Court Opinion

ID: 9824257
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-01 10:34:24.033464+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:39:38.274157
License: Public Domain

BYBEE, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I would find that the officers did have a reasonable basis for the warrantless entry into Schirfs trailer, and would reverse the decision of the district court. The officers received a report of gunshots fired from a high-powered rifle, and a woman screaming “Stop, help, stop, stop.” Schirfs trailer was the only residence in the area fitting the 911 caller’s description of the location of the gunshots. When the officers made contact with the residents of the trailer, Melody Miller, the woman who answered the door, admitted that she was the person who had screamed, but then insisted, bi*188zarrely, that it was in fact a goat on the property who had screamed for help. The officers were not required to take Miller at her word that everyone in the house was fine in light of the other circumstances, i.e., a report of gunshots and screams for help coming from the residence, and Miller’s strange response to the officers’ questions.
Moreover, one of the individuals the officers pulled out of the house was indeed armed with a handgun, and attempted to conceal this from the officers: Schirf. The fact that Schirf was armed, and had initially attempted to conceal this fact, added another element of concern for safety— both the safety of the officers as they attempted to investigate the situation and the safety of everyone else, as Trooper Vik testified. See United States v. Snipe, 515 F.3d 947, 951-52 (9th Cir. 2008) (“Considering the totality of the circumstances, law enforcement must have an objectively reasonable basis for concluding that there is an immediate need to protect others or themselves from serious harm.”) (emphasis added). Most importantly, perhaps, the officers knew there were multiple people in the house—they could hear them—and the officers still had not located the rifle that had fired the shots. The circumstances the officers confronted when they arrived at the scene were not sufficient to negate the reasonableness of the officers’ belief, based on the serious nature of the 911 call, that they were confronting an emergency and that someone in Schirf s trailer could be in need of emergency aid. I respectfully dissent.