Opinion ID: 2338449
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Schraff v. State

Text: In Schraff v. State , [33] a trooper conducting a routine bar check noted one of the patrons, Schraff, was inebriated. While securing Schraff's vehicle, the trooper discovered a large quantity of marijuana and contacted narcotics investigators for assistance. When a narcotics investigator requested identification, Schraff allowed his friend to hand Schraff's wallet to the investigator. While briefly looking through the wallet for identification, the investigator discovered a foil packet containing cocaine. Schraff was arrested and later convicted of cocaine possession. Schraff appealed his conviction, challenging the investigator's search. [34] In relevant part the State claimed the wallet search was designed to provide crucial information in the rendition of emergency aid in light of Schraff's stupified condition. [35] The court pointed to Barone for the modern emergency aid doctrine and noted the Stevens court's recognition of the `emergency' exception to the warrant requirement. [36] The court also noted the business of policemen and firemen is to act, not to speculate or meditate on whether [a] report is correct. People could well die in emergencies if police tried to act with the calm deliberation associated with the judicial process. Even the apparently dead often are saved by swift police response. [37] The court reviewed cases from other jurisdictions to evaluate the State's emergency aid claim. These included a Sixth Circuit case upholding a search of a seizing man's luggage, [38] a D.C. Circuit case upholding a search of an unconscious man's person, [39] a California case upholding a search of a man in shock and suffering from knife wounds, [40] an Illinois case upholding a search of a disoriented and incoherent man who did not seem drunk, [41] and a Washington case upholding a search of an unconscious man in his hotel room based on needle track marks on his arms. [42] In each case the reviewing court had upheld the challenged search as within the ambit of the emergency aid doctrine. The court nevertheless rejected the State's claim. The court first noted the narcotics investigator arrived at the scene to engage in a narcotics investigation, not to render emergency aid, and that multiple motivesincluding crime detectionprompted him to search Schraff's wallet. [43] The cited emergency aid cases, in contrast, involved officers [who] claimed that their only motivation was that of rendering aid to an injured person. [44] The court also noted Schraff was not totally unconscious and was accompanied by a somewhat responsive companion, suggesting the officers had a way of getting necessary information about Schraff without searching his wallet. [45] Justice Boochever and Chief Justice Rabinowitz concurred, agreeing that the emergency aid doctrine was inapplicable based on the facts of the case, but contending that if the officers had reasonably believed that it was necessary to gather Schraff's identification for medical purposes, the search ought not be disqualified simply because of an accompanying motive to detect crime. [46] To do so would inhibit police from fulfilling common law duties to Alaskan citizens that all members of the court agreed police owe. [47] They also felt a rule requiring an alone and unconscious victim too narrow a reading of the emergency exception, and were inclined to allow the emergency aid exception to the warrant requirement when police reasonably believed a medical emergency existed (an imminent and substantial threat to life or health) and that a search of the sick or injured person for immediate identification was necessary. [48]