Opinion ID: 1446243
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Search of Plaintiff's Home

Text: Mrs. Ziegler also argues on appeal that Officer Jonoshies violated her Fourth Amendment right against warrantless searches of her home by taking her into custody at her home. The chief evil against which the Fourth Amendment protects is the physical invasion of the home, and the Fourth Amendment requires that searches of the home be reasonable. Thacker v. City of Columbus, 328 F.3d 244, 252 (6th Cir.2003) (quoting from Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 585, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 63 L.Ed.2d 639 (1980)). One of the touchstones of the reasonableness requirement is that the police must generally obtain a warrant based upon a judicial determination of probable cause before entering the home. Id. If the police enter a home without a warrant, the entry is presumptively unreasonable unless the government proves otherwise. United States v. Ogbuh, 982 F.2d 1000, 1003 (6th Cir. 1993). The Supreme Court has carefully crafted certain exceptions to the warrant requirement, one of which is the exigentcircumstances exception. Pursuant to this exception, the government can overcome the presumption that a warrantless entry is unreasonable if it proves that the exigencies of the situation make the needs of law enforcement so compelling that a warrantless search is objectively reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. Brigham City v. Stuart, 547 U.S. 398, 126 S.Ct. 1943, 1947, 164 L.Ed.2d 650 (2006) (citation and quotation marks omitted). The Supreme Court has articulated four situations that may give rise to the exigent circumstances: (1) hot pursuit of a fleeing felon, (2) imminent destruction of evidence, (3) the need to prevent a suspect's escape, and (4) a risk of danger to the police or others. Id. In the present case, the risk of danger exigency is implicated. See id. (One exigency obviating the requirement of a warrant is the need to assist the persons who are seriously injured or threatened with such injury.). This exigency has been most frequently. applied in cases where the government actors were performing community-caretaker functions rather than traditional law-enforcement functions. See, e.g., Michigan v. Tyler, 436 U.S. 499, 509, 98 S.Ct. 1942, 56 L.Ed.2d 486 (1978) (applying the risk-of-danger exception to a warrantless entry of a burning building); Thacker, 328 F.3d at 254-55 (applying the risk-ofdanger exception in response to a 911 call reporting an injury). The Supreme Court recently clarified in Brigham City, 126 S.Ct. at 1948, however, that whether the officers' motivation for entering is to arrest suspects and gather evidence or to assist the injured is irrelevant so long as the circumstances objectively justify the action. Id. (approving the police officers' warrantless entry into a house to break up a fight in progress); see also Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 813, 116 S.Ct. 1769, 135 L.Ed.2d 89 (1996) (holding that [s]ubjective intent alone does not make otherwise lawful conduct illegal or unconstitutional) (citation and quotation marks omitted). The government actor, in order to satisfy the exigent-circumstances exception in the present case, must show that there was a risk of serious injury posed to himself or his fellow officer or others that required swift action. See id. In reviewing whether exigent circumstances, were present, we consider the totality of the circumstances and the inherent' necessities of the situation at the time. United States v. Rohrig, 98 F.3d 1506, 1511 (6th Cir.1996) (citation and quotation marks omitted). Here, Officer Jonoshies took Plaintiff into custody outside her house . . . on the walkway or driveway connected to the house [6] after receiving a call from a 911 dispatcher that Plaintiff was suicidal and that there was a clinical certificate requesting that she be returned to the hospital. The mere fact that the hospital classified Plaintiff as suicidal is enough to show that she was a danger to herself. Whether the present danger required swift action must be determined by looking at all the facts. In addition to the 911 call informing Officer Jonoshies that Plaintiff was suicidal, the call also informed Officer Jonoshies that there was a clinical certificate ordering him to take Plaintiff to the hospital. A reasonable officer would infer from this information that Plaintiff was at a high risk to commit the dangerous act, as her mental state had been examined by medical professionals, and had been determined to be so severe as to require immediate hospitalization. In addition, inherent in the fact that the certificate was requesting that Plaintiff be brought back to the hospital is the fact that Plaintiff had at some point been at the hospital and presumably left without being discharged. This fact increases the likelihood that Plaintiff had a mental state that required immediate attention, as she likely left before doctors had completed treating her. The type of danger at issue should also be considered. The act of suicide requires no help from another individual and can be accomplished very quickly. To require that an officer who has received information from a credible source, or sources, that an individual is a suicidal risk, wait to obtain a warrant before saving that victim, would likely result in countless preventable deaths. Surely the chief evil the Fourth Amendment was designed to protect against was not intended to be taken this far. In viewing all of these facts together, it can be said that Officer Jonoshies acted reasonably in taking Mrs. Ziegler into custody at her home without waiting for a warrant.