Court Opinion

ID: 9946277
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-29 16:18:31.887619+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:25:36.856281
License: Public Domain

This opinion is subject to revision before final
                     publication in the Pacific Reporter

                                2024 UT 7

                                   IN THE

      SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF UTAH

                             STATE OF UTAH,
                               Respondent,
                                      v.
                      ALEXANDER HUNG TRAN,
                            Petitioner.

                           No. 20220560
                      Heard September 8, 2023
                      Filed February 29, 2024

                On Appeal of Interlocutory Order

                    Third District, Salt Lake
             The Honorable Elizabeth A. Hruby-Mills
                        No. 151910799

                                Attorneys:
  Sean D. Reyes, Att’y Gen., Jonathan S. Bauer, Asst. Solic. Gen.,
                  Salt Lake City, for respondent
          Sarah J. Carlquist, Salt Lake City, for petitioner

  JUSTICE POHLMAN authored the opinion of the Court, in which
    CHIEF JUSTICE DURRANT, ASSOCIATE CHIEF JUSTICE PEARCE,
           JUSTICE PETERSEN, and JUSTICE HAGEN joined.

   JUSTICE POHLMAN, opinion of the Court:
                          INTRODUCTION
   ¶1 Alexander Hung Tran appeals the district court’s denial of
his motion to suppress evidence that police officers obtained
during a warrantless entry and search of his home. The court
concluded that suppression was unwarranted because an
objectively reasonable basis existed for the officers to believe that
they needed to enter the home to render emergency aid.
                           STATE v. TRAN
                       Opinion of the Court

    ¶2 Tran raises two arguments on appeal. First, he contends
that the entry and search of his home do not fall within the
emergency aid exception to the warrant requirement of the Fourth
Amendment to the United States Constitution. And second, Tran
asks us to interpret article I, section 14 of the Utah Constitution to
provide greater protection to Utah residents than that provided by
the Fourth Amendment. Specifically, Tran asserts that section 14
does not allow for exceptions to the warrant requirement and that,
even if it does, we should adopt a more protective standard than
that applied under the Fourth Amendment. In line with this
heightened protection, Tran argues that the police officers violated
his section 14 rights in entering and searching his home without a
warrant.
    ¶3 We conclude that the entry and search of Tran’s home
were reasonable and justified under the emergency aid exception
to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement. And we decline
at this time to recognize broader protection under the Utah
Constitution in the emergency aid context. Accordingly, we affirm.
                         BACKGROUND
   ¶4 One September afternoon, a grandmother (Grandmother)
was supposed to pick up her eight-year-old grandson (Child) from
elementary school. Grandmother was Child’s caretaker and was
always punctual in picking him up from school. But this day, she
did not arrive as usual. Several hours after the normal pick-up time
had passed, the school principal contacted the police. Officer Peck
responded to the call and met the principal at the school. The
principal told Officer Peck that Grandmother’s tardiness was
“unlike her” as “she was always on time.” Officer Peck then tried
several times to reach Grandmother on her phone, but she did not
answer.
    ¶5 While Officer Peck met with the school principal, a second
officer, Officer Crockett, made her way to Grandmother’s last
known address. When Officer Crockett arrived, she noticed “a
vehicle in the driveway parked at an odd angle with extensive
front-end damage and an open trunk.”
    ¶6 This was not the first time the police had responded to a
call at this home. Of note, Officer Crockett had, about three months
earlier, responded to a call about “a male who seemed to be having
psychiatric issues” and “was waving some knives around.” Officer
Crockett had that individual, who turned out to be Tran, admitted
for a psychiatric evaluation. Officer Crockett was also aware that

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the police had been called to the home “numerous” times and had
responded to an occupancy dispute just a few days prior.
   ¶7 Officer Crockett knocked on the front door and rang the
doorbell. After receiving no response, she joined Officer Peck at the
school. While there, Child’s other grandmother (Relative) arrived.
Relative expressed concern over Grandmother’s whereabouts
because it was unlike Grandmother to be late and because she was
also caring for a two-month-old infant (Infant). Like the officers,
Relative had called Grandmother’s phone but had been unable to
reach her.
   ¶8 Relative then told the officers that she had a key to
Grandmother’s residence and “permission to enter.” The three left
the school and traveled to the home. Upon arriving there, Relative
informed the officers that the damaged vehicle in the driveway did
not belong to Grandmother. The officers also learned that the
damage was from a prior incident.
   ¶9 Once at the front door, the officers knocked but received
no response. They could hear a television inside but otherwise did
not notice signs of anyone being present. Relative then looked
through the beveled window of the front door and was alarmed to
see a “tarp on the floor with a large object underneath it,” which
“wasn’t typical.” The officers looked through the window and saw
the same scene, believing that the tarp may have been covering a
body.
    ¶10 Relative explained to the officers that the reason
Grandmother was caring for Infant and Child was that their mother
(Grandmother’s daughter) was in jail on human trafficking
charges. Relative alluded to “possible retaliation for the daughter
testifying against other players” in the human trafficking case. The
officers ultimately told Relative to leave the scene given the
potential danger.
    ¶11 At this point, the officers debated what to do next. Officer
Peck told Officer Crockett, “My only thing is . . . we go in and that
is a murder, and we didn’t have permission to go in and we just
screw everything up.” Officer Crockett responded, discussing the
potential for the tarp to be covering a body, “Right. And, no, I’m
not going to go in there because it’s obvious that it’s not—but that’s
what it looks like to me. Doesn’t it look like [a covered body] to
you?” Officer Peck agreed, saying, “That is odd. It looks—that
could be a body in there.”

