Opinion ID: 3064918
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Exigency Exception

Text: [9] The officers’ alternative argument is that, although they claim to have entered Hopkins’ house in response to a medical emergency, a reasonable officer would have been justified in entering the building in order to investigate a crime under the “exigent circumstances” exception. “[W]hen the government relies on the exigent circumstances exception, it . . . must satisfy two requirements: first, the government must prove that the officer had probable cause to search the house; and second, the government must prove that exigent circumstances justified the warrantless intrusion.” United States v. Johnson, 256 F.3d 895, 905 (9th Cir. 2001) (en banc). “Exigent circumstances” can include “the destruction of relevant evidence.” United States v. McConney, 728 F.2d 1195, 1199 (9th Cir. 1984) (en banc). Here, the officers claim that their entry was justified because a reasonable officer would have had probable cause to believe Hopkins had been driving under the influence of alcohol in violation of CAL. VEH. CODE § 23152, and that an immediate entry was necessary in order 9042 HOPKINS v. BONVICINO to obtain evidence of his blood alcohol content before the alcohol in his bloodstream metabolized. We address the probable cause and exigent circumstances requirements in turn.
[10] As the officers concede, the only crime for which they can claim to have had probable cause to enter Hopkins’ residence is driving under the influence of alcohol, a violation of CAL. VEH. CODE § 23152.8 “Officers have probable cause for a search when ‘the known facts and circumstances are sufficient to warrant a man of reasonable prudence in the belief that contraband or evidence of a crime will be found.’ ” United States v. Henderson, 241 F.3d 638, 648 (9th Cir. 2000) (quoting Ornelas v. United States, 517 U.S. 690, 696 (1996)). [11] This court has held that “[i]n establishing probable cause, officers may not solely rely on the claim of a citizen witness that [s]he was a victim of a crime, but must independently investigate the basis of the witness’ knowledge or interview other witnesses.” Arpin v. Santa Clara Valley Transp. Agency, 261 F.3d 912, 925 (9th Cir. 2001) (citing Fuller v. M.G. Jewelry, 950 F.2d 1437, 1444 (9th Cir. 1991) (“[P]olice officers ha[ve] a duty to conduct an investigation into the basis of [a] witness’ report”)). In violation of the rule set forth in Arpin and Fuller, the officers here entered Hopkins’ home based solely on the information they obtained 8 The officers expressly waived below any argument that investigation of a potential hit-and-run could have justified their warrantless entry. They also acknowledge in their briefs on appeal that Talib’s citizen’s arrest, discussed infra Part IV.B, “is not a basis for [their] warrantless entry into the residence.” And so they must, as their own police reports indicate that Talib did not authorize a citizen’s arrest until after the officers entered Hopkins’ home. Even if a stand-alone citizen’s arrest could justify a warrantless home entry — a dubious proposition, see infra Part IV.B — the sequence of events here does not support such a justification. HOPKINS v. BONVICINO 9043 from Talib — namely, that she had been involved in an extremely minor car accident with Hopkins, that she smelled alcohol on his breath, and that he appeared intoxicated. The officers did not inspect Hopkins’ car to see if the hood was still warm, cf. People v. Thompson, 135 P.3d 3, 5-8 (Cal. 2006), which would have corroborated Talib’s statement that the car had recently been driven, nor did they inspect the vehicle for any evidence of reckless driving or of alcohol consumption, such as open containers or an alcoholic odor. They did not ask Talib any questions in order to gain information beyond her cursory and conclusory statements, such as whether she observed Hopkins driving erratically or at an abnormal speed. In short, the officers obtained no information whatsoever beyond Talib’s brief statement. Under Arpin and Fuller, these statements from a witness, without further investigation by the police, are insufficient to support probable cause.9
Even if the officers had probable cause that Hopkins had been driving under the influence (and even if that would have been sufficient for entry into his home pursuant to a warrant), more is required to justify a warrantless entry into his house. The Fourth Amendment requires that there be exigent circumstances for a warrantless entry. See, e.g., Johnson, 256 F.3d at 907-09. The defendants contend that a reasonable officer would have been justified in entering Hopkins home in order 9 We need not decide whether even if the officers had obtained independent evidence supporting Talib’s allegations, the “probable cause” this information provided would have been sufficient to justify the issuance of a warrant to search Hopkins’ home for evidence of the minor misdemeanor violation at issue here. Whether a home, or the homeowner in his home, may be searched pursuant to a warrant for evidence of a minor motor vehicle violation involving neither personal injury nor property damage raises a serious question in our minds and would require the balancing of the interests of the homeowner in the right to privacy in his home versus the state’s interest in searching homes for evidence of such minor criminal violations. 