana plants, grow lights, a watering system, 

defendant’s state identification card, books on marijuana horticulture, packaging material, 

and other drug paraphernalia. 

 Defendant was charged with manufacturing with the intent to deliver more than 20 

but fewer than 200 marijuana plants.3

 The district court bound defendant over as 

charged, notwithstanding defendant’s claims that the firefighter’s entry into the 

townhouse violated his Fourth Amendment rights and that he did not exercise dominion 

and control over the seized marijuana plants. 

Although defendant did not appeal the bindover decision, he subsequently filed a 

pretrial motion to suppress in the circuit court. After hearing testimony and oral 

argument, the court granted the motion in a written opinion and order. The circuit court 

concluded that Lieutenant Schunck “did not attempt to hear or see for himself what was 

causing the problem [that led Tunner to dial 911], nor did he attempt to verify the 

existence of running water in the wall prior to entering the defendant’s home.” The 

circuit court also observed that Schunck had indicated that “he would have entered the 

apartment even if he had shut off the water and/or electrical from the outside” because 

“he has to investigate the [911] calls to the fullest extent possible . . . .” 

 

3

 MCL 333.7401(2)(d)(ii). 
4

The circuit court applied this Court’s decision in People v Tyler4

 and the United 

States Supreme Court’s decision in Camara v Muni Court of City & Co of San 

Francisco5

 in concluding that firefighters are required to procure a warrant before 

entering a building “to prevent a fire from occurring . . . .” Furthermore, it relied on the 

fact that this Court’s decision in People v Davis,

6

 which articulated the community 

caretaking exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement, did not contain 

“anything related to the investigation of a possible fire hazard.” Accordingly, the court 

ruled that the firefighters could not avail themselves of the community caretaking 

exception. 

The Court of Appeals affirmed the circuit court’s ruling in a split, unpublished 

decision, albeit on alternative grounds.7

 First, the majority determined, contrary to the 

circuit court’s decision, that the community caretaking exception can apply to searches 

performed by first-response firefighters to abate a possible fire hazard. However, the 

majority explained that “the record permits the conclusion that the firefighters were 

simply too quick to enter into defendant’s unit and failed to investigate the complaint” 

before entering defendant’s residence.8

 Thus, the majority concluded that “there are too 

 

4 People v Tyler, 399 Mich 564; 250 NW2d 467 (1977), aff’d sub nom Michigan v Tyler, 

436 US 499 (1978). 

5 Camara v Muni Court of City & Co of San Francisco, 387 US 523; 87 S Ct 1727; 18 L 

Ed 2d 930 (1967). 

6 People v Davis, 442 Mich 1; 497 NW2d 910 (1993). 

7 People v Slaughter, unpublished opinion per curiam of the Court of Appeals, issued 

March 16, 2010 (Docket No. 287459). 

8 Id. at 5. 
5

many outstanding questions to conclude whether the firefighters acted reasonably” and, 

therefore, that the circuit court had properly granted the motion to suppress.9

The dissenting judge agreed with the majority that first-response firefighters can 

avail themselves of the community caretaking exception to the Fourth Amendment’s 

warrant requirement. The dissenting judge, however, concluded that the firefighters had 

acted reasonably in the instant case, indicating that “[t]he firefighters were faced with a 

possible emergency situation and they needed to make quick judgments about what to do 

in order to avoid a potential fire.”10

This Court granted the prosecutor’s application for leave to appeal and ordered the 

parties to brief whether 

(1) the actions of firefighters may fall under the “community caretaker” 

exception to probable cause requirements; (2) the “emergency aid” aspect 

of the community caretaker exception applies in this case; and (3) the Court 

of Appeals erred when it held that the firefighters were first obligated to 

attempt to remedy the condition for which a neighbor called by using 

means that did not involve entry into the defendant’s home.[11]

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW 

A court’s factual findings at a suppression hearing are reviewed for clear error, but 

the application of the underlying law—the Fourth Amendment of the United States 

Constitution and article 1, § 11 of the Michigan Constitution—is reviewed de novo.12

 

9 Id. at 6. 

10 Id. at 2-3 (METER, J., dissenting). 

11 People v Slaughter, 486 Mich 1069 (2010). 

12 People v Williams, 472 Mich 308, 313; 696 NW2d 636 (2005). 
6

III. ANALYSIS 

A. FOURTH AMENDMENT PRINCIPLES 

The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution guarantees every 

person’s right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures and provides, in its 

entirety: 

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, 

and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be 

violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported 

by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, 

and the persons or things to be seized.[13]

Similarly, article 1, § 11 of the Michigan Constitution provides, in relevant part: 

The person, houses, papers and possessions of every person shall be 

secure from unreasonable searches and seizures. No warrant to search any 

place or to seize any person or things shall issue without describing them, 

nor without probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation. 

This Court has ruled that the Michigan Constitution “is to be construed to provide the 

same protection as that secured by the Fourth Amendment, absent ‘compelling reason’ to 

impose a different interpretation.”14

Although the entry into defendant’s residence was warrantless, “[u]nder the 

common law and agreeably to the Constitution search may in many cases be legally made 

 

13 The Fourth Amendment was incorporated to the states in Mapp v Ohio, 367 US 643; 

81 S Ct 1684; 6 L Ed 2d 1081 (1961). 

14 People v Collins, 438 Mich 8, 25; 475 NW2d 684 (1991), citing People v Perlos, 436 

Mich 305; 462 NW2d 310 (1990), People v Chapman, 425 Mich 245; 387 NW2d 835 

(1986), People v Catania, 427 Mich 447; 398 NW2d 343 (1986), People v Smith, 420 

Mich 1, 23 n 16; 360 NW2d 841 (1984), and People v Nash, 418 Mich 196; 341 NW2d 

439 (1983). 
7

without a warrant. The Constitution does not forbid search, as some parties contend, but 

it does forbid unreasonable search.”15 While many warrantless searches are unreasonable 

pursuant to the warrant requirement,16 the United States Supreme Court has articulated 

several instances in which warrantless searches are reasonable. These include searches of 

automobiles,17 searches incident to contemporaneous lawful arrests,18 inventory searches 

conducted according to established procedure,19 searches conducted during exigent 

circumstances,20 and searches the police undertake as part of their “community 

caretaking” function.21

The instant case involves only the last circumstance listed—searches undertaken 

as part of a community caretaking function—and requires this Court to determine the 

scope of that community caretaking exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant 

requirement. Because it is uncontested that the initial search of defendant’s residence 

 

15 Carroll v United States, 267 US 132, 146; 45 S Ct 280; 69 L Ed 543 (1925). 

16 See Katz v United States, 389 US 347, 357; 88 S Ct 507; 19 L Ed 2d 576 (1967). 

17 See California v Carney, 471 US 386; 105 S Ct 2066; 85 L Ed 2d 406 (1985). 

18 See Chimel v California, 395 US 752; 89 S Ct 2034; 23 L Ed 2d 685 (1969); Maryland 

v Buie, 494 US 325; 110 S Ct 1093; 108 L Ed 2d 276 (1990). 

19 See South Dakota v Opperman, 428 US 364; 96 S Ct 3092; 49 L Ed 2d 1000 (1976). 

20 See Minnesota v Olson, 495 US 91; 110 S Ct 1684; 109 L Ed 2d 85 (1990). The 

exigent circumstances exception to the warrant requirement is inapplicable to this case. 

“When the police act pursuant to the exigent circumstances exception, they are searching 

for evidence or perpetrators of a crime.” Davis, 442 Mich at 24. 

21 See Cady v Dombrowski, 413 US 433; 93 S Ct 2523; 37 L Ed 2d 706 (1973). 
8

was warrantless, we must determine whether the community caretaking exception to the 

warrant requirement applies. 

B. THE COMMUNITY CARETAKING EXCEPTION 

The United States Supreme Court first recognized the community caretaking 

exception to the warrant requirement in Cady v Dombrowski, which involved the 

constitutionality of the search of the trunk of an out-of-town police officer’s 

automobile.22 The police officer was hospitalized after a serious automobile accident, 

and local police officers arriving on the scene of the accident directed that the injured 

officer’s vehicle be towed to a private garage. Because the private garage was unsecured, 

local police sought to locate and safeguard the injured officer’s service revolver. After 

failing to find the revolver on the officer’s person or in the glove compartment of the 

vehicle, officers searched the vehicle’s trunk and discovered the revolver, along with 

evidence of a murder.23 

Before addressing the legality of the search, the Court explained that police 

officers often perform certain duties independent of their duty to investigate crimes: 

Local police officers . . . frequently investigate vehicle accidents in 

which there is no claim of criminal liability and engage in what, for want of 

a better term, may be described as community caretaking functions, totally 

divorced from the detection, investigation, or acquisition of evidence 

relating to the violation of a criminal statute.[24]

 

22 Id. at 435-437. 

23 Id. 

24 Id. at 441. 
9

In considering the case before it, the Cady Court determined that the officers had acted 

not to investigate a crime, but out of “concern for the safety of the general public who 

might be endangered if an intruder removed a revolver from the trunk of the vehicle.”25 

The Court concluded that searches conducted to further these community caretaking 

functions do not necessarily require a warrant in order to be reasonable. Once it had 

determined that the search was not conducted pursuant to an investigation, the Court 

analyzed the reasonableness of the search within the scope of the officers’ community 

caretaking functions: the officers “were simply reacting to the effect of an accident—one 

of the recurring practical situations that results from the operation of motor vehicles and 

with which local police officers must deal every day.”26 In the end, the Court held that 

the warrantless search was a reasonable exercise of the officers’ community caretaking 

functions and concluded that their search of the vehicle did not violate the Fourth 

Amendment: 

Where, as here, the trunk of an automobile, which the officer 

reasonably believed to contain a gun, was vulnerable to intrusion by 

vandals, we hold that the search was not “unreasonable” within the 

meaning of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments.[27] 

This Court has recognized the community caretaking exception as applicable 

under Michigan law. In People v Davis, we explained: 

 

25 Id. at 447. 

26 Id. at 446. 

27 Id. at 448. 
10

The police perform a variety of functions that are separate from their 

duties to investigate and solve crimes. These duties are sometimes 

categorized under the heading of “community caretaking” or “police 

caretaking” functions. When police, while performing one of these 

functions, enter into a protected area and discover evidence of a crime, this 

evidence is often admissible. . . . 

