Court Opinion

ID: 9429415
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:26:43.088234+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:19.498719
License: Public Domain

Justice Rehnquist,
with whom The Chief Justice, Justice Blackmun, and Justice O’Connor join,
dissenting.
Six Terms ago in Michigan v. Tyler, 436 U. S. 499 (1978), we first addressed the applicability of the Fourth Amendment’s Warrant Clause to the activities of firefighters and inspectors following a fire at a furniture store. A divided Court held that the fire itself was an “exigent circumstance” which allowed entry to extinguish the fire and authorized investigators to remain for a reasonable time to investigate the cause of the blaze. Id., at 509-510. We also held that a “re-entry” a few hours after these officials had departed was an “actual continuation” of the earlier investigation, but that subsequent visits more than three weeks after the fire required an administrative warrant. Id., at 511. These pre*306cepts of Tyler have not proved easy to apply, and we are told in the plurality opinion in this case that “[w]e granted certio-rari to clarify doubt that appears to exist as to the application of our decision in Tyler.” Ante, at 289. But that same opinion demonstrates beyond peradventure that if that was our purpose, we have totally failed to accomplish it; today’s opinion, far from clarifying the doubtful aspects of Tyler, sows confusion broadside. I would hold that the “exigent circumstances” doctrine enunciated in Tyler authorized the search of the basement of the Clifford home, although the remaining parts of the house could not have been searched without the issuance of a warrant issued upon probable cause.
HH
Judging simply by comparison of these facts to those in Tyler, I believe that the basement inspection conducted by Lieutenant Beyer about 1:30 p. m. on October 18th — some six hours after the fire was extinguished and the fire officials and police had left the Clifford premises — was an “actual continuation” of the original entry to fight the fire, as that term is used in Tyler. The firefighters who fought the blaze at the Clifford house had removed a can containing Coleman lantern fuel and placed it in the driveway of the home, where it was later seized and marked as evidence by the inspectors who arrived about 1 p. m. Thus here, as in Tyler, the investigation into the cause of the fire went on contemporaneously with the efforts to fight it, before the firefighters first left the premises in the early morning. I see no reason to treat the 6-hour delay between the departure of the firefighters and the arrival of the investigators in this case any differently than the Court treated the 5-hour delay between the departure of the investigators at 4 a. m. from the Tyler store and their return to the same premises at 9 a. m.
The plurality seeks to distinguish the two situations on the basis of differences which seem to me both trivial and imma*307terial. It says that in that interim in our case, the Cliffords “had taken steps to secure their privacy interests that remained in their residence against further intrusion.” Ante, at 296. While this may go to the question of whether or not there was an invasion of a privacy interest amounting to a search, it has no bearing on the question of whether there were exigent circumstances which constitute an exception to the warrant requirement for what is concededly a search. The plurality also intimates that the “firefighters” did nothing but fight the fire, and that the arson investigation did not begin until the arson investigators arrived at 1 o’clock in the afternoon. Ibid. But firefighting and fire investigation are obviously not this neatly compartmentalized, as is shown by the fact that the firefighters themselves were alert to signs of the cause of the fire and had removed the Coleman lantern fuel can for inspection by the later team of arson investigators.
The plurality also purports to distinguish the facts in Tyler by the statement that “the privacy interests in the residence — particularly after the Cliffords had acted — were significantly greater than those in the fire-damaged furniture store . . . .” Ante, at 296. But if the furniture store in Tyler is to be characterized as “fire-damaged,” surely the Cliffords’ residence deserves the same characterization; it too was “fire-damaged.” It is also well established that private commercial buildings in this context are as much protected by the Fourth Amendment as are private dwellings. See See v. City of Seattle, 387 U. S. 541, 542-543 (1967) (citing cases). And certainly the public interest in determining the cause and origin of a fire in a commercial establishment applies with equal, if not greater, force to the necessity of determining the cause and origin of a fire in a home.
On the authority of Tyler, therefore, I would uphold the search of the Clifford basement and allow use of the evidence resulting from that search in the arson trial.
*308II
In Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U. S. 523 (1967), and See v. City of Seattle, supra, this Court imposed a warrant requirement on city housing and fire inspectors requiring them to obtain an administrative search warrant prior to entering a building to inspect for possible health or fire code violations. To protect the privacy interests of building owners from the unbridled discretion of municipal inspectors, the Court held that administrative searches had to be conducted pursuant to a warrant obtained from an independent magistrate. Camara, supra, at 534. But in light of the important public interest in abating public health hazards, the relatively limited invasion of privacy inhering in administrative searches, and the essentially noncriminal focus of the inspection, a different kind of warrant was established, a warrant described by the dissent in that case as “newfangled.” See, supra, at 547 (Clark, J., dissenting). Probable cause to issue this kind of warrant did not sound in terms of suspicion of criminal activity, but in terms of reasonable legislative or administrative standards governing the decision to search a particular building. Camara, supra, at 538.
One may concede the correctness of the Camara-See line of cases without agreeing that those cases should be applied to a prompt postfire inspection conducted to determine the cause and origin of a fire. The practice of investigating the cause and origin of fires has longstanding and widespread acceptance. The public interest in conducting a prompt and careful investigation of the cause and origin of all fires is also undeniably strong. An investigation can reveal whether there is a danger of the fire rekindling and assess the effectiveness of local building codes in preventing and limiting the spread of fire. It may bring to light facts suggesting the crime of arson. Entry is also necessary because the causes of a fire may also not be observable from outside a building or by an uninformed occupant. See United States v. Green, 474 F. 2d *3091385, 1888-89 (CA5 1973). Certainly these reasons justify a search to determine the cause and origin of a fire.
The concerns regarding administrative searches expressed in Camara and See to justify the imposition of a warrant requirement simply do not apply to a postfire investigation conducted within a reasonable time after a fire.1 Under the emergency doctrine, it is beyond dispute that firefighters may enter a building in order to extinguish the flames. Michigan v. Tyler, 436 U. S., at 509. In their efforts to control the blaze firefighters may knock in doors and windows, chop holes in roofs and walls, and generally take full control of a structure to extinguish a fire. In the aftermath of a fire an individual is unlikely to have much concern over the limited intrusion of a fire inspector coming into his premises to learn why there had been a fire. Fire victims, unlike occupants at ordinary times, generally expect and welcome the intrusions of fire, police, and medical officials in the period following a fire. Likewise, as here, relative strangers such as insurance agents will frequently have authority to enter the structure. In these circumstances, the intrusion of the fire inspector is hardly a new or substantially different intrusion from that which occurred when the firefighters first arrived to extinguish the flames. Instead, it is analogous to intrusions of medical officials and insurance investigators who may arrive at the scene of the fire shortly after its origin.
Ample justification exists for a State or municipality to authorize a fire inspection program that would permit fire inspectors to enter premises to determine the cause and origin of the fire. But in no real sense can the investigation of *310the Cliffords’ home be considered the result of the unbridled discretion of the city fire investigators who came to the Cliffords’ home.2 No justification existed to inspect the Cliffords’ home until there was a fire. The fire investigators were not authorized to enter the Cliffords’ home until the happening of some fortuitous or exigent event over which they had no control. Thus, if the warrant requirement exists to prevent individuals from being subjected to an unfettered power of government officials to initiate a search, a warrant is simply not required in these circumstances to limit the authority of a fire investigator, so long as his authority to inspect is contingent upon the happening of an event over which he has no control.3
In my view, the utility of requiring a magistrate to evaluate the grounds for a search following a fire is so limited that the incidental protection of an individual’s privacy interests simply does not justify imposing a warrant requirement. Here the inspection was conducted within a short time of *311extinguishing of the flames, while the owners were away from the premises, and before the premises had been fully secured from trespass. In these circumstances the search of the basement to determine the cause and origin of the fire was reasonable.4