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                       Opinion of the Court

   ¶12 Officer Crockett called her supervisor, Sergeant
Manzanares, for backup while Officer Peck walked across the
ungated backyard and found the back door to the home “wide
open.” Officer Peck decided to monitor the back door “until [they
could] get another officer” at the scene. In all, Officers Peck and
Crockett waited outside the home for about twenty minutes before
Sergeant Manzanares arrived. During this time, they contemplated
entering the home. Officer Peck reminded Officer Crockett that
Relative had a key, and “she’s giving us permission . . . that’s
enough for us” to enter. Officer Crockett responded, “Well, we
don’t even need it . . . [b]ecause of the two-month-old.”
    ¶13 Once Sergeant Manzanares arrived, the officers made the
decision to enter the home to check on the wellbeing of
Grandmother and Infant. After entering through the back door, the
officers found a dead male lying on the couch in the living room,
as well as Grandmother, deceased, under the tarp. Officer Crockett
then saw Tran holding a gun at the bottom of the stairs leading to
the basement. Tran set the gun down and the officers took him into
custody. As the officers continued their search for Infant, they
observed spent shell casings at the bottom of the stairs and
eventually discovered Infant, deceased, next to Grandmother
under the tarp. After securing the house, the officers exited and
contacted the homicide division, which obtained a search warrant
to investigate the apparent crimes.
   ¶14 The State charged Tran with three counts of aggravated
murder. But when the district court determined that Tran was not
competent to stand trial, he was committed to the Utah State
Hospital where he received treatment for several years. Later, after
the court found Tran competent to stand trial, Tran moved to
suppress the evidence obtained in the warrantless entry and search
of his home. He argued that both the Fourth Amendment to the
United States Constitution and article I, section 14 of the Utah
Constitution prohibited the entry and search.
    ¶15 The district court held an evidentiary hearing where
Officer Peck, Officer Crockett, and Sergeant Manzanares testified
and where the court viewed the officers’ body camera footage.
After considering the evidence, the court denied Tran’s motion to
suppress. The court ruled that under the emergency aid exception
to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement, the officers had
“an objectively reasonable basis for believing that both
[Grandmother] and [Infant] were in danger,” justifying the entry
and search. The court also addressed Tran’s argument under

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article I, section 14 of the Utah Constitution. While the court noted
that the Utah Constitution may require some “heightened
threshold” of exigency to permit the warrantless entry and search
of a home, it ruled that such a heightened threshold was met in this
case.
   ¶16 Tran petitioned for interlocutory appeal of the district
court’s denial of his motion to suppress, and we granted his
petition.
              ISSUE AND STANDARD OF REVIEW
      ¶17 Tran asserts that the district court erred in denying his
motion to suppress the evidence obtained during the search of his
home. We review a “district court’s ruling on a motion to suppress
. . . for correctness, including its application of the law to the facts.”
State v. Price, 2012 UT 7, ¶ 5, 270 P.3d 527 (cleaned up). In making
this assertion, Tran argues that we should interpret article I, section
14 of the Utah Constitution to provide greater protection for Utah
residents than that provided by the Fourth Amendment to the
United States Constitution. “Matters of constitutional
interpretation are questions of law that we review for correctness,
. . . provid[ing] no deference to the district court’s legal
conclusions.” State v. Poole, 2010 UT 25, ¶ 8, 232 P.3d 519.
                              ANALYSIS
   ¶18 In asking us to reverse the district court’s denial of his
motion to suppress, Tran argues that the warrantless entry and
search of his home violated both the Fourth Amendment to the
United States Constitution and article I, section 14 of the Utah
Constitution. As for his state constitutional claim, Tran urges us to
interpret section 14 either as not providing an emergency aid
exception to the warrant requirement or, in the alternative, as
providing an emergency aid exception that includes broader
privacy protection than its federal counterpart.
    ¶19 Before addressing these arguments, we first respond to the
State’s suggestion that, in analyzing search and seizure claims
brought under both the federal and state constitutions, we should
adopt an “interstitial” model. Under that model, courts presume
“that federal law is controlling and reach[] state constitutional
issues only when the case cannot be resolved by reference to federal
law.” West v. Thomson Newspapers, 872 P.2d 999, 1006 (Utah 1994).
Tran counters that we should adopt a “primacy” model under
which courts look “first to state constitutional law, develop[]

