Court Opinion

ID: 9670588
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:22:56.434177+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:05.424782
License: Public Domain

SHIRLEY S. ABRAHAMSON, J.
(dissenting). The gravity of child abuse and the urgent need for protecting its victims cannot be overstated. Children are our legacy and our hope, as valuable to us as they themselves are vulnerable. The centrality of children in our lives and the growing recognition of their sanctity as individuals have mandated that governments shield children from the exploitation of their vulnerability.
At the same time that our law and society recognize a child’s right to and need for protection, our law and society value family autonomy and privacy and the sanctum of the home. The family is the primary unit of social organization, the source of the individual’s physical and emotional security. We recognize these principles by according the individual federal and state constitutional protection of due process of law and protection from unreasonable searches and seizures. The pur*463pose underlying these constitutional protections is not, as it is often mistakenly perceived, to protect criminals but to minimize governmental intrusion into the everyday lives of ordinary citizens. To the extent that this court allows encroachment of the constitutional rights of the accused, it allows encroachment on the rights of all. We need to strengthen law enforcement tools, but we cannot justify practices that would otherwise fail to meet constitutional standards.
This case involves the delicate balance of two cherished values: protecting our children and protecting the family from coercive intervention by government agents.1
These values were in the balance when a social worker for the Oconto County Department of Social Services responded to an anonymous report about children who might need protection. More than two years later, this court, sitting 150 miles away, reviews her course of action not in the context of a proceeding to protect the children but rather in the context of a criminal prosecution. It was the defendant’s actions, not the social worker’s that brought this case before us. Yet beyond the significance of this case to the defendant, Calvin Boggess, lies its significance to the social workers and other officials upon whom the law has imposed the awe*464some responsibility of protecting and aiding children and families.
The issue in this case is not whether the social worker erred in promptly investigating the report. She did not err. The issue is whether she erred by carrying her investigation into the home without consent, without a warrant, and without checking into the anonymous report. This distinction between the duty to investigate all reports of child abuse and the power to enter a home without consent only under certain circumstances is an important one.
I agree with the majority that a government official may enter a home without consent and without a warrant to examine children under the “emergency” rule, that is, if, under the totality of circumstances, the official, at the time of entry into the home, has reasonable grounds to believe that “(1) there was an immediate need to provide aid or assistance to a person due to actual or threatened physical injury; and (2) that immediate entry into an area in which a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy was necessary in order to provide that aid or assistance.” Supra, pp. 452, 453; see also supra, p 445. Clearly the state must be empowered to act quickly when there is a true emergency imperiling the safety and welfare of a child.
While any report of child abuse is a critical matter, for purposes of government entry of the home an emergency, as the majority explains, means an immediate need to provide aid for actual or threatened physical injury and a need to enter the home immediately to provide that aid.
In the absence of immediate danger to the child the government official may not enter the home without either consent or a warrant. In our country a warrant-less entry into a home by a government official is presumed unreasonable. Payton, v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, *465585-86 (1980); Laasch v. State, 84 Wis. 2d 587, 594, 267 N.W.2d 278 (1978).
When the child is in no immediate danger, the police and the county agency must nevertheless investigate a report of child abuse promptly — within 24 hours of the report. Sec. 48.981(1) (3), Stats. 1981-82.2
1 part with the majority when it finds the “emergency doctrine” applicable in this case. I conclude from the record that the state did not prove — as it must — that the social worker, upon entry into the home, had reasonable grounds to believe that an emergency existed. State v. Taylor, 60 Wis. 2d 506, 519, 210 N.W.2d 873 (1973). The validity of the entry cannot be colored by knowledge obtained or events occurring subsequent to the entry into the home. The criminal complaint and other documents in the record contain information not available to the social worker when she entered the home. If hindsight is the test, no one of us is protected from the government’s entry into our homes. This court is bound by the record setting forth the facts known to the social worker at the time of entry into the home, and this record is meager. This deficiency in the record may have been caused by the prosecutor, not the informant or the social *466workers. But for the purposes of this review, it makes no difference.
Since the record is so important — and so brief — I shall set forth in the margin (note 3)3 the entire testimony *467about the anonymous telephone call and the information available to the social worker at the time of entry into *468the home, including the testimony of social worker Benesh, who received the call; of social worker Hammel, to whom *469Benesh described the call; and of traffic officer McMahon, who accompanied Hammel to the Boggess home.
Benesh’s testimony reveals that the telephone caller did not convey a sense of immediate need for aid or entry. The caller related, according to Benesh, that the caller “had a reasonable belief that some children may *470have been battered [at an unstated time] and that [sic] were in need of medical attention.”
While Benesh agrees to the district attorney’s description that the caller indicated “a possible dangerous situation,” in answering the district attorney’s question to describe the caller’s statement, Benesh responded: “the caller just felt that . . . [the children] should be checked on by a doctor.” Despite the caller’s cautious language, there is a clear basis for an investigation. But this is not the issue. The issue is whether the social worker had reasonable grounds without further investigation to believe immediate aid and immediate entry of the home were necessary.
