Opinion ID: 901816
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Application of Exceptions

Text: [¶ 42.] Applying the three exceptions dealing with aiding persons in need of assistance to this case, we must decide whether the State met its burden of establishing, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the warrantless entry satisfied the emergency doctrine, the emergency aid doctrine, or the community caretaker doctrine. Concededly, this is a close question. On the one hand, there were few facts to lead the officers to believe that someone was inside defendant's homeno shouts from inside, no claims from neighbors that children, family, or roommates might be inside, and no observations of the officers of someone inside. If the warrant requirement is to retain its viability, a merely officious concern that someone might conceivably need assistance to avert some undefined peril should not justify police intrusion into a private dwelling. On the other hand, there are times when lives may be in jeopardy if officers hesitate to act in potentially hazardous situations, and the key question here is whether there were sufficient reasons to act. Or, as one court alternatively phrased it, the question is whether the officers would have been derelict in their duty had they acted otherwise. See State v. Hetzko, 283 So.2d 49, 52 (Fla.Ct.App.1973). And [i]t must be emphasized that the fact that, as it turned out, no one was injured is of no moment. State v. Hedley, 593 A.2d 576, 582 (Del.Super.Ct.1990). [¶ 43.] We find helpful the decision in United States v. Cervantes, 219 F.3d 882 (9th Cir.2000), overruled on other grounds by the United States Supreme Court's decision in Brigham City, 547 U.S. 398, 126 S.Ct. 1943. There, a police officer was called to an apartment building to investigate a complaint by neighbors of a strong chemical odor. On arrival, the officer recognized the odor as coming from a chemical which, the officer knew, was sometimes used in the making of methamphetamine. Determining that the odor originated from a certain apartment, the officer looked through the window and saw three men inside a room with very little furniture. Knowing the risk of explosion, the officer pounded on the door and eventually caused the defendant to open the apartment door, at which point the chemical odor became much stronger. The officer entered the apartment and the three men fled. After the defendant was apprehended, the officer notified the apartment manager and assisted him in evacuating the other residents and turning off open flames. Then he entered the apartment and found a drug lab. Cervantes, 219 F.3d at 890-91. [¶ 44.] The Ninth Circuit in Cervantes held that the search could be justified under the emergency doctrine, by which police are permitted to respond to emergencies as part of their community caretaking functions. Id. at 889. The analysis used in Cervantes, was later modified per Brigham City, to generate a two-prong test that asks whether (1) considering the totality of the circumstances, law enforcement officers had an objectively reasonable basis for concluding that there was an immediate need to protect others or themselves from serious harm; and (2) the scope and manner of the search were reasonable to meet the need. Id. at 889. See United States v. Snipe, 515 F.3d 947, 953 (9th Cir.2008). [¶ 45.] Although we cannot definitively proclaim that the situation here matched the type of emergency in Cervantes and for that reason the emergency doctrine and the emergency aid doctrine should not apply herethe odor of a noxious gas nonetheless merits further inquiry if police are to fulfill their roles as community caretakers. That leads us to another instructive opinion. In Ray, a plurality of the California Supreme Court ruled that the Fourth Amendment does not require a warrant or exigency to allow the admission of evidence discovered by police officers engaged in a community caretaking function. 88 Cal.Rptr.2d 1, 981 P.2d at 935. In that case, officers received a call reporting that the door at a certain address had been open all day and that the place was in shambles. They went to the residence and repeatedly knocked and announced their presence. No one answered. Concerned that someone inside might be injured, disabled, or unable to obtain help, the police entered the residence, conducted a seven-to eight-minute security check in which no interior doors or containers were opened, and observed in plain view drugs and money. Based on these observations they obtained a search warrant and seized evidence that led to defendant's prosecution for possessing controlled substances. Defendant, who owned the residence, moved to suppress. [¶ 46.] In examining the exceptions to the warrant requirement, the plurality in Ray ruled that because there were no facts to lead a reasonable officer