Court Opinion

ID: 9781765
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 17:31:36.179407+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:34:39.274064
License: Public Domain

Justice COATS,
dissenting:
In affirming the suppression of drugs and incriminating statements in this case, the majority finds that the police acted improperly and violated the defendant’s constitutional *1015rights, not by arresting, searching, or questioning him in an unlawful manner, but by stepping into the stairway to his apartment without a warrant, through an unlocked and perhaps unclosed door. According to the uncontested testimony at the suppression hearing, they did so at about 3:00 in the morning, some 20 minutes after receiving (and while actively and continuously investigating) a report of a possible burglary in progress; only after learning from neighbors that a woman screamed, someone shouted, “Let her go,” glass was broken, and several men fled from the area of a deck behind the apartment building; and only after then encountering a man coming from the back of the building, where the apartment door was located, who was bleeding from the head or face, and who pointed out the specific apartment from which he had just come and indicated that another man was still inside.
The majority holds that under these circumstances the police lacked probable cause, lacked exigent circumstances to excuse a warrant, and lacked reasonable grounds to believe that someone inside might need immediate police assistance. Because I believe all three of these conclusions are inconsistent with established principles of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence and will deleteriously affect the ability of police to protect the public in this jurisdiction, I respectfully dissent.
Initially, the majority notes at several different points the obligation of reviewing courts to defer to findings of historical fact by trial courts. While that proposition is certainly true, I do not believe the district court in this case resolved any disputed questions of fact or rejected any testimony as incredible. Even with regard to the officers’ belief that the man inside the apartment was injured, upon which the majority dwells at some length, see maj. op. at 1008-1009, the district court’s ruling neither questioned the credibility of Officer Good nor found that he was not, in fact, told as much by the bloodied man leaving the scene. The district court merely inferred from all the testimony that the officers’ concern for the defendant’s welfare was not their primary concern.1 The critical determinations of the district court, with which the majority agrees, are all questions of law, or at least mixed questions of fact and law, to be resolved independently by this court. See People v. Rivas, 13 P.3d 315, 320 (Colo.2000) (controlling facts that are undisputed and not specifically included in findings of fact are treated as matters of law).
In my view, the majority’s analysis confounds and conflates the question of probable cause to support an arrest or search with the presence of exigencies sufficient to permit the entry of premises without a warrant, or perhaps without even probable cause of a crime. The majority analysis notwithstanding, “hot pursuit,” in the sense of eyeball contact with a fleeing suspect, is clearly not the only circumstance permitting the war-rantless entry of premises in search of a suspected perpetrator, and burglary is clearly not the only crime the interruption or immediate investigation of which could justify a warrantless entry of premises. See, e.g., Wike v. State, 596 So.2d 1020 (Fla.1992) (immediate investigation of reported murder); State v. Hardin, 359 N.W.2d 185 (Iowa 1984) (rape at premises immediately reported to police shortly before entry); State v. Welch, 449 So.2d 468 (La.1984) (complaint of sexual assault on premises twenty minutes earlier); Jones v. State, 565 S.W.2d 934 (Tex.Crim.App.1978) (several hours after robbery and arrest of several robbers in vicinity). Probable cause of any number of ongoing or recently committed crimes, like assault, sexual assault, robbery, or kidnapping, acquired in any number of ways, could necessitate an immediate entry, not only to stop the crime and apprehend the perpetrators, but also to assist the victims, whether or not the police also had reason to suspect an unlawful breaking and entering. While the exigencies that may justify a warrantless entry to apprehend *1016a suspect become more limited over time, see, e.g., People v. Miller, 773 P.2d 1053, 1057 (Colo.1989) (reciting so-called Dorman [v. U.S., 435 F.2d 385 (D.C.Cir.1970)] factors for later, warrantless arrest in the home); id. at 1058-1059 (Quinn, C.J. dissenting) (believing sufficient exigency existed where rape victim escaped while suspect slept, and returned before morning with police), the circumstances of an on-the-scene investigation of a recently reported crime necessarily require that officers be given greater latitude than for a subsequent, “planned,” in-home arrest. See generally 3 Wayne R. LaFave, Search and Seizure § 6.1(f) at 273 (3d ed. 1996) (“On the other hand, when the occasion for arrest arises while the police are already out in the field investigating the prior or ongoing conduct which is the basis for the arrest, there should be a far greater reluctance to fault the police for not having an arrest warrant.”)
The officers in this case clearly had probable cause to believe that a crime or crimes had recently been committed in the immediate vicinity of, if not actually inside, the defendant’s apartment; and that the bloodied man outside, whatever else he might be, was at least the victim of an assault. The officers were directed by a bleeding man to the specific apartment from which he had just emerged, at 3:00 in the morning, following a commotion witnessed first-hand by citizen-informants, who are considered reliable for purposes of probable cause, as a matter of law, see People v. Polander, 41 P.3d 698, 702 (Colo.2001); People v. Edmonds, 195 Colo. 358, 364, 578 P.2d 655, 661 (1978), and found broken glass on a back "window. Although the police understandably remained uncertain of precisely what had occurred, where it occurred, and whether other perpetrators or victims remained inside the apartment, I would find that this information amounted to probable cause to believe they would find perpetrators, or other victims in need of assistance, if they pursued the investigation immediately. I would find it not only permissible but essential for police officers pursuing a field investigation under these circumstances to ensure, to the extent that they did so in this case, that violent crimes were not continuing and that others were not in need of emergency assistance. Abandonment, or even further delay, of the investigation at that stage would have been unthinkable.