* * * 

[A]ccording to the United States Supreme Court, the defining 

characteristic of community caretaking functions is that they are totally 

unrelated to the criminal investigation duties of the police. 

* * * 

Federal and state courts have included a variety of police activities 

under the heading of community caretaking functions. Courts have held 

that impoundment of automobiles and inventory searches of them, as in 

Cady, responding to missing vehicle complaints, investigating noise 

complaints, and searching an unconscious person for identification are 

community caretaking functions.[28] 

 

28 Davis, 442 Mich at 20-23. Part of an officer’s community caretaking function is the 

rendering of emergency aid to injured persons. This Court has concluded that, in entering 

a dwelling to render emergency aid to a person inside, “[an] officer must be motivated 

primarily by the ‘perceived need to render aid or assistance’” and “may not do more than 

is reasonably necessary to determine whether a person is in need of assistance, and to 

provide that assistance.” City of Troy v Ohlinger, 438 Mich 477, 484; 475 NW2d 54 

(1991), quoting State v Prober, 98 Wis 2d 345, 365; 297 NW2d 1 (1980). This Court has 

further required entering officers to “possess specific and articulable facts that lead them 

to” the conclusion that someone inside “is in need of immediate aid.” Davis, 442 Mich at 

25-26. Proof of someone’s needing assistance need not be “ironclad,” only “reasonable.” 

Michigan v Fisher, 558 US ___, ___; 130 S Ct 546, 549; 175 L Ed 2d 410, 414 (2009). 

While there is no evidence that the firefighters who entered defendant’s residence 

possessed specific and articulable facts that led them to the conclusion that someone

inside was in need of immediate aid, these principles are instructive in determining 

whether they believed imminent action was necessary to prevent a threat that placed 

persons and property in danger. 
11

Davis further explained that, because “[c]ommunity caretaking activities are 

varied and are performed for different reasons,”29 not all conduct that falls within the 

police’s community caretaking functions can be judged equally. Indeed, shortly after 

issuing the Davis decision, this Court listed several additional types of intrusions that 

courts have justified pursuant to the exercise of community caretaking functions: 

[C]ourts have included a multiplicity of police functions within the 

meaning of the community caretaking function, including entering an 

apartment to remove a former girlfriend following a domestic dispute, 

removing an intoxicated person from the street, entering an abandoned boat 

to ascertain ownership and the safety of the mariners, responding to a 

missing vehicle complaint, searching an unconscious person for 

identification, and responding to persons likely to be in need of emergency 

aid.[30]

Accordingly, courts must consider the reasons that officers are undertaking their 

community caretaking functions, as well as “the level[] of intrusion the police make 

while performing these functions,” when determining whether a particular intrusion to 

perform a community caretaking function is reasonable.31 For instance, “a police 

 

29 Davis, 442 Mich at 25. 

30 In re Forfeiture of $176,598, 443 Mich 261, 273-274; 505 NW2d 201 (1993) (citations 

omitted). In that case, this Court “decline[d] to employ the community caretaking 

exception” because “[b]oth of the officers who entered the home testified that the 

purposes of the entry were to search for intruders and to secure the premises in an effort 

to thwart an attempted escape,” not to undertake any of the listed community caretaking 

functions. Id. at 274-275. The case’s discussion of community caretaking functions, 

while dicta, nevertheless illustrates that, contrary to the dissent’s suggestion that the 

community caretaking exception applies on its face to only a narrow and undefined 

subcategory of cases involving police community caretaking functions, this Court has 

considered several different—and unrelated—community caretaking functions when 

determining whether a warrantless search is reasonable. 

31 Davis, 442 Mich at 25. 
12

inventory of a car is much less intrusive than a police entry into a dwelling.”32 This is 

because the privacy of the home stands “‘[a]t the very core’”33 of the Fourth Amendment 

and because “[i]n [no setting] is the zone of privacy more clearly defined than when 

bounded by the unambiguous physical dimensions of an individual’s home . . . .”34 Thus, 

the threshold of reasonableness is at its apex when police enter a dwelling pursuant to 

their community caretaking functions. 

C. FIREFIGHTERS AND THE COMMUNITY CARETAKING EXCEPTION 

This Court asked the parties to brief whether the community caretaking exception 

to the warrant requirement applies to firefighters’ actions. We conclude that the 

community caretaking exception to the warrant requirement applies when a firefighter, 

responding to an emergency call involving a threat to life or property, reasonably enters a 

private residence in order to abate what is reasonably believed to be an imminent threat 

of fire inside. Therefore, once it is determined that a firefighter’s entry into a private 

residence was an exercise of community caretaking functions, and not an exercise of 

investigative functions, we must consider the reasonableness of the entry within the 

context of that community caretaking purpose. 

United States Supreme Court caselaw specifically pertaining to firefighters 

supports this conclusion. In Michigan v Tyler, the Court concluded that “the Fourth 

 

32 Id.

33 Payton v New York, 445 US 573, 589-590; 100 S Ct 1371; 63 L Ed 2d 639 (1980), 

quoting Silverman v United States, 365 US 505, 511; 81 S Ct 679; 5 L Ed 2d 734 (1961). 

34 Payton, 445 US at 589. 
13

Amendment extends beyond the paradigmatic entry into a private dwelling by a law 

enforcement officer in search of the fruits or instrumentalities of crime.”35 Indeed, “there 

is no diminution in a person’s reasonable expectation of privacy nor in the protection of 

the Fourth Amendment simply because the official conducting the search wears the 

uniform of a firefighter rather than a policeman . . . .”36

The principle most relevant to this case from those decisions applying the Fourth 

Amendment’s warrant requirement to firefighters is that the Fourth Amendment applies 

equally to police officers and firefighters. It thus follows that if a police officer can avail 

himself of an exception to the warrant requirement, a firefighter can likewise avail 

himself of an exception if the circumstances permit. Indeed, Tyler is premised on just 

that principle: that the exceptions to the warrant requirement apply no less to firefighters 

than to police officers who have responded to 911 calls requiring imminent action to 

prevent harm to persons or property. 

Like decisions applying the community caretaking exception to police officers’ 

actions, Tyler distinguished a firefighter’s community caretaking functions from his 

investigative functions.37 As a general rule, “official entries to investigate the cause of a 

 

35 Michigan v Tyler, 436 US 449, 504; 98 S Ct 1942; 56 L Ed 2d 486 (1978). 

36 Id. at 506; see also Camara, 387 US at 530 (“It is surely anomalous to say that the 

individual and his private property are fully protected by the Fourth Amendment only 

when the individual is suspected of criminal behavior.”). 

37 Similarly, Michigan statutory law recognizes the same emergency/investigation 

distinction, providing firefighters in uniform and under supervision the authority to “take 

all necessary steps and requirements to protect persons and property until [a] dangerous 

condition is abated,” MCL 29.7a(2), as well as the separate authority to “investigate 

causes and effects related to dangerous conditions,” MCL 29.7a(3). 
14

fire must adhere to the warrant procedures of the Fourth Amendment.”38 Nevertheless, 

“it would defy reason to suppose that firemen must secure a warrant or consent before 

entering a burning structure to put out the blaze. And once in a building for this purpose, 

firefighters may seize evidence of arson that is in plain view.”39 In short, under Tyler, the 

purpose of a firefighter’s initial entry into a building is crucial in determining whether a 

warrant is required for that entry. 

The Tyler Court’s application of the Fourth Amendment to firefighters fits directly 

into the purposes of the community caretaking exception. Thus, as Cady and Tyler 

illustrate, we must analyze the reasonableness of the initial intrusion in light of the scope 

of the intrusion and the firefighter’s purpose in entering the residence. If the purpose of a 

firefighter’s initial entry into a private residence is to abate an imminent threat of fire, 

then a warrantless entry is lawful under the Fourth Amendment as long as it is 

reasonable. Contrarily, if the purpose of a firefighter’s entry is solely to investigate a 

crime, then a warrant is required unless a different exception to the warrant requirement 

applies. Tyler’s holding and rationale lead inexorably to the conclusion that the 

community caretaking exception applies to firefighters. Therefore, we hold that the 

community caretaking exception applies to firefighters.40

 

38 Tyler, 436 US at 508. 

39 Id. at 509. 

40 Our decision here is expressly limited to the question whether the community 

caretaking exception applies to firefighters. We leave to another day the determination 

whether that exception may extend to other emergency first responders. 
15

Application of the community caretaking exception does not provide firefighters 

with a blank check to enter private residences; rather, it only authorizes reasonable

intrusions. Because “[c]ommunity caretaking functions are varied and are performed for 

different reasons,”41 reviewing courts must tailor their analysis to the specifics of a 

particular intrusion before determining whether it is reasonable. Although neither 

Michigan caselaw nor that of the United States Supreme Court has specifically analyzed 

what factors affect whether a firefighter’s intrusion into a private residence is reasonable, 

there is ample authority within the caselaw applying specific factors in related 

circumstances that allows this Court to articulate the standards that both protect 

individuals’ Fourth Amendment rights and allow firefighters to perform their duty to 

abate serious fire hazards. 