to believe that immediate entry was necessary to aid life or limb, the entry was not justified under the emergency aid doctrine. Id. at 934. Nonetheless, the entry was permissible under the community caretaker exception, as the officers were justifiably concerned that an injured person was inside the residence, rendering lawful the sighting of contraband in plain view. Id. at 938-39. Under the community caretaker exception, circumstances short of a perceived emergency may justify a warrantless entry to preserve life or protect property. Id. at 934. The appropriate standard is one of reasonableness: Given the known facts, would a prudent and reasonable officer have perceived a need to act in the proper discharge of his or her community caretaking functions? Id. at 937. The Ray court balanced the considerations regarding an officer's investigatory and non-investigatory capacities: in responding to a possible burglary, the function was, of course, investigatory. With respect to the presumably innocent victims of possible crimes, where persons or property may be in danger, the police intervention was non-investigatory. Id. at 937 n. 4. [¶ 47.] Here, the circuit court found that the officers' initial entry into defendant's home was justified, not as part of a criminal investigation, but in pursuance of their community caretaking function. [13] The court's findings of fact are supported by the record. Neighbors had complained about strange gas odors on the block. The gas company had been called twice, and a company employee went to the area looking for a gas leak. The employee detected the presence of a stronger chemical odor in the vicinity of defendant's home. The police were summoned when it was discovered that the gas meter had been illegally switched at the defendant's house. The company employee told the officers of his discovery and of seeing two people leave the house. Both officers also smelled chemical fumes, which they identified as ammonia. One officer knocked on the front door of the house, but received no answer. In the meantime, the other officer walked around defendant's home and noticed a freezer with tubing extended from it. This appeared odd to the officer, so he opened the freezer, whereupon he saw another container inside. He also discovered that the back door was unlocked. Finding nothing else remarkable, he joined his fellow officer at the front of the house. A neighbor arrived at the scene and told one officer that defendant had been caught at Kmart buying Sudafed and was also seen bringing a propane tank into the house. The neighbor said that there had been strange gas odors in the neighborhood and the gas company had been called before. [¶ 48.] Shortly after gathering all this information, the officers knocked on defendant's front door again. They testified that when they were standing in front of the house they could smell the odor of ammonia. [14] They decided to check to make sure nobody was incapacitated inside. The gas company employee did not know if there was anyone still in the home. Based on the officers' detection of ammonia, a gas the officers knew from their personal experience was toxic, the citizen complaints about strange gas fumes in the area, the fact that the house was wide open [and] unsecured, with the back door left unlocked and the front door left open, and only the storm door shut but unlocked, the officers decided to enter defendant's home. [¶ 49.] These circumstances presented a crucial moment of judgment for the officers. Should they act to ensure no lives are in danger? As many courts have acknowledged, police officers are not only permitted, but expected, to exercise what the Supreme Court has termed `community caretaking functions.' Winters v. Adams, 254 F.3d 758, 763 (8th Cir.2001) (quoting United States v. King, 990 F.2d 1552, 1560 (10th Cir.1993)). Professor LaFave observed, [d]oubtless there are an infinite variety of situations in which entry for the purpose of rendering aid is reasonable. 3 Wayne R. LaFave, A Treatise on the Fourth Amendment, 3 Search & Seizure § 6.6, p. 396-400 (3d. ed. 1996). Modern society has come to see the role of police officers as more than basic functionaries enforcing the law. From first responders to the sick and injured, to interveners in domestic disputes, and myriad instances too numerous to list, police officers fulfill a vital role where no other government official can. Lives often depend upon their quick exercise of pragmatic wisdom. Constitutional guarantees of privacy and sanctions against their transgression do not exist in a vacuum but must yield to paramount concerns for human life and the legitimate need of society to protect and preserve life. Mitchell, 383 N.Y.S.2d 246, 347 N.E.2d at 611. [¶ 50.] Indeed, these officers may have been justly criticized later had they failed to check for people