Opinion ID: 785535
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Exigent Circumstances and Emergency Doctrines

Text: 64 Just as the majority's approach is inconsistent with the Terry doctrine, so too it cannot be reconciled with the traditional exigent circumstances doctrine or the emergency exception doctrine.
65 Under a traditional Fourth Amendment analysis, exigent circumstances present an exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement for residential searches and seizures. Exigent circumstances involve a compelling necessity for immediate action as w[ould] not brook the delay of obtaining a warrant. United States v. Wilson, 36 F.3d 205, 209 (1st Cir.1994)(quoting United States v. Adams, 621 F.2d 41, 44 (1980)). The exigent circumstances analysis is necessarily fact-intensive and is limited to the objective facts reasonably known to, or discoverable by, the officers at the time of the search. Tibolt, 72 F.3d at 969. As the majority notes, this circuit has recognized that exigent circumstances may exist where a suspect poses a threat to the lives or safety of the public, the police officers, or to herself. Hegarty v. Somerset Cty., 53 F.3d 1367, 1375 (1st Cir.1995). 66 Yet exigent circumstances alone cannot excuse the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement for residential searches and seizures. While the majority is correct that a risk to the safety of the public or the police may rise to the level of an exigent circumstance, our case law is clear that this exigency justifies a warrantless residential search or seizure only where it is also supported by probable cause. See, e.g., United States v. Bartelho, 71 F.3d 436, 442 (1st Cir.1995); United States v. Lopez, 989 F.2d 24, 27 (1st Cir.1993). Thus, the traditional exigent circumstances doctrine requires two separate elements. The exigent circumstance element focuses on circumstances that are incident to the criminal investigation, such as a risk of flight, the destruction of evidence, or a risk to police officer safety. The probable cause element focuses on the suspicion of criminal activity, which must amount to probable cause to believe that a crime has been or is being committed. In the absence of a valid search warrant or consent, both elements must be present in order to justify a search or seizure within a private residence.
67 The Supreme Court has recognized that some emergencies may obviate the need to obtain a warrant prior to entering a private residence, Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385, 392, 98 S.Ct. 2408, 57 L.Ed.2d 290 (1978), and numerous state and federal courts have upheld emergency entries and searches of private residences based on the need to render emergency aid. See United States v. Holloway, 290 F.3d 1331, 1336-37 (11th Cir.2002) (collecting cases). In contrast to the traditional exigent circumstance case, in which the exigency presents itself in the course of a criminal investigation and requires probable cause of criminal activity, a search or seizure that falls under the emergency exception doctrine may be only incidentally connected to unlawful acts. Police officers responding to emergency situations are responding to the need to locate and provide assistance to a person whose life may hang in the balance rather than the search for evidence of criminal activity. 68 As the Fourth Circuit has explained, [t]his particular exigency is expressed as one of [a] reasonably perceived `emergency' requiring immediate entry as an incident to the service and protective functions of the police as opposed to, or as a complement to, their law enforcement functions. United States v. Moss, 963 F.2d 673, 678 (4th Cir.1992). A Fourth Amendment issue arises in these emergency exception cases only when someone becomes the subject of a search or seizure within the protected area, usually because the police discover evidence of criminal activity while searching for the individual believed to be in need of aid. 11 In such cases, the reasonableness of the search or seizure does not depend on the existence of probable cause to believe that criminal activity had been or was being committed. Indeed, the law enforcement officers initially may not be aware of any connection between the emergency and a crime. Instead, the reasonableness of the intrusive action under the emergency doctrine depends on the objective probability that someone's life or safety is in danger within a setting protected by the Fourth Amendment. 69 Thus, the emergency exception suggested by Mincey, and adopted in various forms by state and federal courts, does not dispense with the Fourth Amendment's probable cause requirement. In applying the emergency doctrine, other circuits have found that the Fourth Amendment requires a standard of suspicion approximating probable cause to justify a warrantless search or seizure in a private residence under the emergency exception doctrine. While the phrasing of the applicable standard varies, I agree with the Second Circuit that probable cause exists in the emergency context where there exists a probability that an individual's life or safety is in danger within an area protected by the Fourth Amendment. See Koch v. Town of Brattleboro, 287 F.3d 162, 169 (2d Cir.2002) (probable cause under the emergency doctrine requires a probability that a person is in danger). Courts that have found that the emergency doctrine requires a reasonable belief or a reasonable basis for believing that someone is in danger have also essentially applied a probable cause test. See, e.g., Holloway, 290 F.3d at 1338 ([I]n an emergency, the probable cause element may be satisfied where officers reasonably believe a person is in danger.); 3 LaFave, Search and Seizure § 6.6(a), at 393 (There must be some reasonable basis, approximating probable cause, to associate the emergency with the area or place to be searched.)(quoting People v. Mitchell, 39 N.Y.2d 173, 177-78, 383 N.Y.S.2d 246, 347 N.E.2d 607 (1976)). 70 Whether articulated as a reasonable belief or a probability, the probable cause element of the emergency doctrine requires the same heightened standard that applies to other warrantless searches and seizures in a private residence where the object of the search and seizure is criminal activity. However, under the emergency doctrine, the separate elements of exigent circumstances and probable cause come together. In other words, probable cause in the emergency context focuses on the threat to an individual's life or safety — that is, on the exigency itself. Unless the objective basis for suspicion of an emergency rises to the level of probable cause, a warrantless residential search or seizure violates the Fourth Amendment.
