Opinion ID: 1788217
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Medical Emergencies in Particular

Text: This case involves a particular kind of exigent circumstance  a feared medical emergency. The United States Supreme Court has not expressly ruled on this issue. However, it has twice discussed medical emergencies in dicta. The first discussion appeared in Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385, 98 S.Ct. 2408, 57 L.Ed.2d 290 (1978): We do not question the right of the police to respond to emergency situations. Numerous state and federal cases have recognized that the Fourth Amendment does not bar police officers from making warrantless entries when they reasonably believe that a person within is in need of immediate aid.... The need to protect or preserve life or avoid serious injury is justification for what would be otherwise illegal absent an exigency or emergency. Id. at 392, 98 S.Ct. 2408 (quoting Wayne v. United States, 318 F.2d 205, 212 (D.C.Cir. 1963)) (footnotes omitted). The second discussion appeared in Thompson v. Louisiana, 469 U.S. 17, 105 S.Ct. 409, 83 L.Ed.2d 246 (1984), which essentially reinforced Mincey. In Thompson, a woman shot her husband, attempted suicide by overdosing on pills, and then, changing her mind, called her daughter for help. The daughter contacted the police, who entered the unconscious mother's house, transported her to the hospital, and later searched the house for two hours. Id. at 18-19, 105 S.Ct. 409. Although the Supreme Court did not uphold the two-hour search, it acknowledged that the mother's medical emergency would have justified the authorities in seizing evidence under the plain-view doctrine while they were in the [mother's] house to offer her assistance. Id. at 22, 105 S.Ct. 409. [1] Mincey and Thompson confirmed what we recognized in Hornblower v. State, 351 So.2d 716 (Fla.1977): that the `emergency exception' permits police to enter and investigate private premises to preserve life ... or render first aid, provided they do not enter with an accompanying intent either to arrest or search. Id. at 718. As other courts have explained, and we have reiterated, this authority is inherent in the very nature of their duties as peace officers and derives from the common law. Zeigler, 402 So.2d at 371; see also United States v. Barone, 330 F.2d 543, 545 (2d Cir.1964) (containing the same assertion). It is built into the Fourth Amendment's concept of reasonableness. Unlike the United States Supreme Court, we have addressed this issue several times and have upheld warrantless entries motivated by feared medical emergencies. Three cases stand out. In the first, we upheld a warrantless entry where the police tried to identify a chemical that had apparently poisoned seven children then in critical condition. Richardson v. State, 247 So.2d 296, 297-98 (Fla.1971). We emphasized that the searches of the premises were made for the purpose of aiding doctors to save the children's lives and before defendant became [a] suspect. Id. at 298. In the second case, we upheld a warrantless entry to prevent a feared suicide attempt. Turner v. State, 645 So.2d 444 (Fla.1994). The defendant opened the door of his motel room to police and, leaving it ajar, walked back to his bed. He then pulled a gun and pointed it at his head. Confirming that officers can make warrantless entries if they reasonably believe a person inside has immediate need, we held that [t]his was such an emergency, so the officers did not err in entering Turner's motel room. And, once legally inside the room, police could seize evidence in plain view. Id. at 447. In the third case, we held that defense counsel in a death-penalty trial was not deficient in failing to move to suppress evidence based on a warrantless entry into the defendant's home. See Zakrzewski v. State, 866 So.2d 688, 693-95 (Fla.2003). The police had received reports that the defendant failed to attend an Air Force class, that his home had a broken window, and that his mail was accumulating. An officer entered the defendant's home through the broken window because he feared for the welfare of whomever may have been in the house at that time. Id. at 695 (quoting officer's testimony). We agreed that a motion to suppress would have been futile because the officer did not enter [the defendant's] home with the intent to seize evidence or make an arrest. Id. In all three cases, when the police entered the dwelling they suspected some kind of medical emergency. In Richardson, they did not know if they would find the unidentified poison. In Turner, they did not know if the defendant actually intended to kill himself. In Zakrzewski, they did not know why the defendant was missing. We deemed each entry reasonable. Our decisions therefore confirm that authorities may enter a private dwelling based on a reasonable fear of a medical emergency. In those limited circumstances, the sanctity of human life becomes more important than the sanctity of the home. We have not yet considered, however, a case involving a child lost in a housing complex. Nor have most other states. The only jurisdiction with closely analogous cases appears to be California. The leading case there is People v. Smith, 7 Cal.3d 282, 101 Cal.Rptr. 893, 496 P.2d 1261 (1972). In Smith, the police were summoned when a six-year-old girl was found crying outside her apartment at 5 p.m. Although the girl informed the officer that her mother was not inside the apartment, the officer knocked on the door to find out if [the mother] was there, if she could take care of her daughter, and if she may need any help. Id. at 1263. Receiving no answer, the officer entered without a warrant and found marijuana in plain view. The California Supreme Court affirmed suppression of the evidence. It explained that a six-year-old girl is obviously competent to state whether her mother is at home or not. Id. Further, the court determined that [t]here was not a scintilla of evidence to support the assumption that [the mother] had not only returned unnoticed to her flat but had thereupon suddenly fainted, fallen sick, or otherwise become incapacitated. Id. at 1264. Thus, the belief upon which the officer acted was the product not of facts known to or observed by him, but of his fanciful attempt to rationalize silence into a justification for his warrantless entry. Id. The circumstances in Smith differed from those here in four respects: here the unattended girl (1) was two years younger; (2) was naked; (3) was found in the middle of the night; and (4) was totally disoriented, never stating or even implying where her caretaker was. California's intermediate appellate courts have distinguished Smith based on such differences. See, e.g., People v. Miller, 69 Cal.App.4th 190, 81 Cal.Rptr.2d 410, 415 n. 4 (1999) (distinguishing Smith because [t]here, the child was six years old and she specifically told the officer that her mother was not home, whereas the child in Miller was two years old and dressed in a diaper); In re Dawn O., 58 Cal.App.3d 160, 128 Cal. Rptr. 852, 854 (1976) (upholding a similar entry that occurred at 10:30 p.m. because [t]he lateness of the hour makes any concern... about the presence of [the child's] parents . . . much more reasonable than might be in the case of an entry at 5:00 p.m.). Thus, we do not find Smith sufficiently analogous to be helpful.