inside and had an injured or dead person later been discovered. As Justice (then Judge) Warren Burger once wrote, People could well die in emergencies if police tried to act with the calm deliberation associated with the judicial process. Wayne v. United States, 318 F.2d 205, 212 (D.C.Cir.1963). Although we cannot term the circumstances here an indisputable emergency, given the known facts, prudent and reasonable police officers would have reasonably perceived a need to act in the proper discharge of their community caretaking functions. The touchstone of [] analysis under the Fourth Amendment is always `the reasonableness in all the circumstances of the particular governmental invasion of a citizen's personal security.' Terry, 392 U.S. at 19, 88 S.Ct. at 1878-79, 20 L.Ed.2d 889; Florida v. Jimeno, 500 U.S. 248, 250, 111 S.Ct. 1801, 1803, 114 L.Ed.2d 297 (1991). We think it was objectively reasonable under the particular circumstances of this case for the officers to be concerned about the possible dangers of ammonia fumes sufficient to permit them to enter the residence solely to check to make sure nobody was incapacitated inside. [¶ 51.] It is noteworthy, though not necessarily persuasive, that police entries into residences for non-investigatory purposes have been upheld in arguably less serious circumstances. Under the community caretaker exception, courts have upheld police entry into apartments without a warrant after receiving complaints that water was leaking into the apartments below. See United States v. Boyd, 407 F.Supp. 693, 694 (S.D.N.Y.1976); State v. Dube, 655 A.2d 338, 339 (Me.1995). In Rohrig, police responded to early morning complaints about excessive noise at the defendant's home. 98 F.3d at 1519. As the police approached, they could hear loud music from a block away. After arriving at the house, the officers banged on the front door and tapped on the windows to no avail. Unable to rouse anyone inside after repeated pounding on doors and shouting to get someone's attention, two officers opened an unlocked screen door and went in. They found the stereo and turned down the volume. In the same room, they found Rohrig asleep. While in the home the officers also came upon wall-to-wall marijuana plants. [¶ 52.] Although characterizing the facts as fitting within the exigent circumstances exception, the Sixth Circuit reasoned that [h]aving found that an important `community caretaking' interest [abating a nuisance] motivated the officers' entry in this case, it concluded that their failure to obtain a warrant does not render that entry unlawful. Id. at 1523. The court noted that the officers were not acting predominantly to enforce the law. Rather, they were acting for the purpose of abating a nuisance and restoring the neighbors' peaceful enjoyment of their homes and neighborhood. Id. at 1521. Using a reasonableness standard, the court determined that the Fourth Amendment's concerns in a criminal context are not implicated when police officers act to perform their community caretaking functions. [15] [¶ 53.] Rohrig himself, the court ruled, compromised his expectation of privacy by projecting loud noises into the neighborhood in the wee hours of the morning and then failing to respond to the officers. Id. at 1521-22. The officers in Rohrig faced a common community caretaking function: resolving a neighborhood dispute. [16] In our case, there had been complaints of strange gas odors in the neighborhood. When the gas company responded, it was determined that the gas meter at defendant's home had been tampered with. Although the officers arrived initially in response to a possible theft, as the circuit court later found, the matter evolved into a legitimate community caretaking function that predominated over any criminal investigation: concern that someone inside the home may be in jeopardy from ammonia fumes. The probable source of the fumes was defendant's house, where both the officers and the gas company employee smelled ammonia fumes. [¶ 54.] In pursuing their community caretaking purpose, the officers' initial intrusion was minimal. They cracked open the unlocked storm door to call inside, only then to discover that the smell of ammonia fumes became much stronger, thus warranting further inquiry. In the totality of circumstances, under the standard of objective reasonableness, we conclude that the circuit court did not err in ruling that the responding officers acted justifiably for the welfare of possible persons inside the residence. The officers adequately articulated their concerns, and their search in the house, lasting a matter of minutes, was limited to looking for people inside. [17] Therefore, under these particular facts, we conclude that the circuit court's ruling should stand: the community caretaker exception applies to the warrantless entry into this home. [18]