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                           STATE v. TRAN
                       Opinion of the Court

independent doctrine and precedent, and decide[] federal
questions only when state law is not dispositive.” (Quoting id.)
    ¶20 We find it unnecessary to take a fixed position on which
constitutional claim we should address first in the search and
seizure context. Rather, we find it useful to take a case-by-case
approach to determine whether there are any advantages or
disadvantages in addressing one constitutional claim before the
other. See, e.g., State v. Tiedemann, 2007 UT 49, ¶ 33, 162 P.3d 1106
(noting that while “we have endorsed” the primacy approach “in a
number of cases,” we have also “historically relied on other
approaches” depending on the nature of the case). Here, because
there is significant overlap between the two claims, the Fourth
Amendment provides substantial foundation for Tran’s state law
claim. And because we ultimately determine that Tran’s article I,
section 14 claim fails for the same reason his Fourth Amendment
claim fails, we find it most useful to address the Fourth
Amendment before turning our sights to section 14.
   I. TRAN’S FOURTH AMENDMENT CLAIM FAILS BECAUSE IT WAS
   OBJECTIVELY REASONABLE FOR THE OFFICERS TO BELIEVE THAT
  GRANDMOTHER AND INFANT WERE IN NEED OF EMERGENCY AID
  ¶21 We begin with the text of the Fourth Amendment to the
United States Constitution. It provides:
       The right of the people to be secure in their persons,
       houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable
       searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no
       Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause,
       supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly
       describing the place to be searched, and the persons
       or things to be seized.
U.S. CONST. amend. IV. Long ago, the United States Supreme Court
recognized that this provision applies “to all invasions on the part
of the government and its employes of the sanctity of a man’s home
and the privacies of life.” Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616, 630
(1886), abrogated on other grounds by Warden v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294,
302 (1967). Indeed, as the Court has recognized, “when it comes to
the Fourth Amendment, the home is first among equals.” Florida v.
Jardines, 569 U.S. 1, 6 (2013). “At the Amendment’s very core stands
the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free
from unreasonable governmental intrusion.” Id. (cleaned up).
   ¶22 With this recognition, it has become “a basic principle of
Fourth Amendment law that searches and seizures inside a home

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without a warrant are presumptively unreasonable,” Brigham City
v. Stuart, 547 U.S. 398, 403 (2006) (cleaned up), and thus violate the
Fourth Amendment. But even so, “because the ultimate touchstone
of the Fourth Amendment is reasonableness,” the Court has
adopted several exceptions to the warrant requirement. Id. (cleaned
up).
    ¶23 One such exception is for “exigent circumstances,” where
“the exigencies of the situation make the needs of law enforcement
so compelling that a warrantless search is objectively reasonable.”
Lange v. California, 141 S. Ct. 2011, 2017 (2021) (cleaned up). For
example, the Court has held that police may conduct a warrantless
search of a home into which a potentially armed criminal suspect
has fled, as “[t]he Fourth Amendment does not require police
officers to delay in the course of an investigation if to do so would
gravely endanger their lives or the lives of others.” Warden, Md.
Penitentiary v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294, 298–99 (1967).
    ¶24 Exigent circumstances excusing the warrant requirement
also include the need to prevent the “imminent destruction of
evidence, . . . the need to prevent a suspect’s escape, or the risk of
danger to the police or to other persons inside or outside the
dwelling.” Minnesota v. Olson, 495 U.S. 91, 100 (1990) (cleaned up).
In these instances, a warrantless search is reasonable, and thus does
not run afoul of the Fourth Amendment, because “the legitimate
state interest served by the intrusion outweighs individual interests
shielded by the Fourth Amendment.” State v. Rodriguez, 2007 UT
15, ¶ 16, 156 P.3d 771 (citing Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 654
(1979)).
    ¶25 Most relevant for our purposes is the emergency aid
variant of the exigent circumstances exception to the warrant
requirement. The emergency aid exception was first recognized by
the Supreme Court in Mincey v. Arizona, where the Court observed
“that the Fourth Amendment does not bar police officers from
making warrantless entries and searches when they reasonably
believe that a person within is in need of immediate aid.” 437 U.S.
385, 392 (1978). In recognizing this exception, the Court noted that
“[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.” Id. (cleaned up). And as we’ve stated, the exception
“strikes a balance between the rights protected by the Fourth
Amendment and the interests of government to access a dwelling
to safeguard the well-being of citizens.” Brigham City v. Stuart, 2005
UT 13, ¶ 22, 122 P.3d 506, rev’d on other grounds, 547 U.S. 398 (2006).

