Court Opinion

ID: 9604082
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:14:21.864592+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:16:11.256809
License: Public Domain

BOOCHEVER, Justice,
with whom RA-BINO WITZ, Chief Justice, joins, concurring.
While I agree that the facts of the instant case do not bring the contested wallet search within the strict limits of the emergency doctrine,1 I disagree with the reasoning of the majority in its treatment of this exception to the fourth amendment’s warrant requirement. The majority finds that the emergency doctrine is inapplicable in the instant case because (1) Officer Lewis’ purpose in coming to the scene was to conduct a drug investigation; (2) several motives, including crime detection, prompted the wallet search and (3) Schraff was not totally unconscious and was with a somewhat responsive companion.
Had the state established that'Officer Lewis, upon observing Schraff at the 49er Club, reasonably believed that it was necessary to identify him for immediate medical treatment, a search under the emergency doctrine should not be precluded because Lewis had gone to the club to conduct a drug investigation. To disallow the emergency exception in such a circumstance might well prevent a police officer from fulfilling his customary duty of protecting the lives and welfare of citizens at large. Lee v. State, 490 P.2d 1206, 1209-10 (Alaska 1971).
A police officer’s initial purpose is not necessarily controlling if a valid independent ground for a search or arrest becomes apparent to the officer on first contact with a suspicious person, vehicle or premises. Williams v. United States, 273 F.2d 781, 794 (9th Cir. 1959); Donahue v. United States, 56 F.2d 94, 97 (9th Cir. 1932). Even in cases where the officer’s initial purpose was held to be invalid, searches have been upheld where there is a subsequently valid independent basis. United States v. Bugarin-Casas, 484 F.2d 853 (9th Cir. 1973), cert. denied, 414 U.S. 1136, 94 S.Ct. 881, 38 L.Ed.2d 762 (1973); Green v. United States, 386 F.2d 953, 956 (10th Cir. 1967). Similarly, the emergency doctrine could provide a valid independent ground for a search regardless of a police officer’s original purpose.
Finally, it seems to narrow a reading of the emergency exception to require that a person be alone and unconscious before he can be searched for identification in a medical emergency. In the instant case, Schraff, though conscious, was totally unable to communicate; his companion, though “somewhat responsive”, appeared to Officer Lewis to be heavily drugged or intoxicated, and Lewis could reasonably have concluded that Jones was not a reliable source for identifying Schraff.
The test I would use in applying the emergency exception in the instant case and in other situations is whether a reasonable police officer, acting under the totality of the circumstances as they appeared to him at the time, would believe that 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. I would disallow the exception in the instant case solely for the reason that Officer Lewis’ conduct at the 49er Club and his testimony at trial do not reveal the immediacy and urgency in identifying Schraff for medical treatment which the courts have held to be essential to trigger the emergency doctrine.

. The emergency doctrine is based on a showing of a true necessity — that is, an imminent and substantial threat to life, health or property. People v. Smith, 7 Cal.3d 282, 101 Cal.Rptr. 893, 496 P.2d 1261, 1263 (1972) ; see also Vale v. Louisiana, 399 U.S. 30, 35, 90 S.Ct. 1969, 1972, 26 L.Ed.2d 409, 414 (1970) ; United. States v. Jeffers, 342 U.S. 48, 52, 72 S.Ct. 93, 95, 96 L.Ed. 59, 64 (1951).