Benesh and Hammel testified that they treated this report in the same way that they treated all reports of child abuse. They responded promptly. At most two and three-quarters hours elapsed between the report and the entry of the home. The lapse of more than two hours was not explained, and need not be if this was an investigation under sec. 48.98. But that unexplained time lapse is not consistent with a belief that two children needed immediate aid by way of immediate entry in the home.
Assuming arguendo that the caller had asserted there was an immediate need for aid and entry, the question remains, as the majority explains, whether the information provided by the anonymous informant is sufficiently trustworthy to authorize a government official’s nonconsensual entry of the house. The federal and state constitutions require some assurance before the entry that such official action is based on information given by an honest or credible person who obtained the information in a reliable way. Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U.S. 108 (1964);4 Spinelli v. United States, 393 U.S. 410 (1969); Illinois v. Gates,-U.S. - 103 S. Ct. 2317 (1983).5
*471Police officers presumably report reliable information. Anonymous informants do not enjoy a presumption of reliability.6 As the majority explains, an anonymous in*472formant’s report can, however, supply, the basis for reasonable belief in an emergency if the information included apprises the government official of the informant’s basis for concluding there was a child abuse emergency (the “basis of knowledge” prong) and the social worker has a basis for believing that the informant is credible (the veracity prong).
Whatever the cause of the deficiency of the record, the report as described by the social workers had very little detail. The caller did refer to “bruises” but without describing the location or extent or when they were inflicted. Benesh testified “he believed” the caller said a child was limping. The caller apparently said nothing about the condition of the second child and apparently did not give the ages of the children. The caller did not claim to be an eyewitness or divulge how he got his information. Benesh was never asked whether he pressed the caller for more details or whether the caller was unwilling or unable to supply them. The majority attributes significance to the inference it derives from the record that the caller identified two children by their last names (and at least one, if not both of the children, by the first name), indicating that the children’s names were different from the defendant’s. This is simply not enough.
Since the “details” in the report are not sufficiently extensive to be “self-verifying,” the report in and of itself cannot pass the “trustworthy” test under the totality of the circumstances. Indeed the majority opinion stresses the corroboration of the details of the report.
Independent corroboration by government officials could make the report trustworthy. This court and the United States Supreme Court have “consistently recognized the value of corroboration of details of an in*473formant’s tip by independent police work.” Illinois v. Gates,-U.S.-,-,-S. Ct.-,- (1983).
The only independent corroboration undertaken in this case occurred when Hammel and McMahon went to the defendant’s home. There they verified the name and address apparently reported by the anonymous informant. The defendant neither denied nor admitted there were children in the home. The presence of children, their names, and their physical condition were not corroborated until after the social worker entered the home. Corroboration of “innocent details” may increase the probability that the uncorroborated allegations in the anonymous report are true. But even assuming, as the majority does, that a failure to deny that children lived there rises to the level of an admission, what little corroboration existed here was not sufficient to buttress the veracity or reliability of the anonymously communicated information.
In the two-plus hours between the telephone call and the entry into the home, no effort was made to corroborate the facts of a child abuse emergency. Oconto is a small county with a population of approximately 29,000; it was a Friday evening and the defendant lived “out in the county.” Some of these factors may have made information-gathering an easier task and others a harder task, but telephone calls to neighbors, family members, clinics, hospitals, police departments, the sheriff’s office, or school officials might have yielded information about the children or family situation. The agency did not check its own files to determine whether it had had any prior contact with the family. These sources may not have verified that an emergency existed at the Boggess residence, but almost certainly they could have provided some information about the probability of one.
When time allows, it is reasonable to expect the government official to make an effort to gain some assur-*474anee of the truthfulness of anonymously communicated information to justify entering a home. Statistics on the subject of child abuse reporting demonstrate that such verification is essential. There is, at one and the same time, extensive overreporting of unfounded child abuse and serious nonreporting of actual child abuse. Besharov, Child Protection: Past Progress, Present Problems, and Future Directions, 17 Family L.Q. 151, 161-63 (1983).
In 1978 only 30 percent of reports of child abuse made anonymously were found to be valid.7 The requirement that officials make some effort to substantitate the trustworthiness of anonymous reports before entering a home when there is time to get the information works no significant hardship. Anonymous informants are a minor source of reports of child abuse and neglect: in 1978, they constituted only 5.7 percent of all such reports nationally.8 In 1982 anonymous reports accounted for 9.8 percent of all reports in Wisconsin.9 In 1982 Oconto county apparently investigated a total of 12 reports of child abuse and child neglect.10 I recognize that the social worker may frequently be subject to severe pressures to act swiftly on ambiguous information. This case, however, does not present such a situation.
This case demonstrates the need for guidelines to aid those who must respond to reports of child abuse so that *475the important state interests of protecting children and of protecting families against unreasonable governmental intrusion into their homes and lives are both preserved. See Sampson, “Statutory Regulation of Emergency Taking of Possession of a Child by State Governmental Entity,” and Davidson, “Legal Challenges in Child Protection — An Agenda for the 80’s,” in Protecting Children Through the Legal System, pp. 92-120, 956-58 (ABA 1981).
I, like Judge Foley who dissented in the court of appeals, would reverse the conviction and remand for a new trial.

