Opinion ID: 2708650
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Entry into Sutterfield’s Home

Text: The district court, as noted, found that the warrantless entry into Sutterfield’s home might be justified on the basis of the exigent circumstances doctrine. Sutterfield focuses the bulk of her argument on this possibility, contending that in view of the passage of nine hours between her physician’s initial phone call to the police and the point at which police sought entry No. 12-2272 19 into her home, the circumstances cannot be desribed as exigent, as there was ample opportunity for the police to obtain a warrant. She adds that her own conduct in refusing to open the door to her home and admit the police cannot be said to have created an exigency where none otherwise existed. There are three doctrines or exceptions to the warrant requirement that have been raised at one point or another in this case as possible justifications for the warrantless entry into Sutterfield’s home: the community caretaking doctrine, the emergency aid doctrine, and the exigent circumstances doctrine. For the reasons that follow, we believe that the entry into Sutterfield’s home was justified by the emergency aid doctrine, which the Supreme Court has deemed a subset of the exigent circumstances doctrine. But as there is some degree of overlap between the doctrines, the distinctions between them are not always clear, and all three doctrines are, to some degree, implicated in this case, we begin with a short discussion of each.5 5 Scholars have frequently remarked on the lack of clarity in judicial articulation and application of the three doctrines. See, e.g., Megan Pauline Marinos, Comment, Breaking and Entering or Community Caretaking? A Solution to the Overbroad Expansion of the Inventory Search, 22 GEO. MASON U. CIVIL RIGHTS L. J. 249, 261 (2012) (“Over the years, state and federal courts have muddled the distinction between the emergency aid exception to the warrant requirement and the community caretaking exception to the probable cause and warrant requirements.”); Michael R. Dimino, Sr., Police Paternalism: Community Caretaking, Assistance Searches, and Fourth Amendment Reasonableness, 66 WASH. & LEE L. REV. 1485, 1494 (2009) (“The vagueness surrounding the definition of the community-caretaking category and the different standards governing the constitutionality of (continued...) 20 No. 12-2272 The community caretaking doctrine recognizes that police sometimes take actions not for any criminal law enforcement purpose but rather to protect members of the public; searches (including home entries) conducted for the latter purpose are deemed exempt from the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement. The doctrine was first recognized by the United States Supreme Court in Cady v. Dombrowski, 413 U.S. 433, 93 S. Ct. 2523 (1973), which sustained the warrantless search of an automobile in police custody that was conducted as a matter of routine for a purpose “totally divorced from the detection, investigation, or acquisition of evidence relating to the violation of a criminal statute,” id. at 441, 93 S. Ct. at 2528. As we shall see, state and federal courts have divided over the scope of the community caretaking doctrine recognized in Cady. This court, taking the narrow view, has confined the doctrine to automobile searches. United State v. Pichany, supra, 687 F.2d at 207-09. Pichany rules out the community caretaker doctrine as a basis which might justify the warrantless entry into 5 (...continued) different types of community-caretaking searches indicate that more precision is needed. There is not a single community-caretaking doctrine. Rather, there are several different community-caretaking doctrines, but courts have not clarified the constitutional interests affected by those different kinds of searches.”); Deborah Tuerkheimer, Exigency, 49 ARIZ. L. REV. 801, 812 n. 60 (2007) (“the state of the case law in this area is remarkably confused”); Mary Elizabeth Naumann, Note, The Community Caretaker Doctrine: Yet Another Fourth Amendment Exception, 26 AM. J. CRIM. L. 325, 365 (1999) (“A review of both federal and state case law reveals a lack of consistency in the definition and boundaries of the community caretaker doctrine that control the judgment exercised by the officers in these situations.”). No. 12-2272 21 Sutterfield’s home, as the district court recognized. But because the Wisconsin courts—which, like the court, possess the authority and indeed the obligation to interpret and apply the Fourth Amendment, see Burgess v. Lowery, 201 F.3d 942, 945-46 (7th Cir. 2000)—have accorded a much broader sweep to the community caretaker doctrine, and this would have given the defendants reason to believe that the entry was justified, a more detailed discussion of Cady and its progeny is called for. In Cady, Wisconsin police officers searched the trunk of a rented automobile that had been disabled in a one-car accident. The obviously intoxicated driver of the car, Dombrowski, had informed the officers that he was a Chicago policeman. Believing that Chicago police officers were required to carry their service revolvers with them at all times, the Wisconsin police looked for a gun on Dombrowski’s person and in the glove compartment and front seat of the car, but they did not find one. The car was towed to a local (private) garage and Dombrowski was taken into custody for drunken driving. Later that night, an officer visited the garage to search the car again for Dombrowski’s revolver; the search was described as a matter of routine practice within the local police department. When the officer opened the locked trunk of the car, he discovered clothing and other items with blood on them. When Dombrowski was confronted with those items, he directed police to a body on his brother’s farm. Dombrowski was ultimately charged with murder, and the items discovered in the trunk of the car were admitted at trial as evidence. Dombrowski was convicted. On habeas review, this court agreed with Dombrowski that the search of the car trunk violated his Fourth Amendment rights, as there was no 22 No. 12-2272 exigency that might have justified a warrantless search. Dombrowski v. Cady, 471 F.2d 280, 283-84 (7th Cir. 1972) (2-1 decision). The Supreme Court reversed. The Court in Cady sustained the search of car trunk as a legitimate exercise of the police force’s community caretaking function. After first noting that the touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is “reasonableness,” id. at 439, 93 S. Ct. at 2527, the Court pointed out that it had long distinguished automobile searches from searches of the home, both because cars are inherently mobile, lending greater justification to warrantless searches, and because the highly-regulated status of motor vehicles brings the police into frequent contact with automobiles—and any contents, including contraband, which are in plain view—for reasons unrelated to the investigation of crime. Id. at 440-42, 93 S. Ct. at 2527-28. In this case, the police had been compelled to assume custody of Dombrowski’s rental car because Dombrowski himself was unable to drive and because the wrecked vehicle otherwise presented a nuisance upon the roadway. Id. at 442-43, 93 S. Ct. at 2529. After they took custody of the car, police had followed what the lower courts had determined to be standard operating procedure in searching the car for Dombrowski’s service revolver. That search was conducted not for evidence-gathering purposes but rather for safety reasons: the car had been towed to a garage lot which was not secured, leaving any gun inside accessible to vandals. Id. at 443, 448, 93 S. Ct. at 2529, 2531. Thus, the search, although unsupported by a warrant, constituted a legitimate exercise of the police force’s community caretaking function. Id. at 447-48, 93 S. Ct. at 2531. No. 12-2272 23 Cady’s holding has since evolved into a rule authorizing a routine, warrantless inventory search of an automobile lawfully impounded by the police. In South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U.S. 364, 96 S. Ct. 3092 (1976), for example, the Court sustained the search of a car which had been impounded by police after it was left parked illegally in a restricted zone; the search had unearthed marijuana in the vehicle’s glove compartment. After reiterating Cady’s rationale and adding that the individual has a lesser expectation of privacy in the automobile than in the home, id. at 367-69, 96 S. Ct. at 3096, the Court noted that a routine inventory search of an impounded vehicle serves multiple needs: protection of the owner’s property, protection of the police against allegations of lost or stolen property, and protection of the police from potential danger, id. at 369, 96 S. Ct. at 3097. The search, conducted for legitimate caretaking reasons and not as a pretext for evidence-gathering, therefore met the Fourth Amendment’s reasonableness standard. Id. at 375-76, 96 S. Ct. at 3100; see also, e.g., United States v. Jackson, 189 F.3d 502, 508-09 (7th Cir. 1999). Opperman, as it turned out, marked the last time that the Supreme Court relied to any meaningful degree on the community caretaking function of the police in evaluating the reasonableness of searching automobiles and other items impounded by the police; subsequent cases have rested on Opperman’s description of the search as a routine “inventory” search. See, e.g., Colorado v. Bertine, 479 U.S. 367, 371, 107 S. Ct. 738, 741 (1987) (“inventory searches are now a well-defined exception to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment”); see also Marinos, supra n.5, 22 GEO. MASON U. CIVIL RTS. L. J. at 251 n.11, 259. 24 No. 12-2272 This court, as we have mentioned, has limited the community caretaker doctrine to automobile searches. Pichany, 687 F.2d at 207-09. Our decision in Pichany addressed the warrantless search of a commercial warehouse. Police officers had arrived early for a meeting at an industrial park with a business owner who had reported a burglary of his warehouse. While looking for the owner, the officers wandered into the defendant’s nearby warehouse, which was both unlocked and unmarked—but which was not the warehouse reported burglarized. There they discovered several stolen tractors, which resulted in the defendant being charged with theft. After the district court suppressed the evidence discovered in the warehouse, the government appealed, seeking to justify the warrantless entry into the defendant’s warehouse on the basis of the community caretaker doctrine. The government argued that when the officers entered the defendant’s warehouse, they were not investigating the defendant’s possible involvement in a crime but simply looking for the individual who had reported a burglary. We rejected the invitation to extend Cady’s community caretaking rationale beyond the automobile context. “None of the factors which the Court found characterized the community caretaking function are present here.” 687 F.2d at 207. We pointed out that, in contrast to the situation in Cady, the police had not exercised control or dominion over the defendant’s warehouse, nor was there any threat of damage or theft that might have triggered a duty on the part of the officers to secure his warehouse. Id. at 207-08. More fundamentally, the Court in Cady, by stressing the circumstances that differentiated cars from houses and other things that might be searched, had indicated that its holding “extended only to No. 12-2272 25 automobiles temporarily in police custody.” id. at 208. “Consequently, the plain import from the language of the Cady decision is that the Supreme Court did not intend to create a broad exception to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement to apply whenever the police are acting in an ‘investigative,’ [i.e., community caretaking] rather than a ‘criminal’ function.” Id. at 208-09 (quoting Cady, 413 U.S. at 453, 93 S. Ct. at 2534) (Brennan, J., dissenting)). The other circuits are divided on the question of whether the community caretaker exception applies outside of the automobile context, and in particular to warrantless searches of the home. In addition to this circuit, the Third, Ninth, and Tenth circuits have confined the community caretaking exception to the automobile context. See Ray v. Tp. of Warren, 626 F.3d 170, 177 (3d Cir. 2010); United States v. Bute, 43 F.3d 531, 535 (10th Cir. 1994) (2-1 decision); United States v. Erickson, 991 F.2d 529, 531-33 (9th Cir. 1993).6 In contrast, the Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth circuits have relied on the community caretaking exception to justify warrantless searches of the home. See United States v. Quezada, 448 F.3d 1005, 1007-08 (8th Cir. 2006); United States v. Rohrig, 98 F.3d 1506, 1521-25 (6th Cir. 1996) (2-1 decision); United States v. York, 895 F.2d 1026, 1029-30 (5th Cir. 6 More recently, the Ninth Circuit found that a warrantless entry into a home was justified when police entered the home in a community caretaking role while responding to a perceived emergency; the court emphasized that the circumstances must present a genuine emergency in order for such an entry to be justified. See United States v. Stafford, 416 F.3d 1068, 1073-75 (9th Cir. 2005). Despite the references to community caretaking, the decision is probably best characterized as relying on the emergency aid doctrine rather than the community caretaking doctrine. 