As stated, the privacy of the home stands at the very core of the Fourth 

Amendment’s protections, and the zone of privacy is most clearly defined “when 

bounded by the unambiguous physical dimensions of an individual’s home.”42 In 

determining whether firefighters acted reasonably in entering an individual’s home, a 

reviewing court must first consider the firefighters’ basis for making the intrusion—

namely, whether, acting in good faith,43 they “possess[ed] specific and articulable facts” 

 

41 Davis, 442 Mich at 25. 

42 Payton, 445 US at 589-590. 

43 See, e.g., Colorado v Bertine, 479 US 367, 374; 107 S Ct 738; 93 L Ed 2d 739 (1987) 

(“[R]easonable police regulations relating to inventory procedures administered in good 

faith satisfy the Fourth Amendment, even though courts might as a matter of hindsight be 

able to devise equally reasonable rules requiring a different procedure.”). 
16

leading them to the conclusion that their actions were necessary to abate an imminent 

threat of fire inside the private residence.44 Their belief in the necessity of their intrusion 

need not be “ironclad,” only “reasonable.”45 Furthermore, courts must not engage in a 

“hindsight determination” that an entry is unreasonable simply because no imminent 

hazard actually existed.46 Rather, courts must determine whether an entry was reasonable 

on the basis of the circumstances known to the firefighters at the time of entry.47 

Next, courts should consider the scope of the entry, which “must be limited to the 

justification therefor” and may not extend beyond what “is reasonably necessary to 

determine” whether the imminent threat of fire exists inside the private residence.48 If 

firefighters do, in fact, find such a threat inside the residence, they may “remain in [the] 

building for a reasonable time” to abate the hazard and to “investigate [its] cause,” 

 

44 Davis, 442 Mich at 25. 

45 Fisher, 558 US at ___; 130 S Ct at 549; 175 L Ed 2d at 414. 

46 Id.

47 See id. This standard is consistent with the United States Supreme Court’s application 

of the warrant requirement to administrative searches in Camara. The search conducted 

in Camara was one to administer “fire, health, and housing code inspection 

programs . . . .” Camara, 387 US at 533. While the administration of fire, health, and 

housing code inspection programs is important to public safety, the application of the 

warrant requirement to the “routine systematized inspection” involved in Camara turned 

in part on the fact that “[i]t has nowhere been urged that fire, health, and housing code 

inspection programs could not achieve their goals within the confines of a reasonable 

search warrant requirement.” Id. As stated, the application of the community caretaking 

exception in this case is limited to situations in which firefighters reasonably believe that 

their entry is necessary to abate an immediate threat to persons or property. 

48 See Davis, 442 Mich at 26. 
17

because investigating the cause of the hazard “may be necessary to prevent its 

recurrence.”49 

Finally, in determining whether a particular entry is reasonably necessary, 

firefighters are not constrained to follow the least intrusive means of abating the 

imminent threat of fire. Indeed, that firefighters could have abated the fire hazard “by 

‘less intrusive’ means does not, by itself, render the search unreasonable.”50 Rather, 

reviewing courts must consider whether the means and scope of entry were themselves 

reasonable under the totality of circumstances, not whether they were perfect. 

D. APPLICATION 

Because the community caretaking exception is not a blank check for warrantless 

entry by firefighters, we apply the foregoing analysis to determine whether the 

firefighters’ entry into defendant’s residence was reasonable. 

As stated, we must first analyze the firefighters’ basis for entering defendant’s 

private residence. The circuit court’s findings of fact are relevant here and are not clearly 

erroneous: 

[Lieutenant Schunck] was called to [defendant’s townhouse], in the 

City of Royal Oak. The call was based upon a report of a possible 

electrical problem with running water. Upon arrival, he spoke to a 

neighbor [Tunner], who indicated she suspected water was running between 

a common wall, which shares an electrical panel. [Schunck] attempted to 

 

49 Tyler, 436 US at 510. Investigating a fire can reveal “continuing dangers such as faulty 

wiring or a defective furnace.” Id. Accordingly, the Court determined that “officials 

need no warrant to remain in a building for a reasonable time to investigate the cause of a 

blaze after it has been extinguished.” Id. (emphasis added). 

50 Cady, 413 US at 447. 
18

make contact with the owner of the neighboring apartment, but was 

unsuccessful. If there was water running onto an electrical box, it presented 

a life hazard and structure fire situation. [Schunck] made entry into the 

defendant’s home to see if there was water running into the electrical 

box. . . . [Schunck] went into the apartment to check for running water, and 

shut off the electricity. It was possible . . . to shut off the water to the entire 

complex from outside, but the general practice is to shut off the individual 

apartment. 

Upon cross-examination, [Schunck] indicated he did not see or hear 

any water before or after entering the apartment. In fact, he admitted he did 

not find any running water in the apartment. [Schunck] also admitted he 

did not shut off the water of the neighbor, nor did he check that apartment 

for water or dampness. He also admitted he did not turn off the electrical 

box for either apartment. [Schunck] was not sure where the meter [was] 

which would have permitted him to shut off the electricity without entering 

the apartment. 

Upon re-direct examination, [Schunck] indicated he was not sure if 

he entered [Tunner’s] apartment. He also indicated he would have entered 

[defendant’s] apartment even if he had shut off the water and/or electrical 

from the outside. He testified he has to investigate the calls to the fullest 

extent possible . . . . 

At no point did the circuit court indicate that it disbelieved Schunck’s testimony. 

Schunck also testified that he shut off the water to defendant’s townhouse and that he did 

so from the basement of defendant’s townhouse. 

 It is clear from Schunck’s testimony that he acted in good faith. There is no 

indication that his entry into defendant’s residence was pretextual, and only upon 

entering defendant’s basement to shut off the water to defendant’s residence did Schunck 

see what appeared to be contraband in plain view. 

 Of course, good faith alone is not sufficient to satisfy the requirements of the 

Fourth Amendment; firefighters must “possess specific and articulable facts” leading 

them to the conclusion that their imminent action is necessary to abate the threat to 
19

persons or property inside the private residence.51 In this case, Schunck knew of the 911 

call and the information it contained. Moreover, he spoke with Tunner, who reported that 

she saw water coming into her basement from the wall that she shared with defendant and 

that she heard water flowing behind that wall.52 Schunck had no reason to disbelieve 

Tunner’s assertion, although there was no evidence that he corroborated Tunner’s 

statement by witnessing or hearing the water himself. Nevertheless, Tunner’s report of 

water leakage next to her electrical box was specific and articulable evidence supporting 

Schunck’s conclusion that his imminent action was necessary to abate a condition inside 

defendant’s residence that he reasonably believed was a threat to persons or property. 

 Furthermore, the fact that the townhouse complex contained several units attached 

to each other elevated the imminence of the potential hazard. Schunck explained that the 

attached units were “real close together” and that they “share[d] electrical panels in the 

basement at the bottom of these [common] walls.” Moreover, because a “high density” 

of people lived in “all [the] connected apartments,” Schunck explained that “a definite 

life hazard and possible structur[al] fire type situation” existed. These facts further 

supported Schunck’s decision to enter defendant’s residence. 

 We conclude that, in assessing whether an entry was reasonable, courts must also 

determine whether the scope of the entry was “limited to the justification therefor” or 

whether it extended beyond what was “reasonably necessary” to abate the hazard inside 

 

51 Davis, 442 Mich at 25. 

52 Contrary to the dissent’s assertion, the fact that Tunner did not immediately call 911, 

but instead sought to reach defendant, does not negate Schunck’s belief in the imminence 

of the threat of electrical fire, nor does it make that belief objectively unreasonable. 
20

the private residence.53 In this case, Schunck entered defendant’s townhouse by having 

one of his crew enter the townhouse through a window in order to let him enter through 

the front door. Moreover, Schunck shut off the water to defendant’s townhouse from the 

basement, which was where Tunner believed the water was flowing and where Schunck 

found, in plain view, the plants he believed to be contraband.54 Therefore, the extent of 

Schunck’s entry and search of defendant’s residence was limited to the area of the 

residence that the available information indicated was the location of the hazard. 

 The Court of Appeals panel determined that Schunck entered without considering 

alternative, less intrusive means of abating the hazard. This kind of post hoc analysis is 

inconsistent with the principles for assessing the reasonableness of entry that we 

announce today. 

 Although it was possible for Schunck to turn off the water from outside 

defendant’s residence, several facts led Schunck to the conclusion that actual entry into 

defendant’s residence was necessary. First, because defendant’s residence was physically 

attached to several other units, Schunck sought to minimize disruption to defendant’s 

neighbors. Schunck believed that turning off defendant’s water from outside the unit 

 

53 Id. at 26. 

54 There is no indication that the marijuana plants were hidden from plain view in the 

basement of defendant’s residence. Accordingly, if Schunck’s entry into defendant’s 

basement was lawful, then the plain view exception to the warrant requirement allowed 

this evidence to provide probable cause for the subsequent search warrant, pursuant to 

which were seized the marijuana plants along with other related evidence found 

elsewhere in defendant’s residence. See Arizona v Hicks, 480 US 321; 107 S Ct 1149; 94 

L Ed 2d 347 (1987). 
21

would have shut off the water to the entire complex. Generally, he testified, the fire 

department “isolate[s] the individual problem in the apartment and shut[s] [the water] off 

from the inside.” Second, even if he had turned off the water to defendant’s residence 

from the outside, Schunck testified that “[t]here’s no question” he would have still 

entered the residence because, as an agent of the city of Royal Oak, he needed to be sure 

the situation was “totally safe.” Accordingly, there is no indication that Schunck’s entry 

exceeded what he thought necessary to abate what he believed to be the fire hazard inside 

defendant’s townhouse. 

 On the basis of all these facts, we conclude that Schunck acted reasonably in 

entering defendant’s residence pursuant to an emergency call. The Fourth Amendment 

does not prevent firefighters responding to emergency calls from undertaking their duty 

to protect the public from imminent danger. However, we emphasize that the Fourth 

Amendment does not give firefighters a blank check to enter and search private 

residences, and we caution reviewing courts to apply these principles carefully in order to 

ensure the appropriate protection of private residences under the Fourth Amendment. 