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                           STATE v. TRAN
                        Opinion of the Court

    ¶26 The Supreme Court has refined the emergency aid
exception since its adoption in Mincey. In Brigham City, the Court
rejected this court’s use of a subjective intent element to determine
whether a warrantless entry and search incident to rendering
emergency aid was reasonable. See 547 U.S. at 404–05. As we
discuss below, see infra Part II.B, we had adopted a three-prong test
to determine the reasonableness of a warrantless search under the
emergency aid exception to the Fourth Amendment warrant
requirement. See Brigham City, 2005 UT 13, ¶ 23. While two of those
prongs required objective inquiries, one looked at the police
officer’s subjective intent in entering the home. See id. This element
required that the entry and attendant search not be “primarily
motivated by intent to arrest and seize evidence.” Id.
    ¶27 But the Supreme Court rejected this formulation of the
emergency aid exception. Brigham City, 547 U.S. at 404–05. It held
that whether the search was “primarily motivated by intent to
arrest and seize evidence” was “irrelevant” to the Fourth
Amendment analysis. Id. at 404 (cleaned up). The Court
emphasized that “[a]n action is reasonable under the Fourth
Amendment, regardless of the individual officer’s state of mind, as
long as the circumstances, viewed objectively, justify the action.” Id.
(cleaned up).
    ¶28 Accordingly, as it stands today, the emergency aid
exception to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement asks
whether the police conducting the search had “an objectively
reasonable basis for believing that a person within the house [was]
in need of immediate aid.” Michigan v. Fisher, 558 U.S. 45, 47 (2009)
(per curiam) (cleaned up). And as with other Fourth Amendment
tests, we measure reasonableness “in objective terms by examining
the totality of the circumstances.” State v. Baker, 2010 UT 18, ¶ 10,
229 P.3d 650 (cleaned up); see also Ohio v. Robinette, 519 U.S. 33, 39
(1996) (stating that the Supreme Court has “consistently eschewed
bright-line rules, instead emphasizing the fact-specific nature of the
reasonableness inquiry,” which requires reviewing courts to view
all the circumstances facing officers in context). 1

   1   In addition, courts also must ask under the Fourth
Amendment whether the manner and scope of the search were
reasonable. See State v. Evans, 2021 UT 63, ¶ 26, 500 P.3d 811 (“To
be reasonable, a search must be (1) ‘lawful at its inception,’ and
(2) ‘executed in a reasonable manner.’” (quoting Illinois v. Caballes,
                                                     (continued . . .)

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   ¶29 With this governing standard in mind, we turn to the case
before us. For the reasons discussed below, we agree with the
district court that, based on the totality of the circumstances, the
police officers had an objectively reasonable basis to believe that
Grandmother and Infant were in need of immediate aid.
    ¶30 In assessing the totality of the circumstances, we focus on
the circumstances known to the officers the moment they decided
to enter the home to render aid. At that point, the officers knew that
Grandmother had uncharacteristically failed to pick up Child
several hours after school had ended, had failed to answer
numerous phone calls during her absence, and had not responded
to the officers’ knocking at her front door. They also knew that a
tarp on the living room floor was covering a large object that
appeared to be a body and that, all the while, Grandmother was
supposed to be caring for a two-month-old infant. The officers had
observed a vehicle in the driveway parked askew with its trunk
open and had seen the back door of the residence wide open. 2 They
knew that, three months prior, a resident had been waving knives
around in the house; that police had been called to the home on

543 U.S. 405, 407–08 (2005))); see also United States v. Porter, 594 F.3d
1251, 1258 (10th Cir. 2010) (analyzing whether officers had an
objectively reasonable basis to believe emergency aid was needed
and whether the manner and scope of the search were reasonable).
Because Tran has not challenged the manner and scope of the entry
and search, we are concerned only with the first inquiry.
   2  On appeal, Tran argues that the officers did not have the
authority to enter the backyard of his home and thus we should not
consider their discovery of the open back door in analyzing the
totality of the circumstances. But Tran did not object to the State’s
inclusion of this fact in the totality of the circumstances analysis
before the district court, and he does not argue on appeal that any
of our preservation exceptions apply. See UTAH R. CRIM. P. 12(f)
(“Failure of the defendant to timely raise defenses or objections or
to make requests which must be made prior to trial or at the time
set by the court shall constitute waiver thereof . . . .”); State v. King,
2006 UT 3, ¶ 13, 131 P.3d 202 (“We have consistently held that a
defendant who fails to preserve an objection at trial will not be able
to raise that objection on appeal unless he is able to demonstrate
either plain error or exceptional circumstances.”). As a result, Tran
waived any such objection, and we include this fact as a part of the
totality of the circumstances.