26 No. 12-2272 1990) (framed as an exigent circumstances decision, but stressing community caretaking role of police in abating noise disturbance). However, the Sixth Circuit more recently has expressed doubt that the community caretaking doctrine would generally authorize the warrantless entry into a home, see United States v. Williams, 354 F.3d 497, 508 (6th Cir. 2003), although its decision in that case ultimately rested on the fact that police were motivated by a suspicion of criminal wrongdoing in addition to community caretaking purposes, id. Finally, the Fourth Circuit has indicated that the community caretaking exception may justify a warrantless residential search when, as in Cady, the search is conducted pursuant to routine procedure and not for purposes of criminal evidencegathering. Hunsberger v. Wood, 570 F.3d 546, 554 (4th Cir. 2009) (Wilkinson, J.). See also MacDonald v. Town of Eastham, 2014 WL 944707, at - (1st Cir. Mar. 12, 2014) (noting disarray in cases and leaving question open); United States v. McGough, 412 F.3d 1232, 1238-39 (11th Cir. 2005) (noting that “we have never explicitly held that the community caretaking functions of a police officer permit the warrantless entry into a home”; court goes on to find that in any event facts did not warrant application of the exception in that case). A similar division exists at the state level. See Gregory T. Helding, Comment, Stop Hammering Fourth Amendment Rights: Reshaping the Community Caretaking Exception With the Physicial Intrusion Standard, 97 MARQUETTE L. REV. 123, 143-48 (2013) (collecting cases extending community caretaking exception beyond the automobile context); Naumann, supra n.5, 26 AM. J. CRIM. L. at 352-57 (surveying different approaches employed by state courts). No. 12-2272 27 As the district court noted, the Wisconsin courts in particular have extended the community caretaking doctrine to searches of homes. We reserve our discussion of the Wisconsin precedents for our qualified immunity analysis below. For now, it is sufficient to express our agreement with the district court that, given our decision in Pichany, the warrantless entry into Sutterfield’s home cannot be sustained on the basis of the community caretaker doctrine. The exigent circumstances exception to the warrant requirement constitutes a second ground on which the warrantless entry into Sutterfield’s home potentially could be justified. Pursuant to this exception, a warrantless entry into a dwelling may be lawful when there is a pressing need for the police to enter but no time for them to secure a warrant. Michigan v. Tyler, 436 U.S. 499, 509, 98 S. Ct. 1942, 1949 (1978); see also, e.g., Fitzgerald v. Santoro, 707 F.3d 725, 730 (7th Cir. 2013). Recognized exigencies include situations in which the occupant of a residence is injured or is in danger of imminent injury, Michigan v. Fisher, 558 U.S. 45, 47-48, 130 S. Ct. 546, 54849 (2009); Brigham City, Utah v. Stuart, supra, 547 U.S. at 403-04, 126 S. Ct. at 1947; see, e.g., Fitzgerald, 707 F.3d at 731-32) (danger of suicide); when there is a danger posed to others by the occupant of a dwelling, as when the occupant is armed and might shoot at the police or other persons, e.g., United States v. Kempf, 400 F.3d 501, 503 (7th Cir. 2005); when police are in “hot pursuit” of a fleeing suspect, United States v. Santana, 427 U.S. 38, 42-43, 96 S. Ct. 2406, 2409-10 (1976) (citing Warden v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294, 87 S. Ct. 1642 (1967)), or there is a risk that the suspect may escape, see Minnesota v. Olson, 495 U.S. 91, 100, 110 S. Ct. 1684, 1690 (1990); and to prevent the imminent 28 No. 12-2272 destruction of evidence, Kentucky v. King, 131 S. Ct. 1849, 185657 (2011). Whether the exigent circumstances exception justifies warrantless action is judged by an objective standard: we ask whether it was reasonable for the police officers on the scene to believe, in light of the circumstances they faced, that there was a compelling need to act and no time to obtain a warrant. See Tyler, 436 U.S. at 509, 98 S. Ct. at 1949; e.g., Fitzgerald, 707 F.3d at 730. There must be a genuine need to forego the warrant process; and in assessing that need, we must focus not only on the moment that police made the decision to make the warrantless entry, but rather “appraise the agents' conduct during the entire period after they had a right to obtain a warrant and not merely from the moment when they knocked at the front door.” United States v. Patino, supra, 830 F.2d at 1416 (quoting United States v. Rosselli, 506 F.2d 627, 630 (7th Cir.1974) (footnote omitted) (Stevens, J.)). Related to both of the foregoing exceptions to the warrant requirement is the emergency or emergency aid doctrine, which recognizes that a warrantless entry into the home may be appropriate when police enter for an urgent purpose other than to arrest a suspect or to look for evidence of a crime. See Mincey v. Ariz., supra, 437 U.S. at 392-93, 98 S. Ct. at 2413; Hanson v. Dane Cnty., Wis., 608 F.3d 335, 337-38 (7th Cir. 2010); United States v. Richardson, 208 F.3d 626, 630 (7th Cir. 2000); United States v. Salava, 978 F.2d 320, 324-25 (7th Cir. 1992). Like the community caretaker exception to the warrant requirement, this doctrine recognizes that police play a service and protective role in addition to a law enforcement role. See SheikAbdi v. McClellan, 37 F.3d 1240, 1244 (7th Cir. 1994) (citing United States v. Moss, 963 F.2d 673, 678 (4th Cir. 1992)). In the No. 12-2272 29 former capacities, police officers may sometimes need to enter a dwelling in order to render aid to an occupant whom they believe to be in distress and in immediate need of their assistance. Id. The test for this exception is also objective: the question is whether the police, given the facts confronting them, reasonably believed that it was necessary to enter a home in order to “render assistance or prevent harm to persons or property within.” Id. (quoting Moss, 963 F.2d at 678); see also United States v. Jenkins, 329 F.3d 579, 581-82 (7th Cir. 2003). Although we had understood the emergency aid doctrine to be separate from (albeit related to) the exigent circumstances exception, see Sheik-Abdi, 37 F.3d at 1244, see also Hopkins v. Bonvicino, 573 F.3d 752, 763 (9th Cir. 2009); John F. Decker, Emergency Circumstances, Police Responses, and Fourth Amendment Restrictions, 89 J. CRIM. L. & CRIMINOLOGY 433, 441-45 (1999), the Supreme Court in Brigham City effectively made the former a subset of the latter. 