 The state’s concern with both the abused child and the family is clearly expressed as follows in the Child Abuse Neglect Act:
“It is the purpose of this act to protect the health and welfare of children by encouraging the reporting of suspected child abuse and child neglect in a manner which assures that appropriate protective services will be provided to abused and neglected children and that appropriate services will be offered to families of abused and neglected children in order to protect such children from further harm and to promote the well-being of the child in his or her home setting, whenever possible.” Ch. 355, sec. 1, Laws of 1977.

 The police, if requested, must conduct an “immediate” investigation “to determine if there is reason to believe that the child’s health or safety is in immediate danger”. Sec. 48.981(3) (b)l. The social worker is required “upon receipt of an initial report of suspected child abuse or neglect ... to commence an appropriate and thorough investigation to determine whether the report is ‘indicated’ or ‘unfounded.’ The complete investigation shall, if ;possible, include a visit to the child’s home or usual place of abode, observation of the child and an interview with the child and the child’s parents or custodians.” Sec. 48.981(3) (c)l. (Emphasis added.) “A finding of ‘indicated’ for child abuse reports shall be supported by a preponderance of the evidence available to the agency; . . . Whenever there is less than the required standard of evidence indicating child abuse or neglect, the report shall be classified as unfounded.” See. 48.981(3) (c)3.