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                        Opinion of the Court

multiple occasions, including just days before; and that Relative
expressed concern about possible retaliation from criminal
associates of Grandmother’s daughter. Viewed together, these facts
provided an objectively reasonable basis to believe that
Grandmother may have been in danger or in need of immediate aid
inside the home, as Grandmother’s whereabouts were
concerningly unknown, and circumstances suggesting that she
may have been in trouble continued to accumulate after the officers
arrived at the home.
    ¶31 What’s more, the officers were not solely concerned for
Grandmother’s welfare—the facts also provided a reasonable basis
to believe that Infant, who was only two months old and wholly
incapable of caring for herself, may have required immediate aid in
Grandmother’s absence or incapacitation. As the district court
noted, “One can hardly think of a population of our society more
vulnerable or in need of immediate and constant care than a baby
of that age.”
    ¶32 Ultimately, whether a warrantless search is reasonable “is
determined by assessing, on the one hand, the degree to which it
intrudes upon an individual’s privacy and, on the other, the degree
to which it is needed for the promotion of legitimate governmental
interests.” Samson v. California, 547 U.S. 843, 848 (2006) (cleaned up).
Here, while we acknowledge the entry and search of Tran’s home
were significant intrusions on his privacy, the governmental
interest in protecting Grandmother’s and Infant’s lives through the
administration of immediate aid inside the home outweighed that
privacy interest. “The preservation of human life is paramount to
the right of privacy protected by search and seizure laws and
constitutional guaranties,” Stevens v. State, 443 P.2d 600, 605
(Alaska 1968) (Rabinowitz, J., concurring), and the objective facts
available to the officers supported an objectively reasonable belief
that Grandmother and Infant were in need of aid. Accordingly, it
was reasonable for the officers to forgo obtaining a warrant and to
enter the home to render emergency assistance.
    ¶33 Tran raises several arguments to the contrary. In a
piecemeal fashion, fact by fact, Tran singles out individual
circumstances and presents more benign explanations for each,
attempting to undermine the reasonableness of the officers’ belief
that Grandmother and Infant were in need of immediate aid. While
we understand the utility in pointing out the possible innocent
explanations for individual facts, it is a well-settled principle that
“courts may not use a divide-and-conquer analysis” in assessing

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reasonableness under the Fourth Amendment. State v. Alverez, 2006
UT 61, ¶ 14, 147 P.3d 425 (cleaned up). “In other words, courts
cannot evaluate individual facts in isolation to determine whether
each fact has an innocent explanation.” Id. Again, the Fourth
Amendment analysis requires us to view the reasonableness of the
officers’ belief given the totality of the circumstances. By using a
divide-and-conquer strategy, Tran’s arguments miss the mark.
   ¶34 But before moving past the Fourth Amendment analysis,
we take this opportunity to respond to a couple of Tran’s more
specific arguments as to the reasonableness of the officers’ belief
that Grandmother and Infant needed emergency aid. First, Tran
contends that a number of facts supporting the officers’ belief fall
outside the totality of the circumstances analysis because they are
“speculative” and thus “should be afforded little to no weight in
the overall analysis.” Tran particularly emphasizes the uncertainty
surrounding what lay under the tarp in the living room, lamenting
that the officers were merely speculating about whether it was a
body. In so arguing, Tran highlights that Sergeant Manzanares
acknowledged at the evidentiary hearing that while the tarp may
have been covering a body, it also could have been true that
someone had been painting. Similarly, Officer Peck stated that he
“speculated” about whether the tarp was covering a body.
Accordingly, in Tran’s view, “no non-speculative, objectively
reasonable basis existed to conclude that the tarp equaled an
emergency” because “[s]peculation is miles away from a
reasonable basis.”
    ¶35 While Tran emphasizes the officers’ testimonies and their
views regarding what may have lain underneath the tarp, his
argument is still unconvincing. As we’ve acknowledged, “there is
no black line between inference and speculation.” Heslop v. Bear
River Mut. Ins. Co., 2017 UT 5, ¶ 22, 390 P.3d 314 (cleaned up). But
“a reasonable inference exists when there is at least a foundation in
the evidence upon which the ultimate conclusion is based, while in
the case of speculation, there is no underlying evidence to support
the conclusion.” Id. (cleaned up). In other words, a reasonable
inference not amounting to speculation “is a conclusion reached by
considering other facts and deducing a logical consequence from
them.” Salt Lake City v. Carrera, 2015 UT 73, ¶ 12, 358 P.3d 1067
(cleaned up).
   ¶36 Simply put, the officers’ belief that Grandmother and
Infant needed immediate aid was not based on speculation but on
the facts before them and the reasonable inferences drawn from