547 U.S. at 403-4, 126 S. Ct. at 1947; see Tuerkheimer, supra n.5, 49 ARIZ. L. REV. at 812-13 & n.60. The police in Brigham City had responded to a 3:00 a.m. call complaining of a loud party at a residence. On arrival at the residence, the officers heard shouting from inside of the house, walked down the driveway, saw two juveniles drinking beer in the backyard, and from there noticed an altercation taking place in the kitchen of the home. Through a screen door, they saw four adults attempting to restrain a juvenile, who was able to break free and strike one of the adults, drawing blood. As the struggle continued, one of the officers opened the door to 30 No. 12-2272 the kitchen, announced himself, and then entered. At that point, the altercation ceased. The police ultimately arrested the adults for, inter alia, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and disorderly conduct. At issue before the Supreme Court was the lawfulness of the police officers’ entry into the residence. The Court determined that the interest in preventing injury to an occupant of the home justified a warrantless entry by the police. The Court recognized that the need to assist a person who is seriously injured or who is threatened with such an injury is one type of exigency that obviates the need to obtain a warrant: “The need to protect or preserve life or avoid serious injury is justification for what would be otherwise illegal absent an exigency or emergency.” 547 U.S. at 403, 126 S. Ct. at 1947 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). “Accordingly, law enforcement officers may enter a home without a warrant to render emergency assistance to an injured occupant or to protect an occupant from imminent injury.” Ibid. The officers’ subjective motive for the entry—be it to quell violence or to make an arrest, for example—is irrelevant; what matters is whether the facts, viewed objectively, justified the action taken by the police. Id. at 404-05, 126 S. Ct. at 1948. In this case, the officers witnessed a fracas ongoing within the home that had already resulted in injury to one of the occupants. The officers consequently had reason to believe both that the person who had been struck might need help and that the fight might continue without intervention. The entry into the home was therefore reasonable. Id. at 406, 126 S. Ct. at 1949. We relied on Brigham City’s exigency rationale in Fitzgerald, 707 F.3d 725, to sustain a warrantless entry into a home where No. 12-2272 31 police had reason to believe that the occupant might harm herself. The police in Fitzgerald were summoned to the plaintiff’s home after she had a telephone conversation with a police officer that caused that officer to be concerned that she might be suicidal. At the conclusion of a stressful, aggravating day, the plaintiff, who had been drinking, attempted to contact a local help line but instead found herself speaking to the desk sergeant at a local police station. Although she denied entertaining suicidal thoughts, the sergeant, while remaining on the line with her, dispatched officers to her home, reporting that she was highly depressed, intoxicated, and possibly suicidal. As the officers were approaching the plaintiff’s condominium, they learned that the plaintiff had just abruptly hung up on the desk sergeant. At that point, the officers made a forced, warrantless entry into the plaintiff’s home. After speaking with her for a period of 30 minutes, the officers ultimately took the plaintiff into custody against her will for evaluation at a hospital. She later filed suit, contending among other things that the warrantless intrusion into her home violated the Fourth Amendment. We concluded that the entry was justified based on the exigent circumstances exception. Given the information available to the officers, it was objectively reasonable for them to believe at the time they entered the home that the occupant was in need of immediate assistance. See id. at 731(quoting United States v. Arch, 7 F.3d 1300, 1304 (7th Cir. 1993)). The fact that the officers who arrived on the plaintiff’s doorstep had not personally observed any suicidal behavior was not dispositive. They were reasonably relying on information provided to them by the desk sergeant, who had conveyed to them that the 32 No. 12-2272 plaintiff had called the police station, that she sounded both intoxicated and suicidal, and had abruptly hung up as officers approached her home. This case fits snugly within our precedents holding that police officers and other emergency personnel must be “able to assist persons in danger or other- wise in need of assistance.” Richardson, 208 F.3d at 630. “[W]hen police are acting in a swiftly developing situation … a court must not indulge in unrealistic second-guessing.” Leaf v. Shelnutt, 400 F.3d 1070, 1092 (7th Cir. 2005) (internal quotation marks omitted). We apply that maxim again today. 707 F.3d at 732. Fitzgerald, we believe, guides us to a particular result in this case; but before we turn back to the particular facts before us, several points deserve making as to the three doctrines we have just discussed. All three doctrines, to the extent they authorize the police to make a warrantless entry into a dwelling in order to render aid to a member of the public—sometimes described as an “assistance search,” see Dimino, supra n.5, 66 WASH. & LEE L. REV. at 1488—are speaking to the community caretaking function of police officers, see id. at 1494. There are, nonetheless, important differences in both the doctrines and how courts apply them that present challenges in deciding which of them governs a particular set of facts. Exigency, for example, is defined by a time-urgent need to act that makes resort to the warrant process impractical. See id. at 1508; see also, e.g., Tyler, 439 U.S. at 509, 98 S. Ct. at 1949; No. 12-2272 33 United States v. Foxworth, 8 F.3d 540, 544-45 (7th Cir. 1993). If, on the other hand, there is time for the police to seek a warrant, then one must be sought: see, for example, our decision in Patino, 830 F.2d at 1416-17, which the district court discussed. 