The Fourth Amendment strikes a careful balance, as seen in the instant case, between a 

citizen’s reasonable expectation of privacy with his similarly reasonable expectation that 

emergency personnel will act swiftly to protect his residence from the threat to persons or 

property therein. 

E. RESPONSE TO THE DISSENT 

In addition to the responses made to the dissent throughout this opinion, we offer 

the following general discussion of the dissent’s criticisms of our holding. 
22

One of the recurring themes of the dissent is that this opinion does not address 

how the various community caretaking functions fit within the Fourth Amendment. The 

response to this criticism is simple: this case only addresses how to apply the Fourth 

Amendment when a firefighter enters a private residence that he believes to be under the 

imminent threat of fire. We leave all other variants and all other applications of the 

community caretaking exception for another day. 

For this reason alone, the dissent’s criticism of this opinion for “not wad[ing] into 

[the] judicial morass” of the distinctions among the community caretaking doctrine, the 

emergency doctrine, and the emergency aid doctrine is off the mark. Moreover, the 

dissent’s understanding of these doctrines is needlessly complex because it characterizes 

them as separate and distinct exceptions to the warrant requirement, rather than as aspects 

of the community caretaking exception.55 Readers can judge for themselves whether this 

opinion thoroughly examined the law relevant to deciding this case. The central purpose 

of a state court of last resort is not merely to bemoan that “the scope of [the community 

caretaking] exception[] is far from clear,”56 but to establish clear principles of law, 

 

55 Post at 7. Notwithstanding the dissent’s protestations otherwise, today’s holding is 

consistent with other courts’ applications of the community caretaking exception. For 

example, the Washington Supreme Court has determined the “community caretaking 

function exception to encompass not only the ‘search and seizure’ of automobiles, but 

also situations involving either emergency aid or routine checks on health and safety.” 

State v Kinzy, 141 Wash 2d 373, 386; 5 P3d 668 (2000). Similarly, the Illinois Supreme 

Court recognized that “[c]ourts use the term ‘community caretaking’ to uphold searches 

or seizures as reasonable under the fourth amendment when police are performing some 

function other than investigating the violation of a criminal statute.” People v 

McDonough, 239 Ill 2d 260, 269; 940 NE2d 1100 (2010). 

56 Post at 6. 
23

consistent with the Constitution, that subsequent courts can apply as the facts of any 

particular case dictate. 

By contrast, the dissent would further muddle Fourth Amendment doctrine by 

deriving several separate exceptions to the warrant requirement based on the exercise of 

community caretaking functions. But if there is anything clear from the United States 

Supreme Court’s articulation of the community caretaking exception, it is that actions 

pursuant to community caretaking functions qualitatively differ from actions pursuant to 

criminal investigations. This is the central basis for today’s holding. 

 The dissent would also hold that the community caretaking exception does not 

apply to entry into private residences. A central part of the dissent’s rationale appears to 

be that because the decision identifying the community caretaking exception, Cady v 

Dombrowski, “included language that sharply distinguished automobile searches from 

searches of private residences,” the exception cannot encompass searches of private 

residences. However, the dissent can identify no United States Supreme Court decision 

that rejected the application of the community caretaking exception to private residences. 

Indeed, the dissent admits, in its discussion of the “emergency” and “emergency aid” 

exceptions, that firefighters acting pursuant to their community caretaking functions may, 

under certain circumstances, enter a private residence. 

The dissent claims that this opinion “extinguishes the emergency and emergencyaid exceptions to the warrant requirement in Michigan . . . .”57 Far from it. We recognize 

that these different aspects of the community caretaking exception apply the exception to 

 

57 Post at 20. 
24

specific circumstances. Our opinion today merely recognizes that in all these 

circumstances, we must apply the standard of reasonableness that governs all Fourth 

Amendment cases.58 Thus, while different circumstances will lead to different 

conclusions regarding the reasonableness of a particular search,59 we are only 

constitutionally required to forbid unreasonable searches. 

The reasonableness of the instant entry turns on the fact that the responding 

firefighters believed that there existed the imminent threat of an electrical fire in 

defendant’s residence.60 The firefighters reasonably believed that the danger posed an 

imminent threat to property or life, and they acted reasonably in abating that threat. 

 

58 The United States Supreme Court has held that if no exception to the warrant 

requirement applies, a warrantless search is unreasonable. Katz, 389 US at 357. This 

proxy for what constitutes a reasonable search nevertheless applies the same Fourth 

Amendment standard: reasonableness. 

59 As the dissent points out, post at 21 n 62, the Davis Court explained that “[w]hile 

categorizing these different activities under the heading of ‘community caretaking 

functions’ may be useful in some respects, it does not follow that all searches resulting 

from such activities should be judged by the same standard.” Davis, 442 Mich at 25. 

When read in its context—following an extensive (but not necessarily exhaustive) list of 

different community caretaking functions—it is clear that the Davis Court meant simply 

that the circumstances of each search must be taken individually to determine whether the 

search was reasonable. There is no indication that the Davis Court meant to depart from 

the universal application of the reasonableness standard to all Fourth Amendment 

inquiries; rather, it sought to apply “standards specifically applicable to emergency aid 

entries.” Id. We do not disturb the standards that the Davis Court applied in that context. 

We simply articulate standards applicable to situations in which a firefighter enters a 

private residence to abate what he believes to be an imminent threat of fire. 

60 The dissent criticizes this opinion for “fail[ing] to explain which community-caretaking 

functions, beyond responding to an emergency or administering emergency aid, would 

reasonably justify a warrantless entry into a home.” Post at 21. However, any such 

articulation would be dicta, because it would incorporate circumstances not controlling in 

the instant case. 
25

IV. CONCLUSION 

 We conclude that the community caretaking exception to the Fourth Amendment’s 

warrant requirement applies no less to firefighters than to police officers engaged in 

abating emergency conditions that concern the protection of life and property. Thus, 

first-response firefighters may avail themselves of the community caretaking exception to 

the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement. In this case, the firefighter entered 

defendant’s residence in order to abate what he reasonably believed was the imminent 

threat of a serious electrical fire. We conclude that he acted reasonably in doing so and 

that, accordingly, the circuit court and the Court of Appeals majority erroneously 

suppressed the evidence he discovered in plain view during this entry. We therefore 

reverse the circuit court’s decision and the Court of Appeals judgment and remand this 

case to the circuit court for entry of an order denying defendant’s motion to suppress and 

for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. We do not retain jurisdiction. 

 Robert P. Young, Jr. 

 Stephen J. Markman 

 Diane M. Hathaway 

 Mary Beth Kelly 

 Brian K. Zahra 
S T A T E O F M I C H I G A N 

SUPREME COURT 

PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN, 

 Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v No. 141009 

MARK SLAUGHTER, 

 Defendant-Appellee. 

MARILYN KELLY, J. (dissenting). 

 In my view, the majority’s decision today extends the community-caretaking 

exception to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement beyond discernable limitation. 

Therefore, I respectfully dissent. 

 I would affirm the Court of Appeals’ judgment, which affirmed the trial court’s 

decision to grant defendant’s motion to suppress. However, I would do so based on a 

different analysis than that used by the Court of Appeals. Consistently with many other 

courts that have considered the issue, I would hold that the community-caretaking 

exception to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement cannot justify a warrantless 

entry into a private residence. Because the majority concludes otherwise without a 

sufficient legal basis for doing so, I cannot join its opinion. 
2

I. LEGAL BACKGROUND 

 The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution protects the people from 

unreasonable searches and seizures.1

 The Michigan Constitution contains a similar 

protection.2

 Both constitutional provisions require a warrant supported by probable cause 

for searches and seizures to be reasonable, and therefore constitutional, unless an 

exception to the warrant requirement applies.3

 

 A person’s home is entitled to the most heightened Fourth Amendment 

protection.4

 Thus, a warrantless entry into a home is presumptively unreasonable.5 It 

violates the Fourth Amendment unless an exception to the warrant requirement exists. 

A. EXCEPTIONS TO THE WARRANT REQUIREMENT GENERALLY 

 Exceptions to the warrant requirement generally relate to two important functions 

of law enforcement and other state actors: criminal-investigation functions and so-called 

“community-caretaking” functions. The exceptions for criminal-investigation functions 

 

1

 US Const, Am IV. 

2

 Const 1963, art 1, § 11. 

3

 See Katz v United States, 389 US 347, 357; 88 S Ct 507; 19 L Ed 2d 576 (1967). 

4

 See Silverman v United States, 365 US 505, 511; 81 S Ct 679; 5 L Ed 2d 734 (1961) 

(“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 governmental intrusion.”); see also Kyllo 

v United States, 533 US 27, 37; 121 S Ct 2038; 150 L Ed 2d 94 (2001) (“In the home, our 

cases show, all details are intimate details, because the entire area is held safe from 

prying government eyes.”). 

5

 See, e.g., Welsh v Wisconsin, 466 US 740, 750; 104 S Ct 2091; 80 L Ed 2d 732 (1984), 

citing Payton v New York, 445 US 573, 586; 100 S Ct 1371; 63 L Ed 2d 639 (1980). 
3

exist because sometimes obtaining a warrant is impracticable due to the need to act 

expeditiously when investigating criminal activity. 

 Such exceptions include searches incident to lawful arrests6

 and searches 

conducted because of the existence of exigent circumstances, for instance, when the 

police are pursuing a fleeing felon.7

 Neither party to this case asserts that the warrantless 

entry into defendant’s home occurred in the course of investigating criminal activity. 

Thus, none of the warrant exceptions under the criminal-investigation umbrella justify the 

entry. 

