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Search and Seizure for Police and Prosecutors

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II. Emergency Assistance Doctrine

 

  1. Emergency assistance doctrine.
    1. A genuine emergency may justify a warrantless entry and search of a home, IF:
      1. Officers have reasonable grounds to believe an emergency is occurring that requires their assistance to protect life and property, AND
      2. The entry is not primarily motivated by the officers’ intent to arrest and seize evidence, AND
      3. The officers have a reasonable basis, approximating probable cause, to believe the emergency is occurring in the place to be entered or searched.
    2. Officers justified in entering a home or other place by the emergency assistance doctrine are limited by the justification for the entry and, therefore, may not take any action other than what is necessary to determine if someone needs their assistance, and to provide that assistance.

Not every encounter between a police officer and an individual is a seizure subject to Fourth Amendment scrutiny. “The community caretaker exception recognizes that warrants, probable cause, and reasonable suspicion are not required when police are engaged in activities that are unrelated to crime-solving.”20 New Mexico courts recognize “three distinct doctrines under the community caretaker exception:” (1) the emergency aid doctrine, (2) the inventory doctrine, and (3) the community caretaking or public servant doctrine.21 Of these three doctrines, only the first – the emergency aid doctrine – applies to a warrantless entry and search of a place.22 The community caretaking, or public servant doctrine, applies primarily to warrantless searches and seizures of automobiles, and the inventory doctrine applies when a vehicle is impounded and searched.23 Thus, only the emergency aid doctrine is addressed in this section. The other two are addressed in sections on searching places and searching vehicles.24

Because “the privacy expectation is strongest in the home only a genuine emergency will justify entering and searching a home without a warrant and without consent or knowledge.”25 Thus, the emergency assistance doctrine may justify a warrantless entry into a place only if each of the following three requirements are met.

First, officers 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.” 26 Reasonable grounds are those that cause an officer to have a “strong sense” of emergency.27 Ambiguous and speculative concerns about the welfare of others are not sufficient.28 The emergency must be life threatening; officers must have a reasonable belief that the failure to act would result in loss of life or in serious harm.29

Second, officers must not be “primarily motivated by intent to arrest and seize evidence.”30 Officers may, however, become aware of an emergency that justifies entry into a home while they are investigating the homeowner or occupant for criminal activity.31 When that occurs, immediate entry may be justified, if the third requirement is also met.32

The third requirement is that officers must have “some reasonable basis, approximating probable cause, to associate the emergency with the area or place to be searched.”33 The scope of an entry justified by the emergency assistance doctrine is limited to the emergency at hand. Thus, officers “may not do more than is reasonably necessary to determine whether a person is in need of assistance, and to provide that assistance.”34

 

ENDNOTES

20 State v. Ryon, 2005-NMSC-005, ¶ 24, 137 N.M. 174, 108 P.3d 1032.

21 Id.

22 See Id. ¶ 26.

23 Id.

24 See infra., pp. 77-78 (community caretaking stope of a vehicle or person) and pp. 106-109 (inventory search of a vehicle).

25 Id.

26 Id. ¶ 39.

27 State v. Baca, 2007-NMCA-016, ¶ 20, 141 N.M. 65, 150 P.3d 1015.

28 Id. ¶ 23 (the officer’s vague and speculative concern that an individual may have suffered a drug overdose was insufficient where officer’s concern was based only on the facts that the individual had not been seen for two days, was last seen in the presence of known drug users, and was not answering his door).

29 State v. Cordova, 2016-NMCA-019, ¶¶ 11-13, 366 P.3d 270 (Fact that the defendant’s truck was involved in a serious accident was insufficient to justify entry into his home where officers did not find the defendant in the truck at the scene and, therefore, did not know whether the defendant was in the truck at the time of the accident, and had no information that he was home or that he was injured).

30 Ryon, ¶ 39.

31 Id. ¶ 35 (“[W]e recognize that emergency situations can occur during a criminal investigation.”).

32 Id. ¶ 27 (disagreeing that, under State v. Nemeth, 2001-NMCA-029, ¶ 27, 130 N.M. 261, 23 P.3d 936, “officers may never respond to an emergency when they are investigating a crime or attempting to arrest a suspect,” and recognizing, instead, that circumstances may develop during a criminal investigation that would justify the emergency assistance doctrine).

33 Id. ¶ 39; see also, Cordova, 2016-NMCA-019, ¶ 13.

34 Id.