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those facts. To be sure, there will be circumstances where the need
for immediate aid is certain. For example, where an officer sees
through an open window an individual being attacked with a knife.
But there are other instances where the need to render aid is less
obvious. After all, the test under the emergency aid exception to the
Fourth Amendment warrant requirement is whether an officer
could, under the circumstances, “reasonably believe that a person
within [a dwelling] is in need of immediate aid.” Mincey, 437 U.S.
at 392 (emphasis added). The test does not require certainty. As the
United States Supreme Court has stated, “[o]fficers do not need
ironclad proof of a likely serious, life-threatening injury to invoke
the emergency aid exception.” Fisher, 558 U.S. at 49 (cleaned up).
This is because “the business of police[] . . . is to act, not to speculate
or meditate on whether” an emergency exists. Wayne v. United
States, 318 F.2d 205, 212 (Burger, Circuit Justice, D.C. Cir. 1963).
“People could well die in emergencies if police tried to act with the
calm deliberation associated with the judicial process.” Id.
Accordingly, all that the Fourth Amendment requires is that the
totality of the circumstances supports an objectively reasonable
belief that an emergency exists. And the circumstances in this case
did exactly that.
    ¶37 Further, Tran argues that Officers Peck and Crockett didn’t
really believe anyone needed emergency aid. In support, he points
to the officers’ decision to call for backup and wait approximately
twenty minutes before entering the home to search for
Grandmother and Infant. Relying on State v. Smith, Tran contends
this conduct is objective evidence that undercuts the
reasonableness of the officers’ belief that there was an emergency.
(Citing 2022 UT 13, ¶ 28, 513 P.3d 629.)
    ¶38 In Smith, we applied the community caretaking doctrine—
a “separate but related” exception to the Fourth Amendment
warrant requirement—to the seizure of a man found sleeping in his
car. 2022 UT 13, ¶¶ 1, 14–15. We explained that in applying that
doctrine, “courts will scrutinize whether the degree of the
intrusion—taking into account both the force displayed and the
length of the stop—was commensurate with the perceived public
need for aid or protection.” Id. ¶ 18. Consistent with Fourth
Amendment jurisprudence, this inquiry is objective and it
examines “whether the officers were acting reasonably within their
community caretaking scope.” Id. ¶ 32 n.5. “If the intrusion exceeds
the need,” courts will deem the seizure unreasonable. Id. ¶ 18.

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    ¶39 In evaluating the objective circumstances in Smith, we
emphasized that an officer’s subjective suspicion of criminality
“must not factor into [the] reasonableness analysis.” Id. ¶ 28. But
we allowed that an officer’s conduct stemming from that suspicion
was “objective evidence that must be weighed within the totality of
the circumstances.” Id. Specifically, in that context, the officers’
conduct in responding to a request for a welfare check was
objective evidence relevant to our assessment of the degree of the
officers’ intrusion on Smith’s privacy. See id. ¶¶ 28–29.
    ¶40 Here, in contrast, Tran makes no argument that requires
us to assess the degree of the officers’ intrusion. Instead, Tran
challenges the reasonableness of Officer Peck and Officer
Crockett’s belief that Grandmother and Infant were in need of
emergency aid. But, as explained above, the reasonableness of that
belief is informed by the objective circumstances facing a
reasonable officer—not the actual officers’ response to those
circumstances. See supra ¶¶ 27–28. Thus, even assuming the
officers’ waiting for backup suggested they did not believe
emergency aid was needed, their subjective beliefs do not factor
into our reasonableness analysis. See Brigham City, 547 U.S. at 404;
Smith, 2022 UT 13, ¶ 28.
    ¶41 In sum, the totality of the circumstances supported an
objectively reasonable basis for the officers to believe Grandmother
and Infant were in need of immediate aid in the home. Among
other things, it was unlike Grandmother not to pick up Child from
school, she could not be reached by phone, and the officers
observed what may have been a murder scene at her residence. All
the while, Grandmother was supposed to be caring for two-month-
old Infant. So while we generally agree with Tran that “it cannot be
the rule that police can search someone’s home, without a warrant,
just because they were a couple of hours late for school-pickup,”
that was not the situation that the officers faced here.
II. TRAN’S ARTICLE I, SECTION 14 CLAIM FAILS FOR THE SAME REASON
                      HIS FEDERAL CLAIM DOES
   ¶42 Tran also argues, separate and apart from his claim under
the Fourth Amendment, that the police officers violated his rights
under article I, section 14 of the Utah Constitution when they
entered and searched his home without a warrant. In making this
argument, Tran asks us to interpret section 14 to provide greater
protection against warrantless searches than the Fourth
Amendment provides. He argues that under the plain text and the

