Court Opinion

ID: 9586151
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:07:48.197648+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:24:21.526987
License: Public Domain

WILKINS, Judge,
(dissenting):
¶ 23 I respectfully dissent. I would affirm the trial court’s denial of defendant Davidson’s motion to suppress the evidence.
¶ 24 The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and our state constitutional counterpart prohibit all unreasonable searches and seizures. See State v. Genovesi, 909 P.2d 916, 921 (Utah Ct.App.1995); State v. Pursifull, 751 P.2d 825, 826 (Utah Ct.App.1988). “[I]t is a cardinal principle that ‘searches conducted outside the judicial process, without prior approval by judge or magistrate, are per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment — subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions.’ ” Pursifull, 751 P.2d at 826 (quoting Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385, 390, 98 S.Ct. 2408, 2412, 57 L.Ed.2d 290 (1978)) (additional citations omitted); see State v. Montoya, 937 P.2d 145, 149 (Utah Ct.App.1997) (stating “warrantless searches are per se unreasonable unless undertaken pursuant to a recognized exception to the warrant requirement”) (citations omitted). One such exception recognized by both the United States Supreme Court and this court, under the rubric of exigent circumstances, is the emergency aid doctrine. See Mincey, 437 U.S. at 392-93, 98 S.Ct. at 2413 (recognizing warrantless entries and searches when person within premises needs immediate aid); Genovesi, 909 P.2d at 921 (approving warrantless entry and search in emergency situation); Pursifull, 751 P.2d at 826 (approving an emergency exception to warrant requirement); see also State v. Yoder, 935 P.2d 534, 550 (Utah Ct.App.1997) (Greenwood, J., concurring in result) (approving of emergency aid doctrine and delineating requirements of doctrine as applied in other states).1
¶25 Under the emergency aid doctrine, police officers may conduct limited, warrant-less searches in emergency situations — such as when police “reasonably believe that a person ... is in need of immediate aid.” Mincey, 437 U.S. at 392, 98 S.Ct. at 2413; see Pursifull, 751 P.2d at 826-27 (concluding warrantless search is objectively reasonable under the Fourth Amendment when law enforcement officers are presented with an emergency situation, such as when they “have a reasonable belief that a person ... needs immediate assistance”). Courts have upheld warrantless searches of persons in emergency situations for humanitarian reasons, namely, to protect life or avoid serious injury to another. See Mincey, 437 U.S. at 392-93, 98 S.Ct. at 2413 (stating “ ‘[t]he need to protect or preserve life or avoid serious injury is justification for what would be otherwise illegal absent an exigency or emergency.’ ”) (citation omitted); State v. Wright, 804 P.2d 866, 869-70 (Colo.1991) (stating “need to protect or preserve life ... is paramount to the right of privacy”); Tracy A. Bateman, Annotation, La%ofulness of Search of Person or Personal Effects Under Medical Emergency Exception to Warrant Requirement, 11 A.L.R.5th 52 (1993).
¶26 While both the United States Supreme Court and this court have recognized the emergency aid doctrine, neither the Supreme Court nor the majority of either Utah appellate court have previously set forth the requirements underlying the doctrine. However, other courts have upheld warrantless searches of persons under the emergency aid doctrine if:
*1290(1) Police have an objectively reasonable basis to believe that an emergency exists and believe there is an immediate need for their assistance for the protection of life.
(2) The search is not primarily motivated by intent to arrest and seize evidence.
(3) There is some reasonable basis to associate the emergency with the area or place to be searched. That is, there must be a connection with the area to be searched and the emergency.
See State v. Yoder, 935 P.2d 534, 550 (Utah Ct.App.1997) (Greenwood, J., concurring in result) (approving of emergency aid doctrine and articulating elements applied in other jurisdictions); (People v. Mitchell, 39 N.Y.2d 173, 383 N.Y.S.2d 246, 347 N.E.2d 607, 609 (1976)) (setting forth nearly identical requirements as listed above); see also LaFave, Search and Seizure at § 6.6(a); John F. Decker, Emergency Circumstances, Police Responses, and Fourth Amendment Restrictions, 89 J.Crim. L. & Criminology 433, 457-529 (Winter 1999) (articulating prongs of emergency doctrine and citing cases).