 Other exceptions to the warrant requirement further the government’s interest in 

protecting individuals or the general public from harm. These exceptions relate to the 

community-caretaking functions of state actors. They are “totally divorced from the 

detection, investigation, or acquisition of evidence relating to the violation of a criminal 

statute.”8

 For example, an official’s community-caretaking functions justify the 

inventory exception to the warrant requirement, which allows searches conducted 

according to established police procedures.9

 Community-caretaking functions also 

include the administration of emergency aid,10 which provides another exception to the 

warrant requirement. 

 

6 Arizona v Gant, 556 US ___; 129 S Ct 1710; 173 L Ed 2d 485 (2009). 

7 United States v Santana, 427 US 38, 41-43; 96 S Ct 2406; 49 L Ed 2d 300 (1976). 

8 Cady v Dombrowski, 413 US 433, 441; 93 S Ct 2523; 37 L Ed 2d 706 (1973). 

9 South Dakota v Opperman, 428 US 364, 368-372; 96 S Ct 3092; 49 L Ed 2d 1000 

(1976). 

10 People v Davis, 442 Mich 1, 25; 497 NW2d 910 (1993). 
4

The firefighters in this case were investigating a potential water leak and electrical 

problem,11 which is “totally divorced” from any criminal investigation. However, several 

of the exceptions to the warrant requirement that form part of the government’s 

community-caretaking functions are implicated under the facts of the instant case. 

 Yet determining that this case implicates the community-caretaking functions of 

governmental actors answers only the beginning of the inquiry. As previously stated, the 

community-caretaking function is the foundational premise for several exceptions to the 

warrant requirement. Three such exceptions are significant to this case and will be 

discussed herein: the general community-caretaking exception, the emergency 

exception,12 and the emergency-aid exception. 

 In discussing these exceptions, one essential distinction is paramount. Although 

all the exceptions fall under the rubric of an official’s community-caretaking functions, 

they involve different circumstances, and different standards are used in assessing their 

 

11 For the reasons explained in part II(C) of this opinion, the majority’s characterization 

of the circumstances here as an “imminent threat of fire,” ante at 12, is inapt. 

12 There is some disagreement over whether the emergency exception is justified by 

community-caretaking considerations or by exigent circumstances. See, e.g., State v 

Deneui, 2009 SD 99, ¶ 22; 775 NW2d 221, 232 (2009) (“Several courts have also held 

that the emergency aid doctrine is a subcategory of the community caretaker exception, 

while the emergency doctrine is a subcategory of the exigent circumstances exception.”). 

However, in Davis, this Court made clear that the exigent-circumstances exception 

involves actions pursuant to criminal investigation. Davis, 442 Mich at 24. As 

previously noted, it is undisputed that the entry in this case did not occur in the course of 

an investigation of criminal activity. 
5

application.13 Thus, although the exercise of community-caretaking functions involves 

many different factual circumstances, warrantless entries pursuant to the communitycaretaking exception are justified in only a narrow subset of those circumstances. 

B. THE “COMMUNITY-CARETAKING,” “EMERGENCY,” AND “EMERGENCYAID” EXCEPTIONS 

 As the majority correctly states, one exception to the warrant requirement is the 

search of a vehicle conducted as part of a police officer’s community-caretaking 

functions.14 This exception, first established in Cady v Dombrowski, is commonly 

referred to as the community-caretaking exception to the warrant requirement.15 

 A related exception also involves the exercise of community-caretaking functions, 

but is grounded on the need for immediate action by police or firefighters to address 

 

13 See id. at 25 (“Although administering emergency aid is referred to as one of the 

community caretaking functions of the police, this should not have any effect on the law 

governing the emergency aid exception. While categorizing these different activities 

under the heading of ‘community caretaking functions’ may be useful in some respects, it 

does not follow that all searches resulting from such activities should be judged by the 

same standard.”). 

14 Cady, 413 US at 448. 

15 See, e.g., United States v Sanchez, 612 F3d 1, 4 n 2 (CA 1, 2010) (citing Cady for the 

proposition that “[t]he community caretaking exception to the Fourth Amendment’s 

warrant requirement allows the police to impound a vehicle for noninvestigatory 

purposes when it is reasonable to do so,” and giving as an example “to remove an 

impediment to traffic or to protect a vehicle from theft or vandalism”); United States v 

Johnson, 410 F3d 137, 143-144 (CA 4, 2005) (noting that Cady established the 

community-caretaking exception in the context of automobile searches). 
6

emergency situations.16 This exception is sometimes subdivided into the emergency 

exception and the emergency-aid exception.17 

 Unfortunately, the scope of these exceptions is far from clear. Consequently, 

courts across the country have rendered vastly different decisions about the proper 

application of the community-caretaking, emergency, and emergency-aid exceptions.18 

These anomalous results stem primarily from conflicting nomenclature regarding the 

exceptions.19 The South Dakota Supreme Court recently summarized this confusion: 

A review of the caselaw reveals a breadth of decisions discussing 

and applying various exceptions including the emergency doctrine, the 

emergency aid doctrine, and the community caretaker doctrine. 

Some of the avowed distinctions between these three doctrines can 

be frail, bordering on the meaningless. Neither have they been consistently 

applied, thus creating contradictory and sometimes conflicting doctrines. 

Some courts treat these exceptions interchangeably. Others declare that the 

community caretaker exception applies, but then use law applicable to one 

of the other exceptions, such as the emergency doctrine.[20] 

 

16 Michigan v Tyler, 436 US 499; 98 S Ct 1942; 56 L Ed 2d 486 (1978) (stating that no 

warrant is required for firefighters to enter a residence to fight a fire in progress); 

Brigham City v Stuart, 547 US 398, 403; 126 S Ct 1943; 164 L Ed 2d 650 (2006) (stating 

that no warrant is required for police to enter a residence “to assist persons who are 

seriously injured or threatened with such injury”). 

17 See, e.g., Deneui, 2009 SD 99, at ¶ 28; 775 NW2d at 234. 

18 The majority overlooks the fact that virtually all courts and commentators recognize 

that a distinction exists between these exceptions, even if they sometimes confuse them 

when applying them. Thus, I ask the majority, does the need to “establish clear principles 

of law,” ante at 22, outweigh our obligation to get those principles right? 

19 See, e.g., Decker, Emergency circumstances, police responses, and Fourth Amendment 

restrictions, 89 J Crim L & Criminology 433, 441-444 (1999) (hereinafter Decker, 

Emergency circumstances). 

20 Deneui, 2009 SD 99, at ¶¶ 21-22; 775 NW2d at 232. 
7

 Pursuant to Michigan v Tyler and Brigham City v Stuart,

21 it is well settled that 

police and firefighters may enter a private residence without a warrant in emergency 

circumstances. Such circumstances include, at a minimum, responding to a fire in 

progress and assisting injured persons in need of medical treatment.22 However, the law 

remains unclear regarding the proper application of the warrant exception to actions 

conducted pursuant to community-caretaking functions that are not in response to an 

emergency situation. The United States Supreme Court has not seen fit to extend the 

community-caretaking exception established in Cady beyond the context of automobile 

searches. This, in my view, should be the starting point for the Court’s analysis in this 

case. 

II. ANALYSIS 

 The majority does not wade into this judicial morass. Instead, it ignores it, 

proceeding as if the law is clear and dictates its result. In so doing, it does precisely what 

State v Deneui cautioned against: creating contradictory and conflicting doctrines using 

inconsistent language.23 

 For example, the majority proclaims that “the community caretaking exception 

applies to firefighters . . . when they are responding to emergency situations that threaten 

 

21 Tyler, 436 US 499; Stuart, 547 US 398. 

22 It is undisputed that there was no fire in progress or injured person in need of medical 

treatment in this case. 

23 Deneui, 2009 SD 99, at ¶ 22; 775 NW2d at 232. 
8

life or property.”24 This is a correct characterization of the scope of the emergency 

exception to the warrant requirement, not of the community-caretaking exception. 

 However, the majority also states that, as long as the entry was “an exercise of [the 

state actor’s] community caretaking functions,” courts need assess only the 

reasonableness of the entry.25 This suggests that a firefighter’s entry into a residence 

pursuant to a community-caretaking function absent any imminent threat would be 

sanctioned as long as a court determines the entry was reasonable. This standard could 

conceivably be characterized as a wholly independent community-caretaking exception 

along the lines of that created by the United States Supreme Court in Cady. 

 However, the majority lacks an adequate legal basis for extending the communitycaretaking exception discussed in Cady to entries of residences generally and to the facts 

of this case specifically. The majority relies almost exclusively on the United States 

Supreme Court decision in Tyler and our decision in People v Davis.

26 As I will explain, 

the majority’s reliance on those decisions is unfortunate. Tyler is of nominal usefulness, 

and Davis suggests a result opposite to that reached by the majority. 

 

24 Ante at 1; see also ante at 21 (“The Fourth Amendment does not prevent firefighters 

responding to emergency calls from undertaking their duty to protect the public from 

imminent danger.”). 

25 Ante at 12. 

26 Tyler, 436 US 499; Davis, 442 Mich 1. 
9

A. DOES THE COMMUNITY-CARETAKING EXCEPTION JUSTIFY 

WARRANTLESS ENTRIES INTO PRIVATE RESIDENCES? 

 The majority recognizes that the privacy of the home stands at the very core of the 

Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. But it 

assumes without analysis that warrantless entries into a private residence to engage in 

community-caretaking functions are permissible if reasonable.27 I cannot agree. The 

majority’s conclusion assumes, without deciding, what should be the threshold question. 