 Benesh’s entire testimony describing the anonymous telephone call was as follows:
“Q. Did you receive a call concerning a possible child abuse approximately around 5:00 o’clock or so on February 6, 1981?
“A. I believe that’s the date, and I do know it was during the supper hour, yes.
“Q. And do you remember the substance of that call?
“A. Yes. I received a call that stated that the person who called had reasonable belief that some children may have been battered, and that were in need of medical attention.
“Q. Did the person identify who the children were, and the residence?
“A. Yes, he did.
“Q. During that call did the person indicate that there was a possible dangerous situation there?
“A. Yes.
“Q. Okay. What was that? How did he state that?
“A. The caller just felt that because of bruises that the caller witnessed on the person of [L.S.] indicated to him that he may have further damage done to his body and that he should be checked out by a doctor. I believe he also indicated at that time that [L.S.] was limping.
“Q. Okay. Did the caller indicate any concern about the nature of Calvin Boggess?
“A. The caller informed me that Mr. Boggess has a bad temper, and may be upset about someone coming to his house in that regard.
“Q. Did the caller indicate that he knew the Boggesses fairly well?
“A. Yes, he did.
“Q. Did you relate this information then to Joni Hammel?
“A. Yes, I did.
“Q. Mr. Benesh, approximately when did you call Joni Hammel that evening ?
“A. I called her immediately after I finished talking with the caller who called me.
*467“Q. Is there a reason why you did not go out to the Boggess home yourself that day, or the next day?
“A. Yes, because we have a rotating basis for social workers to be on call. It is a paid basis, and therefore calls of that nature are to be handled by whoever is on intake that evening. So, I related it to the intake worker.
“Q. You testified that the caller informed you that these children may be in need of some medical care. Did the caller advise as to his or her opinion as to what caused the problem?
“A. I believe he did say that he thought it was a result of a heating.
“Q. Did the caller have any information for you as to just when this beating may have taken place?
“A. No, he did not.
“Q. Mr. Benesh, how long have you worked in your present position in Oconto County?
“A. Over four years.
“Q. Is it the policy of your department to check any allegations of child abuse within 24 hours of a call?
“A. Yes, it is. And most times we go immediately on those calls.”
(tr., pp. 40-43)
Hammel’s entire testimony describing her telephone conference with Benesh, her description of Benesh’s telephone call to McMahon, and her statement to McMahon and the defendant of her purpose in entering the Boggess residence is as follows:
“Q. And did you receive a call at approximately oh, around 5:00, 5:30 p.m. on February 6, 1981?
“A. Yes, I did.
“Q. And what was the substance of that call ?
“A. The call was from another social worker from our department. And he received a phone call from a person who wished to remain anonymous that two minor children were most likely in need of medical care, and that the intake worker should get out there and look at those children.
“Q. And did you explain to Officer McMahon the purpose of your meeting him there ?
*468“A. I explained to him that I had received a phone call that the health and safety, or welfare possibly, of two children was in question, and that is where we were going.
“Q. Then did you go to the Boggess residence ?
“A. Yes, we did.
“Q. Okay. And when you arrived at the home what happened ?
“A. When we arrived at the home we went to the door. To me it seemed like the back door. It was both the officer and myself. I was in the front, and I knocked on the door. Mr. Boggess answered the door. I stated my name, where I worked, and the reason I was there for, to see the children, that the safety and possibly the welfare of their condition was in condition [sic]. That someone had phoned us. And he asked for a warrant at that time.
“Q. Mr. Boggess did ?
“A. Yes, he did.
“Q. Okay. And—
“A. And I explained to him that by the Children’s Code a warrant is not necessary for minor children.
“Q. Once you got into the home, who did you' observe in the residence?
“A. Mr. Boggess, Mrs. Boggess, and two minor children.
“Q. Do you work quite frequently in the evening?
“A. I work once every sixth week as an intake worker.
“Q. So, you were on duty that evening?
“A. Yes, I was.
“Q. Were you on duty the next day ?
“A. Saturday, yes, I was.
“Q. Was there any special reason why you went to the house that night as opposed to waiting until the next day?
“A. Our job requires us to go when we are called.
“Q. Are you required to go out to a home within so many, hours after getting a call involving alleged child abuse? Is there any policy on that?
“A. Yes, there is. In the Children’s Code.
“Q. And what is the policy ?
“A. I believe it is 24 hours. Within 24 hours of the phone call. I am not sure, though.”
(tr. pp. 20-36)
*469Officer McMahon’s entire testimony describing his meeting with Ms. Hammel and their entry into the home is as follows:
“A. ... I met Miss Hammel at Yancy’s Restaurant. And at that time she explained to me she was going out into the Town of Underhill to a Calvin Boggess residence to check on the welfare of two children. And she. said from the complaint she received if she were to take custody of the children that Mr. Boggess might have a wicked temper, or something, and she asked me to go along for her own protection if she did take the children into custody.
“Q. So then you proceeded to the Boggess residence?
“A. That is correct, sir.
“Q. And you went up to the front of the house ?
“A. We went up to the door, which is on the west side of the house, and Miss Hammell knocked on the door.
“Q. Okay. And who opened the door? Do you remember?
“A. I don’t recall which one opened the door.
“Q. Who was present at the Boggess residence?
“A. Mr. Calvin Boggess, his wife and two minor children.
“Q. Okay. Now, when you were up there, did you identify yourselves?
“A. Miss Hammel identified herself as an agent of the Social Services Department, and me' as a member of the Oconto County Traffic Department.
“Q. And did you obtain entrance into the residence?
“A. Yes.
“Q. Okay. Did you say anything at that point ?
“A. No. Miss Hammel stated the reason that we were there.
“Q. Okay. What was the reason ?
“A. To cheek on the welfare of two minor children.
“Q. Okay. Once you got into the residence, who did you observe? Did you observe more than Mr. Boggess and Mrs. Boggess?
“A. I observed two minor children. A male and a female.”
(tr. pp. 4-5)