¶ 27 I would adhere to the emergency aid doctrine as set forth by the United States Supreme Court in Mincey and this court in Genovesi and Pursifull. I would also adopt the three-prong test articulated above and apply it here. Within these confines, to do so would comport with jurisdictions that have held that the emergency aid doctrine will support a warrantless search of a person when a person is found in an unconscious or semiconscious condition and the primary purpose of the search is to discover evidence of identification or other information that may enhance the prospect of administering appropriate medical assistance. See, e.g., Wright, 804 P.2d at 869. While I recognize the inva-siveness of this personal intrusion, I would adopt this emergency exception simply because I would not want to deter law enforcement officers from rendering aid to those persons in emergency situations. In so applying this doctrine, however, I recognize that this exception would have to be strictly construed so as to keep the warrantless intrusion as limited as possible. See Mincey, 437 U.S. at 393, 98 S.Ct. at 2413, (“a war-rantless search must be ‘strictly circumscribed by the exigencies which justify its initiation’ ”) (citation omitted); Genovesi 909 P.2d at 921 (holding police may conduct limited, warrantless search in emergency situation); Pursifull, 751 P.2d at 827. Even given my suggested application of this doctrine, the question remains whether the trial court correctly applied the emergency aid doctrine in this ease. I believe it did.
1. Emergency Situation
¶ 28 Defendant does not contest the first factor of the emergency aid doctrine — that the police must have objective reasonable grounds to believe that an emergency exists and believe there is an immediate need for their assistance. I agree that this element is satisfied. Certainly Officer Hedenstrom’s belief that an emergency existed and that there was an immediate need for his assistance was objectively reasonable. The circumstances of this case presented a life-threatening emergency. Paramedics needed information about the drug the victim had ingested to determine how to treat him. Defendant was the only remaining and unexplored source for that critical information, and he refused reasonable requests to assist.
2. Motivation of Officer
¶29 Defendant challenges the court’s application of the second prong of the emergency aid doctrine — that “[t]he search must not be primarily motivated by [an] intent to arrest and seize evidence.” Yoder, 935 P.2d at 550 (citation omitted) (Greenwood, J., concurring in result); see also Mitchell, 383 N.Y.S.2d 246, 347 N.E.2d at 610 (stating “the protection of human life or property in imminent danger must be the motivation for the search rather than the desire to apprehend the suspect or gather evidence for use in a criminal proceeding”). Defendant contends that the emergency aid exception does not apply in this case because Officer Heden-strom’s primary motivation was his intent to arrest and seize evidence. I disagree.
¶ 30 The trial court did not find the primary intent of the officer as one of arrest and seizure, but rather found that Officer Hedenstrom’s main concern was to assist the unconscious man. The court stated:
*1291[T]he officer[’]s motivation and the opinion of the court was to ascertain what substance the [unconscious man] ... was under the influence of.... The reason for the search was[,] in the opinion of the court, a desire to ..., obtain information that he was not obtaining any other way. And [ ], the reason for the [ ] search, the motivation ... was a health[,] safety[,] and welfare [ ] circumstance.
3. Scope of Search
¶31 A. Defendant next claims the trial court misapplied the final prong of the emergency aid doctrine. He argues that probable cause is required under the emergency aid doctrine, and because the court did not conclude the search was supported by probable cause, the search was unlawful. Again, I disagree.
¶ 32 The United States Supreme Court has dispensed with the probable cause requirement in decisions involving essentially noncriminal searches,2 apparently because traditional probable cause3 is inapplicable in these circumstances. See Ybarra v. Illinois, 444 U.S. 85, 96, 100 S.Ct. 338, 344, 62 L.Ed.2d 238 (1979) (holding circumstances of search did not approach those in which Supreme Court has held search could be conducted on less than probable cause); South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U.S. 364, 370 n. 5, 96 S.Ct. 3092, 3097 n. 5, 49 L.Ed.2d 1000 (1976) (stating “[t]he standard of probable cause is peculiarly related to criminal investigations, not routine, noncriminal procedures .... The probable-cause approach is unhelpful when analysis centers upon the reasonableness of routine administrative caretaking functions.”); Cady v. Dombrowski, 413 U.S. 433, 447-48, 93 S.Ct. 2523, 2530-31, 37 L.Ed.2d 706 (1973); Decker, Emergency Circumstances, Police Responses, and Fourth Amendment Restrictions, 89 J.Crim. L. & Criminology at 446; Roberts, Note, The Emergency Doctrine, Civil Search and Seizure and the Fourth Amendment, 43 Ford. L.Rev. at 578-79. The reason for this is simple. Unlike criminal searches, noncriminal searches are not based on law enforcement objectives — to detect or solve a specific crime. Instead, non-criminal searches are based on an officer’s community caretaking functions that, for a time, supersede their law enforcement objectives. See Opperman, 428 U.S. at 369 n. 4, 96 S.Ct. at 3097 n. 4. An officer’s focus on assisting those in need of medical attention, as opposed to gathering evidence of a crime, avoids the necessity of probable cause to arrest or search, or obtaining a search or arrest warrant.