9044 HOPKINS v. BONVICINO to obtain evidence of his blood-alcohol ratio, and that the rapid metabolizing of the alcohol in his blood would constitute exigent circumstances. This argument would seem to be directly foreclosed by Welsh v. Wisconsin, a case in which the United States Supreme Court held that “a warrantless home arrest cannot be upheld simply because evidence of the petitioner’s blood-alcohol level might have dissipated while the police obtained a warrant.” 466 U.S. 740, 754 (1984); see also id. at 748 (holding that the same analysis applies to “agents of the government who seek to enter the home for purposes of search or arrest”). Welsh involved an investigation of alleged misdemeanor drunk driving, just as did Hopkins’ case. However, relying on People v. Thompson, 135 P.3d 3 (Cal. 2006), a California Supreme Court decision, the officers argue that Welsh is distinguishable because the Wisconsin DUI law at issue in that case was a “nonjailable” offense, whereas in California DUI is a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in county jail. [12] The appellants are correct that three years after they broke into Hopkins’ home the California Supreme Court sought to distinguish Welsh on the basis of a difference between jailable and nonjailable offenses. See id. at 9 (“We therefore believe Welsh was limited to Wisconsin’s ‘amazing’ decision to classify DUI as a civil nonjailable offense . . . .”). However, this is not the distinction that the United States Supreme Court drew in Welsh, nor is it the distinction that this circuit has repeatedly emphasized in its own exigency-exception decisions. To the contrary, in Welsh the Supreme Court held that the exigency analysis must turn on “the gravity of the underlying offense,” 466 U.S. at 753 (emphasis added), not its status as “jailable” or “nonjailable.” The Court specifically said that a finding of exigent circumstances is particularly inappropriate “when the underlying offense . . . is realtively minor,” id. at 750 (emphasis added), and cited favorably “those courts addressing the issue [that] have refused to permit warrantless home arrests for nonfelonious crimes.” Id. at 752 (emphasis added). The Supreme HOPKINS v. BONVICINO 9045 Court expressly did not limit its holding in Welsh to nonjailable offenses,10 see id. at 753; to the contrary, it suggested that exigent circumstances can rarely, if ever, support entry into a home to investigate or arrest someone for a misdemeanor offense. [13] Building on the felony/misdemeanor distinction discussed in Welsh, this circuit has clearly held that “an exigency related to a misdemeanor will seldom, if ever, justify a warrantless entry into the home.” LaLonde v. County of Riverside, 204 F.3d 947, 956 (9th Cir. 2000) (citing Welsh, 466 U.S. at 752-53). In United States v. Johnson, we analyzed en banc a warrantless search of a home and noted that “in situations where the underlying offense is only a misdemeanor, law enforcement must yield to the Fourth Amendment in all but the ‘rarest’ cases.” 256 F.3d 895, 909 n.6 (9th Cir. 2001) (en banc) (quoting Welsh, 466 U.S. at 753). Because Johnson and LaLonde relied on and directly cited Welsh for the proposition that investigation of a misdemeanor will rarely, if ever, support exigent circumstances, see id. at 908, it is clear that, whatever “rare” circumstances might justify a warrantless home entry to investigate a misdemeanor, misdemeanor driving while under the influence, the very offense at issue in Welsh and cited by Johnson, does not fall within that very narrow exception. Here, the offense that the officers claim supports their warrantless entry is indisputably a misdemeanor, see CAL. VEH. CODE §§ 23152, 23536; CAL. PENAL CODE § 17 (2008) (defining misdemeanor). More important, it is the precise offense that the Supreme Court held insufficient to justify a warrantless entry in Welsh. Accordingly, even were there probable cause that Hopkins had in fact been driving under the influence, a warrantless entry into his home was unjustified. 10 In fact, the offense for which Welsh himself was ultimately charged was a jailable offense under Wisconsin law, although the offending officers did not know this at the time they entered his home. See Welsh, 466 U.S. at 746 n.6. 9046 HOPKINS v. BONVICINO The fact that the California Supreme Court expressed its disagreement with the United States Supreme Court several years after the officers broke into Hopkins’ home and that it took a different view of the Fourth Amendment than this circuit and the United States Supreme Court does not alter our conclusion in this case. It is the federal courts that are the final arbiters of federal constitutional rights, not the state courts. See, e.g., Bennett v. Mueller, 322 F.3d 573, 582 (9th Cir. 2003) (“[S]tate courts will not be the final arbiters of important issues under the federal constitution.” (quoting Minnesota v. Nat’l Tea Co., 309 U.S. 551, 557 (1940))). This court’s precedents make clear that a warrantless home entry to obtain evidence of a misdemeanor offense is “seldom, if ever” constitutional, and that it was certainly unconstitutional here. LaLonde, 204 F.3d at 956. Accordingly, the exigency exception is inapplicable here for two independent reasons — absence of probable cause and absence of exigent circumstances — either of which is sufficient to compel our holding that the officers’ forced entry into Hopkins’ home violated his Fourth Amendment rights.