 What constitutes a reasonable time would have been determined on a case-by-case basis. Fire investigators may have more than one fire to investigate on any given day. In addition, fire investigators are entitled to wait until the embers and gasses of the fire have cooled, or as here, until the water pumped into the structure by the firefighters is pumped out.

 This is made abundantly clear by the Detroit Fire Department’s policy regulating postfire investigations. That policy encourages investigators to conduct an investigation as promptly as possible. If the property is occupied or is a place of business trying to conduct business, inspectors are instructed to obtain consent or an administrative warrant. If the premises are occupied by children, inspectors must obtain consent from an adult before entry. To inspect premises secured from trespass, investigators must obtain consent or an administrative warrant. Only if the owners are away and the building open to trespass may fire investigators enter without consent or a warrant. App. 9a, 12a, 19a (testimony of Lt. Beyer and Capt. Monroe).

 The Tyler majority stated that a major function of the warrant requirement was to provide a property owner with sufficient information to reassure him of the legality of the entry. Michigan v. Tyler, 436 U. S. 499, 508 (1978). The relationship of this informational function and the privacy interest protected by the Fourth Amendment is not clear. Proper identification or some attempt at notifying the owners could allay any reasonable fears that the inspectors are impostors or lack authority to inspect for the origin and cause of the fire.

 As noted in n. 3, supra, there may be some justification for requiring the inspectors to contact or attempt to contact the building’s owners as to the inspection. But where, as here, the owners were out of town, it does not appear unreasonable to have conducted the inspection without prior notice to the owners. Notice simply informs the building owners that the building will be entered by persons possessing authority to enter the building. Yet the failure to notify the Cliffords prior to entry fails to advance in any significant way the purposes of the exclusionary rule. In point of fact, the fire investigators were told the Cliffords were unavailable, that they had gone fishing. App. 16a. Thus, in these circumstances the failure to notify the Cliffords seems reasonable. The Cliffords can also be deemed to have received constructive notice, because their agents were on the scene, and a neighbor apparently ascertained the legitimacy of the inspectors’ visit.