71 The majority never claims that the anonymous call reporting a failed drug deal and possible dead body, and the light inside of the defendants' motel room, provided an adequate basis for a warrantless entry into the room under the traditional exigent circumstances doctrine or the emergency exception doctrine. At most, the majority's analysis suggests that the facts known to the officers relating to the possible emergency and crime justified their decision to approach the defendants' motel room and knock on the door. I agree with that proposition. 72 However, Beaudoin had no obligation to open that door, even in response to a knock and request of the police. Because the officers did not have a warrant, Beaudoin could have simply told them to go away. In that case, the officers would have been required to explore other investigative options until they could develop sufficient probable cause to support a search warrant. 73 Yet Beaudoin responded to the officers' knock by opening the inner door to his motel room, revealing only his face. At that critical moment, the majority introduces the exigent circumstance of the risk to the officers' safety. According to the majority, the police officers had a reasonable basis to believe that their safety was at risk based on the information provided by the anonymous call, 12 the sounds that they heard inside of the room, and the way that Beaudoin opened the door. As the majority explains: [t]he partially opened doorway to the small motel room was not a safe place for the police to investigate whether [Beaudoin] was armed, in this situation. 13 Therefore, it concludes that balanced against the objective safety concerns of the officers here, and in light of the call about an emergency, it was reasonable to order Beaudoin to step outside of his motel room. 74 I do not doubt that an officer investigating reports of drug activity and a possible dead body in a motel room has valid grounds for concern about his or her personal safety in standing outside of that room under the circumstances presented here. However, the officers could have addressed their concerns for personal safety by withdrawing from the area around the motel room door in any one of several directions. The door was adjacent to a lit walkway that flanked a circular driveway where the police officers had parked their car in view of the defendants' room. The police did not have to turn their backs to Beaudoin or end their vigilance as they retreated from the area in front of the door. While courts are appropriately reluctant to tell police officers how to carry out their investigatory responsibilities, officers must make investigative choices within the limits of the Constitution. A decision by the Hooksett police officers to withdraw from the area around Beaudoin's door would not mean an abandonment of their investigation of the anonymous call. They could have pursued a number of alternative options, including staking out the scene, 14 questioning other motel residents, or calling Beaudoin's room in an effort to win his consent to a voluntary departure from that room. What the police could not do, however, was use their continued presence outside the motel room door as a basis for disregarding the well-established constitutional prohibition against entering a private residence without a combination of probable cause to believe that criminal activity was occurring within and exigent circumstances or, in a pure emergency situation, probable cause to believe that somebody's life or safety is in danger within the private residence. 75 Implicit in the majority's analysis is the notion that the officers' belief that someone was injured or dying inside of the room justified their continued presence outside of the doorway and, after concerns arose for their own safety, their seizure of Beaudoin. In other words, the police could not have been required to abandon their position in front of the motel room door because they were in the process of investigating a reported emergency. However, the only basis for the officers' belief that someone might be in danger inside the room was an anonymous, uncorroborated 911 call devoid of any details (other than the room number) that did not provide sufficiently reasonable grounds to believe that an emergency existed. Nor was the officers' belief in a possible emergency rendered any more reasonable by their concerns for their own safety or by the fact that they ordered Beaudoin to step outside of his motel room rather than physically entering the room themselves. In essence, when the majority's amalgam of doctrines and its language of reasonableness are probed, it concludes that an anonymous, uncorroborated call trumps the strong Fourth Amendment rule that the police may not enter a private residence without probable cause to do so. This proposition represents a new exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant and probable cause requirements that cannot be squared with traditional exigent circumstances analysis or the emergency exception doctrine. Because the officers in this case had no probable cause basis for believing that there was criminal activity or an emergency inside the defendants' room, I would hold that their decision to order Beaudoin from his motel room violated his Fourth Amendment rights.