¶ 33 Traditional probable cause is not required under the emergency aid doctrine. See Yoder, 935 P.2d at 550 (Greenwood, J., concurring in result) (stating “[t]here must be some reasonable basis, approximating probable cause, to associate the emergency with the area or place to be searched” and stating that while defendant’s behavior “did not rise to probable cause,” it provided a “ ‘reasonable basis, approximating probable cause’ ”). Rather, to justify a search under this doctrine, there must be “a nexus between the emergency situation and [the area to be searched].” Id.; see also Prober, 297 N.W.2d at 10 (stating “there must be a direct relationship between the area to be searched and the emergency”) (quoting People v. Mitchell, 39 N.Y.2d 173, 383 N.Y.S.2d 246, 347 N.E.2d 607, 610 (1976)). As such, the trial court did not err in concluding the emergency aid doctrine does not require a probable cause determination.
¶ 34 B. Utah’s appellate courts have not previously indicated whether the emergency aid doctrine is limited to searches of persons who themselves are in need of aid, nor are there cases from other jurisdictions which *1292extend the emergency aid exception to searches of persons who do not need assistance. Admittedly, courts upholding war-rantless searches under the emergency aid doctrine have generally done so when the search was performed on persons who themselves needed assistance or that person’s personal effects. See generally Tracy A. Bateman, Annotation, Lawfulness of Search of Person or Personal Effects Under Medical Emergency Exception to Warrant Requirement, 11 A.L.R.5th 52 (1993). However, when the facts present a circumstance such as in this case, extension of the doctrine to areas and persons immediately connected with the person in need of emergency assistance is warranted, in my opinion.
¶35 When a search is performed in an emergency situation, the area searched must have a close connection to the emergency. See Yoder, 935 P.2d at 550. Specifically, there must be a nexus between the emergency situation and the area or place to be searched. See id. (noting defendant’s behavior and demeanor and proximity of missing child’s clothing to defendant’s apartment justified search of defendant’s apartment); see Prober, 297 N.W.2d at 11 (holding “emergency search may not extend to areas unrelated to the emergency”).
¶ 36 The record indicates that Officer He-denstrom did not see defendant in possession of drugs or drug paraphernalia before the search, and defendant made no statements cluing police that he was in possession of anything that could have aided the unconscious man. However, several facts lead to the conclusion that the search of defendant was reasonable in scope under the specific facts of this case. First, defendant was the only person present on the premises with the unconscious man when Officer Hedenstrom arrived at the scene, and therefore the only one who could have provided any information to alleviate the emergency. This was not a situation, as defendant would have us believe, in which defendant had no connection to the unconscious man and was present at the scene of the emergency as a mere onlooker, such as a passerby who stops to observe an auto accident. Rather, defendant testified that the unconscious man was his friend and that he was giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to him when paramedics arrived. Second, the extent of the emergency was one which seriously threatened the unconscious man’s life, requiring the police to take immediate action. Third, the search of defendant was conducted after police had already searched the house for drugs and drug paraphernalia to no avail and had no other avenue of information to help the unconscious man. Finally, defendant refused reasonable requests for information from the officer. For these reasons, I would reject defendant’s argument that the search of defendant was improper in scope and agree with the trial court that the search of defendant was justified under the emergency aid doctrine.

. The emergency aid doctrine has been accepted in numerous federal and state cases. See, e.g., State v. Prober, 98 Wis.2d 345, 297 N.W.2d 1, 9 n. 12 (1980), rev'd in part on other grounds by State v. Weide, 155 Wis.2d 537, 455 N.W.2d 899 (1990) (citing cases); 3 Wayne R. LaFave, Search and Seizure §§ 5.4(c), 6.6(a), 7.4(f) (3d ed.1996) (citing cases where warrantless search permitted to aid person in need of assistance).

. See Melinda Roberts, Note, The Emergency Doctrine, Civil Search and Seizure, and the Fourth Amendment, 43 Ford. L.Rev. 571, 572-73 (1975) (defining non-criminal search as an "intrusion [that] is unaccompanied by an intention to seek out criminal activity”).

. In State v. Wright, 977 P.2d 505, 507 (Utah Ct.App.1999) (citations omitted) we stated:
Probable cause is present when " ‘ "the facts and circumstances within [the officers'] knowledge and of which they ha[ve] reasonably trustworthy information [are] sufficient in themselves to warrant a [person] of reasonable caution in the belief that” an offense has been or is being committed.’ "