870 F. Supp. 2d at 638; see also, e.g., United States v. Talkington, 843 F.2d 1041, 1046 (7th Cir. 1988) (remanding for determination of whether agents had time to procure warrant). But the focus on the standard warrant process presumes that there is reason to believe that something criminal is afoot. Exigency cases thus typically speak either of there being probable cause to believe a crime is being or has been committed or of the need to act in order to fulfill the probable cause requirement, as by preventing a suspect from fleeing or preserving evidence that might otherwise be destroyed. See Marinos, 22 GEO. MASON U. CIVIL RTS. L. J. at 262; Debra Livingston, Police, Community Caretaking, and the Fourth Amendment, 1998 U. CHI. LEGAL FORUM 261, 274-77 (1998); Brigham City, 547 U.S. at 402, 126 S. Ct. at 1946 (discussing and quoting from decision of court below, Brigham City v. Stuart, 122 P.3d 506, 5014 (Utah 2005)); Sheehan v. City & Cnty. of San Francisco, 743 F.3d 1211, 1221 (9th Cir. 2014); Hogan v. Cunningham, 722 F.3d 725, 731-32 (5th Cir. 2013); Feliciano v. City of Miami Beach, 707 F.3d 1244, 1251 (11th Cir. 2013); Storey v. Taylor, 696 F.3d 987, 992 (10th Cir. 2012); United States v. Watson, 489 F. App’x 922, 925 (6th Cir. 2012) (unpublished); Cisneros v. Gutierrez, 598 F.3d 997, 1004 (8th Cir. 2010); United States v. Coles, 437 F.3d 361, 365-66 (3d Cir. 2006); United States v. Cephas, 254 F.3d 488, 494-95 (4th Cir. 2001); United States v. Tibolt, 72 F.3d 965, 969 (1st Cir. 1995); United States v. Dawkins, 17 F.3d 399, 403 (D.C. Cir. 1994). In this respect, the exigent circumstances doctrine, as it has 34 No. 12-2272 traditionally been understood, is ill-suited to assistance searches like the one in this case, where there was no reason to suspect anyone of committing a crime. See Dimino, 66 WASH. & LEE L. REV. at 1512 (“All community-caretaking cases are incompatible with Fourth Amendment requirements of warrants and probable cause.”); see also id. at 1494, 1508-09, 1512-13; Livingston, 1998 U. CHI. LEGAL FORUM at 277 (“For community caretaking intrusions, … the exigency concept is considerably less straightforward.”); Sheik-Abdi, 37 F.3d at 1244 (citing Moss, 963 F.2d at 678) (noting that whether warrantless entry effectuated for law enforcement purpose or service/protective purpose may distinguish exigent circumstances doctrine from emergency aid doctrine). The emergency aid doctrine logically is a better fit in this regard, its defining characteristic being urgency, see Dimino, 66 WASH. & LEE L. REV. at 1505-06, and there being no logical need to additionally consider probable cause and the availability of a standard criminal warrant. See Decker, 89 J. CRIM. L. & CRIMINALITY at 439, 455; Livingston, 1998 U. CHI. LEGAL FORUM at 277. And that appears to be true notwithstanding the Supreme Court’s decision in Brigham City to place the emergency aid doctrine within the exigent circumstances framework. See United States v. Gordon, 741 F.3d 64, 70 (10th Cir. 2014) (“Officers do not need probable cause if they face exigent circumstances in an emergency.”) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted); United States v. Timmann, 741 F.3d 1170, 1178 & n.4 (11th Cir. 2013); Hunsberger v. Wood, supra, 570 F.3d at 555; United States v. Huffman, 461 F.3d 777, 783 (6th Cir. 2006); United States v. Stafford, supra n.6, 416 F.3d at 1075. But, as we discuss below, the real difficulty with applying the No. 12-2272 35 emergency aid doctrine to a case like this one may be the passage of a substantial amount of time between the point at which the police are on notice that someone requires their aid and the point at which they make a warrantless entry into that person’s home. The doctrine may not require that action be taken immediately in order for it to be characterized as “emergency” aid, see Dimino, 66 WASH. & LEE L. REV. at 1507 (delays may be tolerable if they are explained) (citing Decker, 89 J. CRIM. L. & CRIMINOLOGY at 508), but at some point, the passage of time will undermine the notion that emergency aid was required, id. at 1506-07. The community caretaking doctrine has a more expansive temporal reach, in that its primary focus is on the purpose of police action rather than on its urgency. See Livingston, 1998 U. CHI. LEGAL FORUM at 277 (“the relevance of time as a limiting principle in the exigency equation seems less apparent in these community caretaking intrusions—since police could not have obtained a traditional warrant in any event”); see also Marinos, 22 GEO. MASON U. CIVIL RTS. L. J. at 280; Dimino, 66 WASH. & LEE L. REV. at 1506. Moreover, as we have already mentioned and as we shall discuss further, because this doctrine presumes that the police are not acting for any law enforcement purpose, whether or not there is time to seek a traditional criminal warrant is immaterial (although, as we also discuss, a different type of warrant could be envisioned). As a matter of doctrine, then, the community caretaking doctrine would potentially be the best fit for this case, in that it captures the beneficent purpose for which police entered Sutterfield’s home and leaves more room for the delay that preceded it than the emergency aid doctrine otherwise might. 36 No. 12-2272 And because there is no suggestion that police had any law enforcement motive in entering the home, there would be a ready basis on which to distinguish criminal cases like Patino, which demand a search warrant when there is, in fact, time in which to seek one. Yet, our decision in Pichany obviously forecloses reliance on the community caretaking doctrine here. Although the defendants invoked the community caretaking doctrine below, they have not pursued it on appeal, let alone asked us to reconsider Pichany. And the division among the federal circuits as to the appropriate scope of the community caretaking doctrine makes clear that there is no obvious answer as to whether it is appropriate to extend that doctrine beyond the automobile setting that the Supreme Court dealt with in Cady. The defendants have chosen instead to rely on the exigent circumstances exception to the warrant requirement and, in particular, the emergency aid exception that Brigham City places within the exigency framework, as