I. Community Caretaking Encounters

Community Caretaking Encounters.
1. A community caretaking encounter is not a seizure subject to the requirements of the Fourth Amendment.
2. To qualify as a community caretaking encounter, the encounter must be based on articulable safety concerns.
  1. Articulable facts establishing the safety concerns must be based on the officer’s observations and must be objectively identifiable.
  2. The actions of the officer initiating the encounter must be reasonable under the circumstances.
3. An officer engaged in a community caretaking encounter may conduct further investigation based on reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing established by the officer’s observations during the community caretaking encounter.

Not every encounter between a police officer and an individual is a seizure subject to Fourth Amendment scrutiny. For example, if a police officer stops to assist a person in distress, or to determine whether a person needs assistance, the stop is not a seizure under the Fourth Amendment.¹ Rather, such a stop is considered a “community caretaking encounter.”² “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.”³

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.⁴ Of these three doctrines, only the third – the community caretaking doctrine – applies to a warrantless stop of a vehicle.⁵ The emergency aid doctrine applies to searches of places, primarily homes, and the inventory doctrine applies when a vehicle is impounded and searched.⁶ Thus, only the community caretaking doctrine is addressed in this section. The other two are addressed in subsequent sections on searching places and searching vehicles.⁷

To qualify as a community caretaking encounter under the public servant doctrine, a stop must be based on an officer’s specific articulable safety concerns.⁸ “This is an ‘objective test to determine whether a vehicle stop is based on a reasonable concern for public safety.’”⁹ Thus, whether the officer made the stop based on articulable safety concerns does not depend on the subjective beliefs of the officer.¹⁰ Rather, the articulable safety concerns must be objectively

identifiable because “it is the evidence known to the officer that counts, not the officer’s view of the governing law.”¹¹ The objective nature of the test ensures that the stop is not made for the purpose of investigating possible criminal activity or obtaining evidence. For example, an officer who observes passengers riding in the back of a pick-up truck with their feet dangling from the tailgate may stop the truck out of concern for the safety of the passengers.¹² Similarly, an officer’s observation of a motorcycle weaving within its lane of traffic in an unusual and dangerous manner may support the officer’s stop of the motorcycle based on the officer’s concern for the driver’s safety.¹³

Once an officer has initiated a community caretaking encounter, the officer may ask the person stopped questions related to the purpose for the stop, and may ask for identification.¹⁴

In addition, during a caretaking encounter an officer may make observations that lead to reasonable suspicion of criminal activity and to further investigation of that suspicion.¹⁵ Evidence discovered in plain view by an officer engaged in a community caretaking encounter is not subject to exclusion simply because the stop was made without a warrant, reasonable suspicion or probable cause. But evidence discovered after the officer’s concern for safety has been dispelled is excludable, unless the officer’s observations raised a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity to justify expansion of the encounter into an investigatory detention. For example, if during a community caretaking encounter the officer smells a strong odor of alcohol and observes indicators that the driver is impaired, such as slurred speech or bloodshot watery eyes, the officer may expand the stop to investigate DWI.¹⁶

In cases involving a community caretaking encounter, as in all cases involving police- citizen contact, the police action must be reasonable. In a community caretaking encounter, the reasonableness of the police action is determined by balancing the public interest furthered by the police conduct against the degree of intrusion upon the privacy of a citizen.

ENDNOTES

1 See State v. Walters, 1997-NMCA-013, ¶ 10, 123 N.M. 88, 934 P.3d 282.

2 Id.

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

4 Id.

5 Id. ¶ 26.

6 Id.

7 See infra., pp. 106-107 (inventory search of a vehicle) and pp. 125-126 (emergency assistance doctrine in searching a place).

8 State v. Munoz, 1998-NMCA-140, ¶ 8, 125 N.M. 765, 965 P.2d 349; State v. Sheehan, 2015-NMCA-021, ¶ 12, 344 P.3d 1064.

9 Sheehan, 2015-NMCA-021, ¶ 12 (quoting Ryon, 2005-NMSC-005, ¶ 30).

10 Id.; Munoz, 1998-NMCA-140, ¶ 9.

11 Munoz, 1998-NMCA-140, ¶ 9 (citing State v. Martinez, 1997-NMCA-048, ¶ 15, 123 N.M.405, 940 P.2d 1200).

12 State v. Reynolds, 1993-NMCA-162, ¶¶ 2, 7-8, 117 N.M. 23, 868 P.2d 668, reversed on other grounds, 1995-NMSC-008, 119 N.M. 383, 890 P.2d 1315.

13 Apodaca v. State Tax and Revenue Dept., 1994-NMCA-120, ¶¶ 5-6, 118 N.M. 624, 884 P.2d 515.

14 Reynolds, 1995-NMSC-008, ¶ 12.

15 Sheehan, 2015-NMCA-021, ¶¶ 12, 14.

16 Walters, 1997-NMCA013, ¶ 18.