1. TYLER DOES NOT SUPPORT THE MAJORITY’S HOLDING 

 The United States Supreme Court’s decision in Tyler did not cite or discuss Cady, 

the seminal case that created the community-caretaking exception. Nor do the words 

“community caretaking” appear anywhere in Tyler. Rather, Tyler is typically viewed as 

involving the emergency exception to the warrant requirement.28 Yet the majority uses 

Tyler as a central basis for its holding interpreting a warrant exception that Tyler never 

mentioned. Reliance on a case involving one exception to the warrant requirement to 

formulate the parameters of another exception to the warrant requirement is erroneous.29

 

27 See ante at 15. 

28 See, e.g., Mincey v Arizona, 437 US 385, 392; 98 S Ct 2408; 57 L Ed 2d 290 (1978) 

(stating that “[w]e do not question the right of the police to respond to emergency 

situations” by making warrantless entries and searches and citing Tyler); see, generally, 

Decker, Emergency circumstances, pp 441-444 (1999). 

29 The general rule is that “searches conducted outside the judicial process, without prior 

approval by judge or magistrate, are per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment—

subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions.” Katz, 389 

US at 357 (citations omitted) (emphasis added).
10

Tyler held that “[a] burning building clearly presents an exigency of sufficient 

proportions to render a warrantless entry ‘reasonable.’”30 Courts construing Tyler have 

generally read this exception to the warrant requirement narrowly, confining it to 

situations involving an imminent need for police intervention to protect life or property.31 

Many courts have also noted that the critical inquiry is “whether there is a ‘true 

 

30 Tyler, 436 US at 509. 

31 As noted, the United States Supreme Court has recognized as emergencies entry to 

fight a fire in progress and to provide immediate medical treatment (also termed the 

“emergency aid” exception). See Tyler, 436 US 499, and Stuart, 547 US 398. 

Some federal and state courts have taken a more expansive view of what 

constitutes an emergency. Those courts have upheld warrantless entries under this 

exception to locate missing persons, stop a burglary in progress, and to respond to 

gunshots fired. See, e.g., People v Wharton, 53 Cal 3d 522; 280 Cal Rptr 631; 809 P2d 

290 (1991) (upholding entry of a residence to locate a missing individual); Carroll v 

State, 335 Md 723, 731-732; 646 A2d 376 (1994) (citing federal and state cases 

upholding warrantless entries when the police reasonably believed that a burglary was in 

progress or had recently been committed); Davis, 442 Mich at 28 (assuming without 

deciding that, in most cases, the sound of gunfire could justify warrantless entry into a 

motel room under the emergency-aid doctrine). 

By contrast, the authority supporting a warrantless entry under facts similar to 

those presented here is both scarce and dubious. A few cases have allowed warrantless 

entries in cases involving water leaks. See State v Dube, 655 A2d 338 (Me, 1995) 

(holding lawful a warrantless entry to combat a plumbing emergency and stop sewage or 

water from leaking into apartments below); United States v Boyd, 407 F Supp 693, 694 

(SD NY, 1976) (upholding a warrantless entry when water was leaking from the 

defendant’s apartment into the apartment below and the officer heard water running in 

defendant’s apartment). But see United States v Rohrig, 98 F3d 1506, 1520 n 6 (CA 6, 

1996) (questioning Dube’s conclusion that the warrantless entry was not a “search” for 

Fourth Amendment purposes); United States v Williams, 354 F3d 497, 508 (CA 6, 2003) 

(“Unlike the situations in Rohrig, Boyd, and Dube where the problem the police sought to 

address was certain, the possible water leak in this case was only speculative.”). 
11

immediacy’ that absolves an officer from the need to apply for a warrant and receive 

approval from an impartial magistrate.”32 

 Thus, Tyler provides a basis for concluding that firefighters may enter onto 

property without a warrant under emergency circumstances, such as to fight a fire in 

progress. However, the majority reads more into Tyler by concluding that it “lead[s] 

inexorably to the conclusion that the community caretaking exception applies to 

firefighters.”33 This conclusion is simply wrong. It stretches Tyler’s holding far beyond 

what that opinion actually said. In fact, Tyler only leads “inexorably” to the conclusion 

that firefighters may enter a burning building in order to fight a fire in progress. 

 Because Tyler did not discuss the community-caretaking exception, much less 

establish rules for its application, the majority should not have placed such reliance on it. 

Finally, as I explain later, I do not believe that the prosecution in this case established a 

factual record that justified a warrantless entry under any exception to the warrant 

requirement.34 

2. DAVIS DOES NOT SUPPORT THE MAJORITY’S DECISION 

 With Tyler properly limited to emergency situations, the majority opinion is left to 

relying solely on our decision in Davis. But Davis does not support it either. 

 

32 United States v Washington, 573 F3d 279, 288 (CA 6, 2009). 

33 Ante at 14. 

34 See part II(C) of this opinion. 
12

Davis explicitly stated that its holding was based on the emergency-aid exception, 

not the community-caretaking exception.35 Thus, its discussion of the broader 

community-caretaking exception is dicta and is not binding on this Court. Nonetheless, 

to the extent that Davis is informative here, it points to a result the opposite of that 

reached by the majority. 

Davis involved the warrantless entry of a hotel room by police officers after they 

received reports of gunshots being fired. In its discussion of community-caretaking 

functions, the Court was extremely careful to note the significant difference in privacy 

interests between a car and a dwelling.36 The Davis Court ultimately held that the 

warrantless entry in that case could not be justified under the emergency-aid exception.37 

Once the Davis Court so held, it did not make an independent community-caretaking 

analysis to determine whether the warrantless entry could be justified on that basis. 

 

35 Davis, 442 Mich at 9 n 4 (“Even though we resolve this case on the basis of the 

emergency aid doctrine, the Court of Appeals assertion that the community caretaker 

function is a subcategory of the exigent circumstances doctrine requires a more general 

clarification of the exceptions to the warrant requirement.”) (emphasis added); id. at 25 

(“Accordingly, we hold that when the police are investigating a situation in which they 

reasonably believe someone is in need of immediate aid, their actions should be governed 

by the emergency aid doctrine, regardless of whether these actions can also be classified 

as community caretaking activities.”) (emphasis added). 

36 Id. at 25 (“Although, for example, inventory of a car and entry into a dwelling may 

both be categorized as ‘caretaking functions,’ it does not follow that both types of 

activities should be judged by the same standard. It is particularly important to note that 

the levels of intrusion the police make while performing these functions are different. 

For example, a police inventory of a car is much less intrusive than a police entry into a 

dwelling.”). 

37 Cf. City of Troy v Ohlinger, 438 Mich 477, 483; 475 NW2d 54 (1991) (upholding a 

warrantless entry into a home after an officer observed a man inside bleeding and not 

moving in order “to determine if [medical] assistance was required”). 
13

 Hence, Davis created a sliding scale for assessing the reasonableness of searches 

undertaken on the basis of community-caretaking functions. Because of the greater 

Fourth Amendment protections afforded to residences, there are few communitycaretaking functions that would justify a warrantless search of a residence under Davis. 

Only when governmental officials act to address an emergency and their actions meet the 

standard for the emergency or emergency-aid exceptions is a warrantless entry into a 

home proper.38

 Two Michigan cases, People v Toohey and People v Krezen, have discussed the 

community-caretaking function of police officers in upholding automobile searches under 

the inventory exception to the warrant requirement.39 The Toohey Court surveyed the 

United States Supreme Court’s decisions in Cady and South Dakota v Opperman.

40 It 

noted that inventory searches of automobiles satisfy the Fourth Amendment’s 

“reasonableness” requirement if they are “conducted pursuant to standardized police 

 

38 Davis, 442 Mich at 25-26 (“[W]e hold that police may enter a dwelling without a 

warrant when they reasonably believe that a person within is in need of immediate aid. 

They must possess specific and articulable facts that lead them to this conclusion.”); see 

also State v Ryon, 137 NM 174, 185; 108 P3d 1032 (2005) (“Since the privacy 

expectation is strongest in the home, only a genuine emergency will justify entering and 

searching a home without a warrant and without consent or knowledge.”). 

39 People v Toohey, 438 Mich 265, 273-276; 475 NW2d 16 (1991) (citing Cady for the 

proposition that “the United States Supreme Court has determined that the impoundment

and subsequent inventory search of a vehicle is constitutionally valid as part of the 

caretaking function performed by the police”); People v Krezen, 427 Mich 681, 687; 397 

NW2d 803 (1986). 

40 Toohey, 438 Mich at 273-277, citing Cady, 413 US 433, and Opperman, 428 US 364. 
14

procedure . . . .”41 Although Toohey and Krezen discussed the community-caretaking 

functions of the police in impounding automobiles, neither decision discussed an 

independent community-caretaking exception to the warrant requirement. 

 In sum, no decision from this Court has expressly defined the parameters of a 

community-caretaking exception to the warrant requirement. Krezen, Toohey, City of 

Troy v Ohlinger, and Davis all discussed the community-caretaking functions of law 

enforcement officers.42 But in none of those cases did the Court uphold a warrantless 

entry or search on the basis of the community-caretaking exception. Rather, the Krezen 

and Toohey decisions relied on the inventory exception. The Ohlinger and Davis 

decisions relied on, and fashioned a test for the application of, the emergency-aid 

exception. Therefore, this Court has no controlling authority on point. 

3. SURVEY OF OTHER JURISDICTIONS 

Tyler and Davis do not support, much less mandate, the majority’s result. Because 

there is no controlling Michigan authority, I turn to other jurisdictions for guidance. 

Many courts have observed that the Cady decision included language that sharply 

distinguished automobile searches from searches of private residences.43 Therefore, they 

 

41 Toohey, 438 Mich at 275-276. 

42 Krezen, 427 Mich 681; Toohey, 438 Mich 265; Ohlinger, 438 Mich 477; Davis, 442 

Mich 1. 