the justification for their entry into their home. And ultimately, given the Court’s decision in Brigham City and our own decision in Fitzgerald, we believe they are right on that score. As in Fitzgerald, the officers in this case had objectively reasonable grounds on which to believe that Sutterfield might harm herself. The police had been advised by Sutterfield’s physician that she had threatened to take her own life. Based on that report, they had completed a statement of emergency detention that authorized officers to take Suttefield into custody for a mental health evaluation. When officers arrived at Sutterfield’s home that evening and tried to talk to her, she No. 12-2272 37 would not allow them into her home. Sutterfield contends that she was not acting “erratically,” as the district court put it, but simply wished to be left alone. Perhaps so. But the relevant point, for our purposes, is that nothing transpired at the front door of her home that might have put the police on notice that the emergency that had been reported by Sutterfield’s physician, and which was the basis for the section 51.15 statement of emergency detention, had dissipated. It was objectively reasonable for police on the scene to believe that the danger to Sutterfield’s well-being was ongoing and that, in the absence of Sutterfield’s cooperation, they needed to enter the home forcibly, as they did. To say, as Sutterfield does, that given the passage of time and her own assurances to the officers that she was fine, that there was no longer any emergency, and that the officers should have heeded her demands that they leave, is to engage in the very sort of second-guessing that we eschewed in Fitzgerald. How were the officers to know that Sutterfield was competent to assess the state of her own mental health or that, regardless of what she herself said, there was no longer any risk that she might harm herself? Only a medical professional could make that judgment, and the officers had prepared and were executing a section 51.15 statement for the very purpose of having her evaluated by such a professional. There are, as we have acknowledged, outstanding questions about the extent to which the exigent circumstances exception to the warrant requirement, and the emergency aid subset of exigency precedent, apply to a situation like this one. The district court itself had doubts about whether the warrantless entry into Sutterfield’s home could be justified on the basis 38 No. 12-2272 of exigency; and the overlapping and uncertain boundaries of the three doctrines we have been discussing certainly leave room for Sutterfield’s contention that neither the exigent circumstances doctrine nor any other justifies the entry into her home given the facts presented. Clearly, one concern is the nine hours that passed between the initial report from Sutterfield’s physician and the entry into Sutterfield’s home. Again, the exigency doctrine generally, and the emergency aid doctrine in particular, presume that there is an emergency that requires expeditious, if not immediate, action on the part of the police. See Fitzgerald, 707 F.3d at 731 (quoting Arch, 7 F.3d at 1304); cf. Hunsberger v. Wood, 570 F.3d at 554 (whereas “[t]he community caretaking doctrine requires a court to look at the function performed by a police officer, … the emergency exception requires an analysis of the circumstances to determine whether an emergency requiring immediate action existed”) (emphasis in original). Sutterfield suggests that, by the time police chose to force open her storm door, the facts known to the officers dispelled any notion that there was an urgent need for them to enter her home: she had told her physician to call off the police, many hours had passed since the doctor’s initial communication with the police, and when the police arrived on her doorstep they could see that she was alive, coherent, and did not want their assistance. We should note that on the current record, we see no indication that the police acted in anything but a conscientious and expeditious manner; they simply had trouble locating Sutterfield. Still, it is a reasonable and important question how long the police may claim that a putative emergency justifies warrantless action. Section 51.15 itself specifies no limit on the time that police No. 12-2272 39 have to execute a statement of emergency detention. At oral argument, the defendants’ attorney suggested that 24 hours might in practice be the outer limit in a case such as this one. But although we agree with Sutterfield that emergencies do not last forever, it would be folly for us to try to declare ex ante some arbitrary cut-off that would apply to all emergency aid cases. Even in this case, it is not at all clear to us, nor would it have been to the police, that the mere passage of time without apparent incident was sufficient to alleviate any concern that Sutterfield might yet harm herself. Cf. United States v. Salava, supra, 978 F.2d at 324-25 (period of 90 minutes that police took to identify lessee of mobile home and to take various precautionary measures before entering home to check for presence of murder victim did not vitiate emergency). And the parties have given us no information about how long a threat of suicide could be thought to impose an imminent danger of harm to the person who made it; certainly nothing in this record suggests that such a threat necessarily diminishes with the passage of a few hours or with the suicidal individual’s assurances that she is fine. A related concern involves the opportunity to seek a warrant. As we have said, the exigent circumstances exception traditionally has been understood to excuse the lack of a warrant when, although a warrant is available, the need for immediate action deprives law enforcement of adequate time to seek one. E.g., Michigan v. Tyler, supra, 436 U.S. at 509, 98 S. Ct. at 1949-50; United States v. Schmidt, 700 F.3d 934, 937 (7th Cir. 2012); Livingston, 1998 U. CHI. LEGAL FORUM at 274-77. Proceeding from the premise that a warrant theoretically was available to the police officers involved in this case, Sutterfield 40 No. 12-2272 has argued that there was ample time for them to seek a warrant. The district court, having our decision in Patino in mind, saw some merit in that argument. Pointing out that even if one confines the analysis to the roughly 30-minute period between the initial arrival of police at Sutterfield’s doorstep and the entry into her home, the district court noted that Patino had deemed that amount of time sufficient for the police to try and obtain a warrant. 