 “[T]he magistrate must be informed of some of the underlying circumstances from which the informant concluded that the *471nareotics were where he claimed they were [basis of knowledge], and some of the underlying circumstances from which the officer concluded that the informant . . . was ‘credible’ or his information ‘reliable’ [veracity].” Aguilar v. Texas, 378 U.S. at 114.
The Gates opinion and today’s majority both acknowledge the continued vitality of these concerns. Although under the totality of circumstances test promulgated in Gates, a deficiency in one prong may be compensated for by a strong showing in the other prong, it seems necessary to require some threshold of supporting facts as to both veracity and basis of knowledge before allowing the proficiency of one prong to compensate for the deficiency of the other.

 While Illinois v. Gates retains the need to show the informant’s veracity, reliability, and basis of knowledge, it also adopted a “totality of the circumstances” analysis. The forthcoming pocket part to Professor LaFave’s Search and Seizure treatise comments on Gates as follows:
“ ‘Gates does not mean that lower courts are writing on a completely clean slate when they now confront the question of whether an informant’s [tip] amounts to probable cause. Even the Gates majority agreed “that an informant’s ‘veracity,’ ‘reliability’ and ‘basis of knowledge’ are all highly relevant in determining the value of his report.” Because this is so, it is to be hoped that the courts will continue to place considerable reliance upon the elaboration of these factors in earlier cases decided under the now-discarded Aguilar formula.’ ” Quoted at 52 L.W. 2230 (1983).
Some of the reasoning in Gates leads one to believe that the Gates decision is limited to warrant cases; other parts of the Gates opinion lead one to believe that the Court would apply Gates in nonwarrant situations. The Gates opinion, a 5-4 decision, is open to several interpretations. See the report of Professor Kamisar’s discussion of Gates at 52 L.W. 2229-30 (1983).

 One commentator has suggested that anonymous informants should be treated as presumptively unreliable. Comment, Anonymous Tips, Corroboration and Probable Cause: Reconciling the Spinelli/Draper Dichotomy in Illinois v. Gates, 20 Am. Crim. L. Rev. 99,107 (1982).
*472Anonymity is not encouraged because of the obvious dangers of a report for which no one is willing to take responsibility.

 Besharov, The Legal Aspects of Reporting Known and Suspected Child Abusei and Neglect, 23 Vill. L. Rev. 458, 470 (1978), citing file data of National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect, Department of Health, Education and Welfare.

 U.S. National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect, Department of Health and Human Services, National Analysis of Official Child Neglect and Abuse Reporting in 1978, p. 19.

 Wisconsin Department of Health and Social Services, Division of Community Services, Annual Report to the Governor and the Legislature on the Wisconsin Child Abuse and Neglect Act, p 12 (August 1983).

 Id. at Table 1.