43 See, e.g., United States v Erickson, 991 F2d 529, 532 (CA 9, 1993) (“Although it 

involved a community caretaking function, Cady clearly turned on the ‘constitutional 

difference’ between searching a house and searching an automobile.”) (quotation marks 

and citations omitted). 
15

have limited the community-caretaking exception solely to the former.44 Recently, the 

United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit joined the majority of other federal 

circuits and adopted this approach: 

We agree with the conclusion of the Seventh, Ninth, and Tenth 

Circuits on this issue, and interpret the Supreme Court’s decision in Cady

as being expressly based on the distinction between automobiles and homes 

for Fourth Amendment purposes. The community caretaking doctrine 

cannot be used to justify warrantless searches of a home. Whether that 

exception can ever apply outside the context of an automobile search, we 

need not now decide. It is enough to say that, in the context of a search of a 

home, it does not override the warrant requirement of the Fourth 

Amendment or the carefully crafted and well-recognized exceptions to that 

requirement.[45]

 

44 United States v Pichany, 687 F2d 204, 207-209 (CA 7, 1982); Erickson, 991 F2d at 

532; United States v Bute, 43 F3d 531, 535 (CA 10, 1994); State v Gill, 2008 ND 152, 

¶ 23; 755 NW2d 454, 459 (2008); Ryon, 137 NM at 185. 

The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit similarly declined to 

allow an entry into a private residence pursuant to the community-caretaking exception. 

United States v McGough, 412 F3d 1232, 1239 (CA 11, 2005). However, it is unclear 

whether McGough was limited to the facts before the court or whether it established a 

categorical rule for searches of private residences. Several courts have cited McGough

for the proposition that the Eleventh Circuit, like the Seventh, Ninth, and Tenth Circuits, 

has declined to extend the community-caretaking exception to allow warrantless searches 

of private homes or businesses. See, e.g., Gill, 2008 ND 152, at ¶ 17; 755 NW2d at 459. 

The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has applied the 

community-caretaking exception to allow a warrantless entry of a home in order to abate 

a nuisance. See Rohrig, 98 F3d 1506. However, the Rohrig court placed great emphasis 

on “the fact-specific nature of this holding,” Rohrig, 98 F3d at 1525 n 11, leaving doubts 

about whether it was intended to be broadly applicable. Subsequent Sixth Circuit 

decisions have questioned whether Rohrig stands for the proposition that the communitycaretaking exception can justify warrantless entries into private residences. See, e.g., 

Williams, 354 F3d at 508 (“[D]espite references to the doctrine in Rohrig, we doubt that 

community caretaking will generally justify warrantless entries into private homes.”). 

45 Ray v Warren Twp, 626 F3d 170, 177 (CA 3, 2010). 
16

Numerous other courts have tacitly rejected extending the community-caretaking 

exception to warrantless entries into private residences.46 Similarly, others have 

evaluated the warrantless entry under the emergency or emergency-aid exceptions only 

and, finding them inapplicable, declared the entry unconstitutional without considering a 

broader community-caretaking exception.47

 Cases from jurisdictions in which the courts have ostensibly permitted warrantless 

entries into private residences pursuant to the community-caretaking exception are also 

instructive. For example, in United States v Quezada,

48 the Eighth Circuit upheld a 

warrantless entry into the defendant’s apartment. The Quezada Court stated that “[a] 

police officer may enter a residence without a warrant as a community caretaker where 

the officer has a reasonable belief that an emergency exists requiring his or her 

attention.”49 

 Thus, the warrantless entry in that case, like the entries in Tyler and Mincey v 

Arizona, was premised on an emergency situation, not simply that the officer was acting 

 

46 See, e.g., Ortiz v State, 24 So 3d 596, 615 (Fla App, 2009) (Orfinger, J., dissenting) 

(“Other than situations involving the medical emergency exception, until today, the 

community caretaker exception has not been applied in Florida as a separate exception to 

the Fourth Amendment to validate an entry into a residence.”). 

47 See, e.g., State v Ford, 2010 VT 39, ¶¶ 11-21; ___ Vt ___, ___; 998 A2d 684, 689-692 

(2010) (recognizing the existence of both the community-caretaking and emergency-aid 

exceptions, but holding an officer’s entry into a private residence unconstitutional 

because it failed to satisfy the emergency-aid exception). 

48 United States v Quezada, 448 F3d 1005 (CA 8, 2006). 

49 Id. at 1007, citing Mincey, 437 US at 392-393 (emphasis added). 
17

in a community-caretaking capacity.50 Many other cases that purportedly allowed 

warrantless entries into homes under the community-caretaking exception similarly relied 

on the fact that an emergency situation was involved.51 

 Cases like Quezada persuasively illustrate how the law pertaining to the 

community-caretaking exception, the emergency exception, and the emergency-aid 

exception are often muddled. Courts often confuse a police officer’s actions pursuant to 

a community-caretaking function with the community-caretaking exception to the warrant 

requirement. Moreover, these cases also reveal the dearth of authority for a communitycaretaking exception to the warrant requirement that applies to homes independently of 

the emergency or emergency-aid exceptions. 

 The majority ignores all of this and assumes, without really deciding the issue, that 

community-caretaking duties can justify a warrantless entry into a private residence. 

This assumption is precariously based, given the dearth of authority to support it. I 

would hold that, to the extent an independent community-caretaking exception to the 

warrant requirement may be recognized in Michigan, it cannot justify a warrantless entry 

into a private residence. Rather, such entries must be justified by another exception, such 

as the emergency or emergency-aid exceptions discussed in Tyler and Davis. 

 

50 Tyler, 436 US 499; Mincey, 437 US 385; see also Ray, 626 F3d at 176 (stating that 

Quezada and similar cases “do not simply rely on the community caretaking doctrine 

established in Cady”). 

51 See, e.g., Deneui, 2009 SD 99, at ¶ 80; 775 NW2d at 251-252 (Meierhenry, J., 

dissenting) (distinguishing cases cited by the majority as grounded in the emergency and 

emergency-aid exceptions, not a broader community-caretaking exception). 
18

4. THE MAJORITY’S MISCONSTRUCTION OF FOURTH AMENDMENT 

PROTECTIONS 

The majority’s articulation of the general legal principles applicable to this case is 

generally accurate. For example, I do not dispute that the touchstone of Fourth 

Amendment analysis is reasonableness. The problem is that the majority opinion restricts 

itself to general legal principles. Indeed, a simple reason exists why the majority does 

not answer my refutation of Tyler and Davis as a basis for its holding or my discussion of 

the other caselaw: it cannot. Instead, it attempts to distract from this failure by 

dismissing my opinion as “bemoan[ing]” the state of the law in this area.52 The majority 

also claims that my approach would “further muddle Fourth Amendment doctrine . . . .”53 

To the contrary, my analysis fully examines and evaluates the existing nuances in Fourth 

Amendment doctrine recognized by courts across the country, including this one. Such 

nuances are lost on the majority. 

 If, as the majority asserts, my understanding of these nuances is “needlessly 

complex,”54 so too is the understanding of countless other judges and commentators. 

Contrary to the majority’s assertion, the emergency and emergency-aid exceptions are not 

merely “aspects” of the community-caretaking exception.55 As previously explained, the 

 

52 Ante at 22. 

53 Ante at 23. 

54 Ante at 22. 

55 See Deneui, 2009 SD 99, at ¶ 80; 775 NW2d at 251-252 (Meierhenry, J., dissenting) 

(“[T]he community caretaking function of police is an aspect of the emergency exception 

and emergency aid exception. The community caretaker exception, however, is an 

independent and broader exception to the Fourth Amendment and has not been 

expansively recognized by any authority outside of the context of motor vehicles.”). 
19

community-caretaking functions of police and other state actors provide the basis for 

several distinct exceptions to the warrant requirement. These exceptions include the 

inventory exception, the emergency exception, and the emergency-aid exception.56 Each 

 

56 See Laney v State, 117 SW3d 854, 860-861 (Tex Crim App, 2003): 

The notion that officers act pursuant to their “community caretaker 

functions” serves as a basis for three separate doctrines created by the 

[United States] Supreme Court: 

1) the emergency aid doctrine, established in Mincey;

2) the automobile impoundment and inventory doctrine, first 

conceived in Cady, and later expanded upon in Opperman; and, 

3) the community caretaking doctrine, or public servant doctrine, 

established in Cady, and followed by this Court . . . . 

The common thread in each of these three exceptions to the warrant and 

probable cause requirements is the officer’s purpose. 

The emergency doctrine is not the same as the community 

caretaking doctrine established in Cady. The distinction between the 

emergency doctrine and the community caretaking doctrine, hereinafter 

referred to as the Cady doctrine, is a narrow, but critical one. Under the 

emergency doctrine, the officer has an immediate, reasonable belief that he 

or she must act to “protect or preserve life or avoid serious injury.” On the 

other hand, under the Cady doctrine, the officer “might or might not believe 

there is a difficulty requiring his general assistance.” Therefore, while both 

doctrines are based on an officer’s reasonable belief in the need to act 

pursuant to his or her “community caretaking functions,” the emergency 

doctrine is limited to the functions of protecting or preserving life or 

avoiding serious injury. Additionally, the Cady doctrine deals primarily 

with warrantless searches and seizures of automobiles (and will be limited 

to those circumstances except in unusual circumstances), while the 

emergency doctrine deals with warrantless entries of, but is not limited to, 

private residences. [Citations omitted.] 
20

exception is subject to a different standard for assessing whether a warrantless entry or 

search conducted pursuant to that exception was reasonable.57

The majority opinion falls short because it creates out of whole cloth a previously 

unrecognized community-caretaking exception to the warrant requirement. Its wholly 

unsupported decision not only to adopt that exception but to extend it to warrantless 

entries into private residences compounds this error. Moreover, the majority refuses to 

recognize that its stated standard for this new exception is the essence of the standard for 

the emergency exception to the warrant requirement. Implicit in this failure is the 

inevitable conclusion that, under the majority’s new exception, warrantless entries into a 

home to perform nonemergency community-caretaking functions can be reasonable.58

In sum, the majority’s opinion today (1) extinguishes the emergency and 

emergency-aid exceptions to the warrant requirement in Michigan by creating a broader 

community-caretaking exception with no discernable limitation,59 (2) exposes the perils 

 

57 See Davis, 442 Mich at 25-26 (“[P]olice may enter a dwelling without a warrant when 

they reasonably believe that a person within is in need of immediate aid. They must 

possess specific and articulable facts that lead them to this conclusion.”); Toohey, 438 

Mich at 284 (“To be constitutional, an inventory search must be conducted in accordance 

with established departmental procedures, which all police officers are required to follow, 

and must not be used as a pretext for criminal investigation.”). 