870 F. Supp. 2d at 638 (citing Patino, 830 F.2d at 1415-16). Moreover, as Sutterfield suggests, it might not be appropriate for us to confine our consideration to that 30minute period. After all, it took nine hours to track Sutterfield down after her physician first raised the alarm. There was more than sufficient time during that longer period to consult a judge. And even if we view the completion of the section 51.15 statement as the event that started the clock running, there still were between four and five hours in which to seek a warrant. Assuming that there was some type of warrant available to the police in this situation, there was, as the district court pointed out, ample time in which to seek one. But a more fundamental question raised by this case is the relevance of the warrant requirement. Certainly it is logical to consider the availability of a warrant when the police have reason to suspect that criminal activity may be afoot, but what about cases in which the police are not acting in a law enforcement capacity? Some emergency aid cases repeat the customary language about the lack of time to seek a warrant, e.g., Fitzgerald, 707 F.3d at 730, but one wonders whether, in the emergency aid context, it is more accurate to say that a warrant is unavailable, period. See Livingston, 1998 U. CHI. LEGAL FORUM at 277, 281. The typical warrant, after all, requires No. 12-2272 41 probable cause to believe that someone is engaged in criminal mischief and/or that evidence of a crime will be found in a particular place, see Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 20, 88 S. Ct. 1868, 1879 (1968); Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 479, 83 S. Ct. 407, 413 (1963); Brinegar v. United States, 338 U.S. 160, 17576, 69 S. Ct. 1302, 1310-11 (1949), and given that the point of the exigent circumstances doctrine is to excuse the lack of a warrant, it comes as no surprise that our exigency cases (and those of other courts, see supra at 36) frequently reference probable cause, e.g., United States v. Venters, 539 F.3d 801, 80607 (7th Cir. 2008); Leaf v. Shelnutt, 400 F.3d 1070, 1081-82 & n.10 (7th Cir. 2005); United States v. Rivera, 248 F.3d 677, 680-81 (7th Cir. 2001); Cannaday v. Sandoval, 458 F. App’x 563, 567 (7th Cir. 2012) (per curiam) (nonprecedential decision). But in emergency aid cases, where the police are acting to protect someone from imminent harm, there frequently is no suspicion of wrongdoing at the moment that the police take action. Even in a case like Brigham City, for example, where there actually were signs of criminal activity (juveniles drinking beer in the backyard, and people fighting inside of the house), and the occupants of the house ultimately were arrested and charged with criminal offenses, the relevant point vis-à-vis the warrantless entry was that immediate action was required in order to protect someone from harm. Brigham City thus articulated the justification for the entry not in terms of reason to believe that any crime was taking place, or that evidence was about to be destroyed, but rather as reason to believe that an occupant of the home needed their assistance. 547 U.S. at 403, 406, 126 S. Ct. at 1947, 1949. It may be, then, that probable cause in the emergency aid context is not reason to believe a crime is 42 No. 12-2272 occurring or has been committed, but reason to believe that someone is in need of aid and there is a compelling need to act. See Hanson v. Dane Cnty., Wis., supra, 608 F.3d at 338 (“probable cause just means a good reason to act”); United States v. Jenkins, 329 F.3d 579, 581-82 (7th Cir. 2003) (reason to believe that occupant of home, who did not respond to 911 call-back, was ill, injured, or under threat of violence); see also United States v. Timmann, supra, 741 F.3d at 1178 n.4; United States v. Wolfe, 452 F. App’x 180, 183 (3d Cir. 2011) (nonprecedential decision); United States v. Martins, 413 F.3d 139, 147 (1st Cir. 2005); Livingston, 1998 U. CHI. LEGAL FORUM at 275. This framing of the inquiry suggests that whether there was time to seek a warrant loses its relevance in the emergency aid subset of exigency cases. The passage of time may remain relevant as a measure of whether there was a true emergency justifying the intrusion into someone’s home, but not in terms of whether a warrant could have been sought. Reinforcing that point in this case is the unanswered question as to what type of warrant would have been available to the police, given that Sutterfield was not suspected of any crime.7 We posed that question at oral argument and neither 7 We set aside the possibility, not discussed by the parties, that attempted suicide might constitute a crime and that the police would have had reason to take warrantless action in order to prevent Sutterfield from committing that crime. Consistent with most states, Wisconsin prohibits assisting another person to take her own life, see Wis. Stat. § 940.12, but does not appear to make attempted suicide itself a crime. See generally 2 Wayne R. LaFave, SUBSTANTIVE CRIM. L. § 15.6 (aiding and attempting suicide) (2d ed. updated through October 2013) (“In some states attempted suicide, which (continued...) No. 12-2272 43 counsel could identify such an alternative. Sutterfield’s counsel suggested that perhaps the police could have sought a writ of capias8 or bench warrant authorizing Sutterfield’s detention, but the legal basis for such a course of action in Wisconsin remains unclear. Sutterfield’s counsel may be correct in arguing that the lack of an available warrant procedure does not foreclose her Fourth Amendment challenge to the warrantless entry; the judiciary could, in theory, require the creation of an appropriate procedure. That is essentially what the Supreme Court did in Camara v. Muni. Ct. of City & Cnty. of San Francisco, 387 U.S. 523, 87 S. Ct. 1727 (1967). In Camara, the Court dealt with an inspection scheme pursuant to which city housing inspectors had the right to enter any building at a reasonable time simply upon presentation of their credentials. The plaintiff had been charged with a misdemeanor offense after he had repeatedly refused to allow an inspection of his apartment pursuant to this scheme. He contended that such a warrantless inspection violated his rights under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. The Supreme Court agreed. In the absence of the resident’s consent, the Court held, authorities 7 (...continued) was a common law misdemeanor, was at one time a crime, but the prevailing view has long been otherwise.”) (footnotes omitted); see also State v. Genova, 252 N.W.2d 380, 383 (Wis. 1977) (“Common law crimes were abolished in Wisconsin in the 1955 Criminal Code.”) (citing Wis. Stat. § 939.10). 