In any event, however, it is well-established that probable cause of a crime is not a prerequisite to entering a dwelling to render emergency assistance. As we have previously noted, an officer’s duty to render emergency assistance is separate from his duty to investigate crime. See People v. Hebert, 46 P.3d 473, 479 (Colo.2002) (quoting 1 American Bar Association Standards for Cnminal Justice §§ 1.1-1, 1-2.2 (2d ed. 1986 Supp.): police have “complex and multiple tasks to perform in addition to identifying and apprehending persons committing serious criminal offenses,” including to “aid individuals who are in danger of physical harm,” “assist those who cannot care for themselves,” and “provide other services on an emergency basis”). While there must be more than a “theoretical possibility” of an emergency, we have described the needed quantum of suspicion as a “colorable claim” or a “reasonable basis” and held that entry pursuant to the emergency exception can be justified if the circumstances as they would have appeared to a prudent and trained officer at the time of the entry indicated an emergency threatening the life, safety, or in some cases, property, of another. Id., at 479; People v. Malczewski, 744 P.2d 62, 66 (Colo.1987).
While the colorable claim of emergency threatening the safety of another need not arise in conjunction with the commission of a crime, it very well may and often does. In such situations, officers are often initially unable to distinguish possible perpetrators from victims and certainly cannot be expected to abandon precautions for their own safety or abandon their duty to provide emergency assistance altogether. Nor is the applicability of the emergency exception dependent upon entry for the sole, or even primary, purpose of rendering assistance. People v. Unruh, 713 P.2d 370, 379 (Colo.1986) (“Under the emergency exception to the warrant requirement, police officers may enter private property without a warrant where there is a reasonable belief that the premises have been or are being burglarized in order to secure the premises and to search for suspects and victims.”) While the emergency exception must be narrowly cir-*1017eumscribed to justify only conduct necessary to render immediate assistance, it is no less applicable merely because the officers also prepare, or even subjectively hope, to encounter the perpetrators of a crime. As long as the circumstances, as they would have appeared to a prudent and trained officer at the time of entry, indicate an emergency threatening the safety of another, evidence of a crime discovered in the process of providing that assistance or determining whether it is necessary need not be ignored. Id.
At the time the police entered the unlocked door above the stairway, they had information from citizen informants of a commotion in the area of the apartment in question, at 3:00 in the morning, suggesting the destruction of property and a possible assault or kidnapping of a female, and they had personally encountered a man leaving the immediate scene with a head injury, who reportedly told one of them that someone else was still inside, hurt. Under these circumstances, I would find that the police had at least reasonable grounds to believe that an assault of some kind had just occurred; that a number of people were- involved, most of whom were unaccounted for; and that at least one other victim, and possibly perpetrator, remained inside. Further questioning of the bloodied man, who was apparently involved in the affray, before securing the scene and assessing his role would have been, as Officer Good suggested, both inconclusive and costly of precious time. Cf. People v. Thompson, 770 P.2d 1282, 1285-86 (Colo.1989) (reasonable to suspect that perpetrator was still in the house despite domestic abuse victim’s assertions to the contrary). Similarly, I balk at the suggestion that the application of the emergency exception required the police to knock and announce themselves before entering, under circumstances in which it was only reasonable to assume that a crime might be ongoing and that some of the perpetrators of whatever recently occurred (or was occurring) remained inside.
The record indicates that the police met the defendant at the foot of the stairs, almost immediately upon entering, and after they conducted the most cursory of protective sweeps, he gave an incriminating response to Officer Good’s question whether-he possessed weapons or drugs. The court did not find that the officers impermissibly exploited their presence to conduct a general search of the premises or conducted any unlawful search or questioning of the defendant. It held simply that the emergency exception did not excuse their entrance without a warrant, and that all evidence and statements acquired after that point were the fruit of an unlawful entry, a finding not requested or anticipated even by the defendant.
I believe that the majority affirmance of this holding puts police officers conducting an immediate investigation of a suspected crime in an untenable position. I do not believe the Fourth Amendment jurisprudence of either this court or the United States Supreme Court would require them to endanger themselves or abandon all attempts to assist victims of possible recent or ongoing crimes, unless or until they could be sure they had acquired probable cause or the danger had passed. I would therefore reverse and remand for further proceedings to determine whether the disputed evidence was the product of unlawful interrogation or an unlawful search of the defendant’s person.
I am authorized to state that Justice KOURLIS and Justice RICE join in this dissent.

. Even on cross-examination at the first hearing, Officer Good did not initially recall being told that the man inside was injured. He made no attempt to modify his testimony to support any assertion of an emergency situation; he merely conceded, when confronted with Officer Garza's report by defense counsel, that he was the one who provided the information for the report and that the report said that Wonza, the bloodied man he encountered outside, told him that Ben, the man inside, “was also injured.” en, the man inside, "was also injured.”