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                            STATE v. TRAN
                       Opinion of the Court

original public meaning of the provision, there is no exception to
the warrant requirement.
   ¶43 Should we disagree with him, Tran alternatively invites us
to adopt the emergency aid exception we articulated in Brigham
City. In particular, Tran advocates for an inquiry that requires an
examination of an officer’s subjective intent.
    ¶44 We commend Tran’s counsel for raising and briefing this
state law claim. 3 But for the reasons outlined below, we decline at
this time to take up his invitations.
   A. The Original Public Meaning of Article I, Section 14 Does Not
    Foreclose Exceptions to the Warrant Requirement, Including an
                      Emergency Aid Exception
   ¶45 We begin with the text of article I, section 14, which reads:
       The right of the people to be secure in their persons,
       houses, papers and effects against unreasonable
       searches and seizures shall not be violated; and no
       warrant shall issue but upon probable cause
       supported by oath or affirmation, particularly
       describing the place to be searched, and the person or
       thing to be seized.
UTAH CONST. art. I, § 14.
    ¶46 Pointing to the first clause of this text, Tran argues that
“unreasonable searches and seizures” of one’s home “cannot be
tolerated.” But he also recognizes that the inverse is true:
“reasonable searches and seizures can be.” Tran then argues that the

   3 In the search and seizure context, parties often “either do[] not

raise or inadequately brief[] a state constitutional claim” under
article I, section 14, and rely solely on the Fourth Amendment.
Brigham City v. Stuart, 2005 UT 13, ¶ 10, 122 P.3d 506, rev’d on other
grounds, 547 U.S. 398 (2006). Accordingly, we have called for parties
to raise and adequately brief state constitutional claims so we may
engage in “a principled exploration of the interplay between
federal and state protections of individual rights.” Id. ¶ 14. We
commend counsel here for responding to “our call . . . for litigants
to participate in the development of state constitutional principles,”
State v. Tiedemann, 2007 UT 49, ¶ 38, 162 P.3d 1106, and for counsel’s
willingness to take on this task. We continue to encourage parties
to press state constitutional claims to further develop these
important principles.

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                       Opinion of the Court
second clause of section 14, which states that “no warrant shall
issue but upon probable cause,” UTAH CONST. art. I, § 14, “informs
our understanding of what constitutes a reasonable search” under
the first clause. Specifically, he argues that because the word “and”
links the two clauses, a search must be conducted pursuant to a
warrant to be reasonable under Utah’s constitution. And it follows,
in Tran’s view, that “no exception would justify the warrantless
search of one’s home under article I, section 14.”
    ¶47 In further support of this proposition, Tran cites various
newspaper articles from the ratification era recounting Utahns’
disdain for warrantless searches of their homes. As a brief sample,
one contemporaneous article stated: “No person claiming to be an
officer has any more right than a private citizen to enter any one’s
dwelling without the consent of the owner, unless he has a warrant
in proper form authorizing him to make a search.” Unwarrantable
Intrusions, DESERET NEWS, Jan. 28, 1885, at 8. Another article noted
how the people of the ratification era should “underst[and] that the
constitutional protection of house and home will not be trampled
down with impunity by lawless villains,” and that “[n]o officer has
the right to force his way into a house without a proper warrant.”
Rights that Must Be Maintained, DESERET NEWS, Jan. 27, 1886, at 6.
   ¶48 While the articles Tran cites provide the sense that Utahns
generally disliked the government barging into their homes
without consent or a warrant, they tell us little more than that.
Critically, the historical sources Tran points to do not discuss
whether Utahns viewed it as reasonable for law enforcement to
enter a home without a warrant if there was an emergency inside.
These sources simply convey what remains the case today: Utahns
believed that the police should generally obtain a warrant before
entering a home, and that it is presumptively unreasonable to enter
a home without a warrant. This sentiment alone does not counsel
us to hold that no exception to the warrant requirement exists
under the original public meaning of article I, section 14.
   ¶49 Moving on from historical articles, Tran next points to the
1888 Compiled Laws of Utah and its treatment of the warrant
requirement. These laws included only a single narrow exception:
“When a person charged with a felony is supposed to have on his
person a dangerous weapon, or anything which may be used as
evidence of the commission of the offence, the officer making the
arrest shall cause him to be searched . . . .” COMPILED LAWS OF UTAH
§ 5421 (1888). But for Tran, this exception is a double-edged sword.
While Tran may use it to argue that a search incident to arrest was

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                            STATE v. TRAN
                        Opinion of the Court