8 A writ of capias is essentially a writ commanding an officer to take a named individual into custody, typically when he has failed to appear or failed to comply with a judgment. See BLACK’S LAW DICTIONARY 236 (9th ed. 2009). 44 No. 12-2272 were required to obtain an administrative warrant for an inspection supported by probable cause to believe that the building for which the warrant is sought qualifies for inspection pursuant to reasonable legislative or administrative standards (based on such factors as the type of building, the condition of the surrounding area, and the passage of time) for conducting an inspection. Id. at 538, 87 S. Ct. at 1735-36. Camara at least takes us out of the crime-detecting context, but obviously it is not a close fit with this case, which does not involve anything like a uniform inspection scheme. What Sutterfield would envision, presumably, is something more like a standard criminal warrant-application process in the sense that it is individualized, but pursuant to which a neutral decisionmaker determines whether there is reason to believe that the occupant of a dwelling is in danger such that entry into (and search of) the dwelling is necessary to address that danger. At least one writer has argued in favor of a community-caretaking warrant as a means of guarding against unnecessary intrusions into the sanctity of the home and against police abuses. Marinos, Comment, 22 GEO. MASON U. CIVIL RTS. L. J. at 284-89; see also Dimino, 66 WASH. & LEE L. REV. at 1520-21. But the parties have cited no existing process by which such a warrant could be obtained, whether in Wisconsin or any other jurisdiction. And we have found no Wisconsin case citing section 51.15 which identifies an alternative procedure that was available to the police in the situation confronting them. To be clear then, what Sutterfield is arguing for is the creation of a particular type of warrant that does not currently exist. In making that argument, however, she does not discuss No. 12-2272 45 who would issue a community caretaking warrant, what the criteria for issuance of such a warrant would be, what type of evidence would be required to meet those criteria (in a case like this one, for example, would the statement of a physician or other qualified mental health professional be necessary?), or how such a warrant might interact with an emergency commitment scheme like that established by section 51.15. Much like Sutterfield’s cursory contention that section 51.15 is unconstitutional, her suggestion that a warrant is required in a situation like this one amounts to no more than a premise that is stated without any elaboration or substance. We would also point out that the advisability of, and precedential support for, a warrant requirement for assistance searches are open to debate. Compare Marinos, 22 GEO. MASON U. CIVIL RTS. L. J. at 285, 288 (“By requiring a community caretaking warrant, a neutral third party would determine [in advance] whether the circumstances rise to the level that requires entry into a home by balancing the need to search against the resident’s Fourth Amendment rights. … Relying solely on an ex post reasonableness determination has contributed to a muddling of the exigent circumstances exception and [the community caretaking doctrine] in various courts that have extended the [community caretaking doctrine] to the home.”), with Dimino, 66 WASH. & LEE L. REV. at 1521 (“Requiring administrative warrants for nonemergency community-caretaking searches as a matter of Fourth Amendment doctrine carries substantial disadvantages … . [It] would be a substantial shift from the Supreme Court’s practice in the community-caretaking area, which has shown no inclination whatever to require any kind of warrant, and it would be contrary to the trend of the Court’s other Fourth Amendment 46 No. 12-2272 cases, which have tended of late to stress the Reasonableness Clause much more than the Warrant Clause. … Additionally, community-caretaking situations arise on the spur of the moment, and it is difficult to imagine officers being able to expend the time necessary to obtain a warrant while their crime-detection and crime-prevention duties go neglected.”). A decision akin to Camara requiring such a warrant, whatever its merits might be, would require a much more developed argument than this. Returning to first principles: What the Fourth Amendment requires in all cases is reasonableness, Kentucky v. King, supra, 131 S. Ct. at 1856; Brigham City, 547 U.S. at 403, 126 S. Ct. at 1947, and without knowing what, if any, alternative process was available to the police, we are not prepared to say that the warrantless entry into Sutterfield’s home was unlawful under the circumstances presented to them. The police acted out of legitimate concern for Sutterfield’s safety and well-being (in other words, there is no hint that they were using the emergency as a pretext to look for evidence of a crime), they acted consistently with section 51.15, and the circumstances generally meet the criteria for a warrantless entry articulated in Brigham City and applied in Fitzgerald, in that it was objectively reasonable for the officers to believe that their intervention was required in order to prevent Sutterfield from harming herself, notwithstanding her own protestations to the contrary. Her own physician, a psychiatrist, had expressed concern for Sutterfield’s well-being and declared a need for intervention on her behalf, and despite the passage of time between the physician’s initial telephone call to the police and the forced entry into Sutterfield’s home, the record contains no evidence, No. 12-2272 47 other than Sutterfield’s own protestations at the time, that the crisis had passed and that she no longer presented a threat to herself. We are not in any position, in fact, to second-guess the police, who were following the procedure prescribed by Wisconsin law (the constitutionality of which has not been preserved as an issue in this appeal). The forced entry into Sutterfield’s home was reasonable under the circumstances.