Court Opinion

ID: 9711527
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:33:49.338086+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:05.690107
License: Public Domain

YOUNG, Judge,
dissenting.
I dissent.
The evidence here is insufficient to trigger the so-called exigent circumstances— emergency doctrine1 exception to the requirement that a warrant be obtained in order to enter the defendant’s apartment and to effect an arrest. The police were engaged in the criminal investigation of a burglary. They knew that someone had thrown a cement block through a store window and may have been cut in the process. A trail of blood led to the defendant’s apartment. After knocking and receiving *1072no response, the police entered the apartment.
The majority found the existence of reasonable grounds for the belief that an emergency existed. I do not agree that these grounds made the belief of the police reasonable. Nor do I believe that the search was not primarily motivated by an intent to arrest, rather than to render aid or to investigate an emergency. The facts are not sufficient on which to base the broad exception adopted by the majority. In our review, we should be careful not to let the exceptions swallow the rule.
I find the summary and guidelines of the emergency doctrine as set forth by the Court of Appeals of New York to be helpful. In People v. Mitchell, (1976) 39 N.Y.2d 173, 383 N.Y.S.2d 246, 347 N.E.2d 607, cert. denied 426 U.S. 953, 96 S.Ct. 3178, 49 L.Ed.2d 1191, the court set out the basic elements of the doctrine as follows:
(1) The police must have reasonable grounds to believe that there is an emergency at hand and an immediate need for their assistance for the protection of life or property.
(2) The search must not be primarily motivated by intent to arrest and seize evidence.
(3) There must be some reasonable basis, approximating probable cause, to associate the emergency with the area or place to be searched. [Footnote omitted.]
The police must have reasonable grounds to believe an emergency existed and that belief must be judged by an objective standard.
While an officer testified that they were concerned for the safety of defendant’s life, we do not find facts sufficient to justify, objectively, a reasonable belief that an emergency existed. “Emergency circumstances involving injury or imminent danger to a person’s life justify governmental intrusion for the purpose of preventing further injury or aiding those injured.” Bruce v. State, (1978) 268 Ind. 180, 375 N.E.2d 1042, 1062, cert. denied, 439 U.S. 988, 99 S.Ct. 586, 58 L.Ed.2d 662. Here the circumstances are ambiguous in terms of imminent threat to life unlike instances where facts required an emergency investigation.2 The quantity of blood is no indication of the seriousness of the injury. There was no evidence of a shooting or the use of deadly force. No cry for help was heard. There was no report by a third person of serious injury, only speculation on the part of the police. In fact, the defendant was tending his wound when the officers kicked in the front door. He was not taken to the hospital but to jail. In short, I do not find the circumstances to be sufficient to support a reasonable belief and therefore, to support a warrantless search and arrest based upon the belief that there was an immediate need for assistance to protect a life.
In addition, the protection of human life or property in imminent danger must be the motivation for the search, rather than a desire to apprehend a suspect. A criminal investigation had been launched by the police officers responding to the call to the store. It is difficult to determine that the investigation had been momentarily set aside and that an emergency which threatened life was discovered. The circumstances do not indicate that the entry was primarily to render aid, rather they indicate that such was the pretense to enter and make an arrest. The officer who discovered the blood-smeared apartment door did not enter but summoned another officer. Upon the arrival of that officer they entered the apartment.
In the absence of a showing, by the State, of reasonable belief that necessity existed— *1073that is, an imminent and substantial threat to life, health or property — the constitutional requirement of a warrant must prevail.
I do not find that the State carried this burden and, therefore, I would hold the trial court erred.

. The emergency doctrine had its origin in a dictum enunciated by Justice Jackson in Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 14-15, 68 S.ct. 367, 369, 92 L.Ed. 436 (1947): “There are exceptional circumstances in which, on balancing the need for effective law enforcement against the right of privacy, it may be contended that a magistrate’s warrant for search may be dispensed with.” The Supreme Court later suggested such a situation might occur “where the officers, passing by on the street, hear a shot and a cry for help and demand entrance in the name of the law.” McDonald v. United States, 335 U.S. 451, 454, 69 S.Ct. 191, 192, 93 L.Ed. 153 (1948). The doctrine has been applied in many varying circumstances. Illustrative cases are United States v. Barone, 330 F.2d 543 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 377 U.S. 1004, 84 S.Ct. 1940, 12 L.Ed.2d 1053 (1964) and Wayne v. United States, 115 U.S.App.D.C. 234, 318 F.2d 205, cert. denied, 375 U.S. 860, 84 S.Ct. 125, 11 L.Ed.2d 86 (1963). We need not discuss in detail these cases or others relied on by the State, as they are reviewed in full in both the majority and dissenting opinions of the Missouri Supreme Court in State v. Sutton, supra.
For purposes of the instant case, the emergency or exigency doctrine may be stated as follows: police officers may enter a dwelling without a warrant to render emergency aid and assistance to a person whom they reasonably believe to be in distress and in need of that assistance. In applying this doctrine, two principles must be kept in mind. (1) Since the doctrine is an exception to the ordinary Fourth Amendment requirement of a warrant for entry into a home, the burden of proof is on the state to show that the warrantless entry fell within the exception. McDonald v. United States, 335 U.S. at 456, 69 S.Ct. 191; United States v. Jeffers, 342 U.S. 48, 51, 72 S.Ct. 93, 96 L.Ed. 59 (1951). (2) An objective standard as to the reasonableness of the officer’s belief must be applied.
“* * * [I]n justifying the particular intrusion the police officer must be able to point to specific and articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant that intrusion. * * And in making that assessment it is imperative that the facts be judged against an objective standard: would the facts available to the officer at the moment of the seizure or the search ‘warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief’ that the action taken was appropriate?” Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 21-22, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1880, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968).
Root v. Gauper, (8th Cir. 1971) 438 F.2d 361, 364-65.

. See e. g. Bruce v. State, (1978) 268 Ind. 180, 375 N.E.2d 1042 (report of accident with person trapped in vehicle); Thompson v. McManus, (8th Cir. 1975) 512 F.2d 769 (report of an assault); Commonwealth v. Franklin, (Mass.1978) 385 N.E.2d 227 (report that a person was attacked by man with a gun, followed by the police hearing gunshot coming from neighboring building); People v. Hodge, (1978) 44 N.Y.2d 553, 406 N.Y.S.2d 736, 378 N.E.2d 99 (murder scene); People v. Gallmon, (1967) 19 N.Y.2d 389, 280 N.Y.S.2d 356, 227 N.E.2d 284 (report of loud and noisy disturbance by boarders in rooming house); United States v. Herndon, (S.D.Fla.1975) 390 F.Supp. 1017 (report of a shooting incident).