the only exception to the warrant requirement at the time of
statehood, the existence of this exception undermines his argument
that no exception exists at all given the original public meaning of
article I, section 14. And the fact that the ratification-era laws did
not include a specific emergency aid exception to the warrant
requirement does not foreclose us from recognizing such an
exception today. This is because “[t]he Utah Constitution enshrines
principles, not application of those principles.” S. Salt Lake City v.
Maese, 2019 UT 58, ¶ 70 n.23, 450 P.3d 1092.
   ¶50 Ultimately, the text of article I, section 14 is clear: by
specifically prohibiting unreasonable searches and seizures, the
provision impliedly permits reasonable searches and seizures. This
language has meaning, as the provision could just have easily
prohibited “warrantless” searches and seizures altogether. We read
section 14’s reasonableness standard in line with the United States
Supreme Court’s interpretation of Fourth Amendment
reasonableness:
       [T]his Court has inferred that a warrant must
       generally be secured. It is a basic principle of Fourth
       Amendment law . . . that searches and seizures inside
       a home without a warrant are presumptively
       unreasonable. But we have also recognized that this
       presumption may be overcome in some
       circumstances because the ultimate touchstone of the
       Fourth Amendment is reasonableness. Accordingly,
       the warrant requirement is subject to certain
       reasonable exceptions.
Kentucky v. King, 563 U.S. 452, 459 (2011) (cleaned up).
   ¶51 Thus, Tran’s textual and original public meaning
arguments do not persuade us that article I, section 14 forecloses
reasonable exceptions, including an emergency aid exception, to
the provision’s warrant requirement.
B. We Decline, in this Case, to Expand Article I, Section 14’s Protection
                   Beyond the Fourth Amendment’s
    ¶52 Next, Tran argues in the alternative that if we remain open
to recognizing an emergency aid exception under article I, section
14, we should revive the three-prong test we previously applied
under the Fourth Amendment in Brigham City v. Stuart, prior to its
reversal by the United States Supreme Court. See 2005 UT 13, ¶ 23,
122 P.3d 506, rev’d, 547 U.S. 398 (2006). Under the Brigham City test,

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                       Opinion of the Court
the emergency aid exception applied when the following elements
were met:
       (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.
Id. (cleaned up).
    ¶53 In advocating for our adoption of this standard under
article I, section 14, Tran primarily focuses his attention on the
second element. In his eyes, the utility of assessing “the subjective
intent of the officers is an appropriate and necessary check against
using the emergency aid doctrine as an end-run around the
protections of article I, section 14.” To Tran, “exceptions to the
warrant requirement ‘must be limited in application to prevent
police from using a suspicionless exception . . . as pretext for
ordinary [criminal] investigation.’” (Quoting State v. Smith, 2022
UT 13, ¶ 15, 513 P.3d 629.) And as he sees it, “[r]equiring an inquiry
into the police officers’ subjective intent balances law
enforcement’s duty ‘to perform noncriminal community caretaking
functions’ with the people’s right to be free from unreasonable
searches in their homes.” (Quoting Caniglia v. Strom, 593 U.S. 194,
199 (2021).)
    ¶54 We decline at this time to extend article I, section 14’s
protection by adopting the Brigham City test, including its
subjective intent element. First, Tran has provided relatively little
in the way of analysis as to why we should deviate from the text of
section 14, which, as alluded to above, simply requires warrantless
searches to be reasonable—traditionally a purely objective
standard. See, e.g., Scott v. United States, 436 U.S. 128, 137 (1978)
(“[I]n making [the reasonableness] 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?” (cleaned up)).
    ¶55 Further, even if we were inclined to adopt the Brigham City
test, it would not aid Tran’s appeal. Tran has not argued that the
officers’ entry and search of his home was primarily motivated by

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                           STATE v. TRAN
                       Opinion of the Court

an intent to arrest and seize evidence. Thus, his state constitutional
claim would fail for the same reason his Fourth Amendment claim
fails—the officers had an objectively reasonable basis to believe
emergency assistance was needed. And since the outcome does not
turn on whether we extend article I, section 14’s protection to
include Brigham City’s subjective intent element, we do not find it
prudent to make such an extension in this case.
    ¶56 Until we are presented with a persuasive argument to
extend section 14’s protection beyond the Fourth Amendment’s—
in a case that turns on that extension—we will apply the federal
emergency aid exception standard to both state and federal
constitutional claims. Accordingly, Tran’s state constitutional claim
fails on the same ground as his Fourth Amendment claim.
                          CONCLUSION
    ¶57 The State argues we should adopt a strict order of
operations in reviewing search and seizure claims—analyzing
federal constitutional claims before reaching state constitutional
claims. But we see no utility in tying our hands in such a manner.
Because each case may present different facts and briefing by the
parties that make it useful to address one claim before the other, a
case-by-case approach is the most effective.
    ¶58 On the merits, we affirm the district court’s denial of
Tran’s motion to suppress. We hold that the totality of the
circumstances known by the police officers at the time they entered
Tran’s home supported an objectively reasonable basis to believe
that Grandmother and Infant were in need of immediate aid. Thus,
the entrance and search fall within the emergency aid exception to
the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment.
   ¶59 And while we commend Tran’s counsel for raising and
briefing his state law claim under article I, section 14 of the Utah
Constitution, we do not, at this time, extend the provision’s
protection beyond that of the Fourth Amendment. Accordingly,
because the officers’ warrantless entry and search of Tran’s home
were reasonable and justified under the federal emergency aid
exception, the entry and search were also reasonable and justified
under section 14.

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