58 Thus, although the majority claims that it is not reaching this question, see ante at 22, 

24 n 60, the dicta from its opinion are loud and clear.

59 Under the majority’s new exception, state actors never need rely on the aforementioned 

exceptions, as the new community-caretaking exception will always make their 

warrantless entry reasonable under such circumstances. Surely the unanimous Davis

Court did not think it was wasting its time in carefully crafting a standard for applying the 

emergency-aid exception. 
21

of distilling broad Fourth Amendment principles from inapposite authority and without 

comprehensive analysis, (3) pays only lip service to United States Supreme Court 

precedent emphasizing the difference between the home and a vehicle,60 (4) ignores the 

United States Supreme Court’s admonition that the warrant requirement is subject only to 

specifically established and well-delineated exceptions,61 (5) directly contravenes Davis 

by applying a general reasonableness standard to all warrantless entries carried out to 

perform community-caretaking functions,62 and (6) fails to explain which communitycaretaking functions, beyond responding to an emergency or administering emergency 

aid, would reasonably justify a warrantless entry into a home.63

 

60 The majority acknowledges that “the threshold of reasonableness is at its apex when 

police enter a dwelling pursuant to their community caretaking functions.” Ante at 12. 

However, nothing else in its analysis gives any effect to this crucial distinction. 

61 Katz, 389 US at 357. The specifically established and well-delineated emergency-aid 

exception has existed in Michigan since at least 1991, see Ohlinger, 438 Mich 477. As 

previously explained, there is no Michigan authority specifically adopting a communitycaretaking exception. Moreover, the community-caretaking exception established in

Cady has not been specifically established, let alone well delineated, outside the context 

of automobile searches. 

62 Davis, 442 Mich at 25 (“While categorizing these different activities under the heading 

of ‘community caretaking functions’ may be useful in some respects, it does not follow 

that all searches resulting from such activities should be judged by the same standard.”). 

63 I agree with the majority that there is no indication that Davis intended to depart from 

“the universal application of the reasonableness standard to all Fourth Amendment 

inquiries[.]” Ante at 24 n 59. But as the majority notes, Davis established a specific 

standard for how courts could assess reasonableness in the emergency-aid context. The 

majority today applies a similar standard to assess the reasonableness of entries in 

emergency situations, such as to abate an imminent threat of fire. However, the majority 

errs when it grounds its decision in the community-caretaking exception because it gives 

no equivalent standard applicable to warrantless entries to perform nonemergency 

community-caretaking functions. 
22

B. DOES THE COMMUNITY-CARETAKING EXCEPTION APPLY TO 

FIREFIGHTERS? 

 This portion of the majority’s holding is unique.64 No jurisdiction has extended 

the community-caretaking exception to the warrant requirement to firefighters. 

 As previously mentioned, Tyler established that firefighters are entitled to enter 

private residences without a warrant in emergency situations, including fighting a blazing 

fire. Stuart makes clear that police may enter homes to render emergency aid to someone 

inside in clear need of medical treatment.65 Both of these exceptions are subsumed 

within the broader rubric of community-caretaking functions. 

 Because I would not allow the community-caretaking exception to justify 

warrantless entries into private residences by any state actors, I would not reach this 

issue. However, under the majority’s broad new community-caretaking exception, 

 

The majority claims that any such standard would be dictum because the only 

question here is whether a firefighter may enter a home to address the threat of an 

imminent fire. This would be an adequate response if the majority were applying the 

emergency exception, but not when it creates a new community-caretaking exception. 

Surely we need not decide the reasonableness of every possible emergency police officers 

or firefighters may encounter. 

However, as previously noted, the majority’s decision is based on a new 

community-caretaking exception without a standard in the event of a nonemergency. The 

majority leaves lower courts to guess when other, less urgent community-caretaking 

functions can reasonably justify warrantless entries and searches of homes. Our lower 

courts and the public deserve more. 

64 See ante at 14 (“Tyler’s holding and rationale lead inexorably to the conclusion that the 

community caretaking exception applies to firefighters.”). 

65 I do not dispute that firefighters, as well as police officers, could also invoke the 

emergency-aid exception to justify a warrantless entry into a home. 
23

firefighters and police officers may effectively enter private residences at any time and 

for virtually any reason without a warrant. 

C. APPLICATION TO THIS CASE 

 Under existing law, the firefighters in this case were permitted to enter defendant’s 

townhouse only to combat an ongoing emergency. The thin factual record precludes the 

conclusion that a reasonable person could have believed that an emergency existed in 

defendant’s townhouse. At best, the facts establish that a potential fire threat existed in 

the townhouse neighboring defendant’s, which belonged to Kathleen Tunner. 

 The only facts that the firefighters responding to Tunner’s phone call knew when 

they entered defendant’s home were that (1) Tunner had observed water running over her

electrical box and (2) she thought that she heard water running between the common wall 

her townhouse shared with defendant’s townhouse. As the majority observes, Royal Oak 

Fire Department Lieutenant Michael Schunck testified that he did not independently 

confirm that water was running in Tunner’s home. Hence, he did nothing to respond to 

the only possible emergency of which he was aware when he arrived—a potential fire 

hazard in Tunner’s townhouse.66 

 In concluding to the contrary, the majority discounts the legal principle that a 

warrantless entry into a home is presumptively unreasonable.67 The government bears 

 

66 Even Tunner did not consider the situation in her townhouse to be an imminent hazard. 

She first attempted to contact her next-door neighbor and the management company to 

address the water issue. Only when the management company told her there was nothing 

it could do did Tunner call the fire department.

67 See, e.g., Welsh, 466 US at 750, citing Payton, 445 US at 586. 
24

the burden of proving that a “‘carefully delineated’” exception to the warrant requirement 

applies.68 

 Indeed, the facts justifying the entry in this case are significantly less compelling 

than those present in Davis. In Davis, the police had received a radio dispatch informing 

them that the manager at a motel had reported hearing gunshots fired in or near one of 

two motel rooms. The dispatcher identified two possible rooms and directed police 

officers to a possible witness, but did not suggest that any person was injured. With this 

dispatch as their only source of information, the police arrived at the motel and proceeded 

to one of the two rooms. Once there, they encountered an occupant who was unwilling to 

open the door. 

 Notably, the police had not themselves heard shots fired. Nor did they interview 

any witnesses who heard them, not even the desk clerk, whom the dispatcher had 

identified as the source of the information. The initial source of information gave very 

little detail about the situation. The record did not indicate that the police made inquiries 

of the manager who approached them or that they knocked on other doors. They 

encountered no circumstances that suggested that shots had in fact been fired. Under 

these facts, the Davis Court unanimously refused to apply the emergency-aid exception to 

uphold the warrantless entry. 

 Thus, Davis involved a situation in which gunshots had been fired—a situation 

specifically recognized by courts as falling within the emergency exception.69 Yet the 

 

68 Welsh, 466 US at 749-750, quoting United States v United States Dist Court, 407 US 

297, 318; 92 S Ct 2125; 32 L Ed 2d 752 (1972).

69 See Decker, Emergency circumstances, pp 480-484. 
25

Davis Court refused to apply the exception absent police corroboration of the shots 

independent of the phone call. 

 This case involves an alleged water leak and potential electrical problem—not a 

scenario specifically recognized as falling within the emergency exception. Just as in 

Davis, however, the warrantless entry was carried out without any independent 

corroboration that water was actually leaking and causing a potential electrical problem 

in defendant’s home. If there was no water leaking, there was no electrical problem and 

hence no emergency or imminent threat to life or property. Therefore, there was no 

exception to the warrant requirement that justified the warrantless entry in this case. 

 The majority concludes to the contrary by establishing a broad, undefined new 

community-caretaking exception to the warrant requirement wholly unsupported by 

existing law. Indeed, the scope of the majority’s newly created exception to the warrant 

requirement is limitless. 

 Finally, I question the legal significance of at least one of the facts the majority 

finds significant when evaluating the reasonableness of the warrantless entry. The 

majority contends that because the townhouse complex contained several units attached 

to one another, this fact “elevated the imminence of the potential hazard.”70 Not so. 

Certainly, the fact that the townhouse complex has numerous attached units elevated the 

potential scope of the fire threat and the number of people who potentially might have 

been affected. But that fact is utterly irrelevant to the imminence of a fire threat from 

water running over an electrical box. The question of the imminence of a fire might be 

 

70 Ante at 19. 
26

influenced by whether someone saw sparks flying from the box or saw a large quantity of 

water flowing over it. But the scope of the threat and the imminence of the threat are 

distinctly different inquiries. 

 For these reasons, I agree with the Court of Appeals’ conclusion that it is 

impossible to determine whether the firefighters acted reasonably in entering defendant’s 

apartment. Thus, I would hold that the prosecution did not meet its burden of 

establishing that an exception to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement justified the 

firefighters’ entry. 

III. CONCLUSION 

 I dissent from the majority’s decision to extend the community-caretaking 

exception to the warrant requirement to allow entry into private residences. I would hold 

that firefighters, as well as police officers, may enter a private residence only pursuant to 

the emergency and emergency-aid exceptions. The prosecution failed to establish a 

record indicating that the firefighters in this case reasonably believed that immediate 

entry into defendant’s townhouse was necessary to address an emergency situation. 

Therefore, I would affirm the judgment, but not the reasoning, of the Court of Appeals. 

 Marilyn Kelly 

 Michael F. Cavanagh