STATE OF CONNECTICUT v. ANDREW SAMUOLIS
(SC 20299)
Supreme Court of Connecticut
August 9, 2022
Robinson, C. J., and McDonald, D‘Auria, Mullins, Kahn, Ecker and Keller, Js.
Argued March 24
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Syllabus
Pursuant to the emergency exception to the warrant requirement of the
Convicted of the crimes of murder, assault in the first degree, and attempt to commit assault in the first degree, the defendant appealed to this court, claiming that the trial court improperly had denied his motion to suppress certain evidence seized by the police as a result of their warrantless entry into his home. Prior to the challenged entry, the defendant‘s neighbor contacted the police because he and other neighbors were concerned that they had not seen the defendant‘s father, S, who lived with the defendant, in a long time. Thereafter, two police officers were dispatched to the defendant‘s residence to check on S‘s well-being. The officers assessed the exterior of the residence, knocked on the doors, and called into open windows but received no response and concluded that no one was home. Immediately after the well-being check, one of the officers was told by his supervising officer that the defendant had, or possibly had, mental health issues. Four days later, the defendant‘s neighbor again contacted the police and requested another well-being check. The officers conducting the second well-being check were warned that the defendant was possibly a mentally disturbed person. Upon their arrival, the officers spoke with the neighbor, who told them that, after the previous visit by the police, the defendant covered the lower rear windows with chicken wire. The neighbor also indicated that he noticed a mass of flies around the upper rear window of the residence. One of the officers believed, based on his prior experience, that the sheer number of flies indicated that there might be a dead body inside the house. Using a ladder, one of the officers climbed to the upper rear window, which had been propped open slightly with an air freshener. There were flies everywhere but no odor. The officer looked into the window but was unable to see anything noteworthy. Both officers then contacted their supervisor because they believed that entry into the residence might be necessary for the well-being of both S and the defendant. After arriving at the residence and being apprised of the situation, the supervisor concluded that there was a dead body in the home and that they would need to enter the residence to see if anyone inside needed assistance. One of the officers thereafter cut a screen and entered the residence through an open second floor window. After announcing his presence and not receiving a response, the officer went downstairs and opened the front door. The defendant then shot the officer and fled the residence. Soon thereafter, the defendant was apprehended, and the officers entered the home to secure it and to search for any injured persons. Police officers eventually found a badly decomposed body on the second floor. Thereafter, the police obtained a search warrant, and the defendant voluntarily gave a statement to the police in which he admitted that he had shot S several months earlier and that, when S‘s body started to smell, he sealed the room in which it was located. In denying the defendant‘s motion to suppress the seizure of S‘s dead body, the trial court concluded, inter alia, that the officers’ entry into the home was justified under the emergency exception to the warrant requirement because that entry was objectively reasonable under the totality of the circumstances. On appeal, the defendant claimed, inter alia, that the facts did not provide an objectively reasonable basis for the police officers to conclude that there was an emergency justifying a warrantless entry into his residence. Held that, under the totality of the circumstances, it was objectively reasonable for the officers to conclude that there was an emergency justifying their initial entry into the defendant‘s home, and, accordingly, the trial court properly denied the defendant‘s motion to suppress: the defendant could not prevail on his claim that it was unclear, in light of the United States Supreme Court‘s decision in Caniglia v. Strom (141 S. Ct. 1596), whether a warrantless entry into a home is still permitted to assist a person who is injured or facing imminent injury, as this court found no such ambiguity in that decision and observed that other courts have continued to apply the emergency exception post-Caniglia; moreover, although the state did not meet its burden of establishing that it was objectively reasonable for the officers to believe that the defendant required emergency assistance, it did meet its burden of establishing that it was objectively reasonable for the officers to believe that S required immediate emergency assistance, as the record indicated that S was an elderly man who had not been seen by any of his neighbors for at least one month, the family‘s only vehicle had not been moved since S was last seen, S did not respond to the officers’ knocks on the door or shouts into the open windows, and there was an extraordinary infestation of flies around the upper rear window of the residence, which led the officers to believe, on the basis of their past experience, that the most likely explanation for the infestation was the presence of a dead body, and which also left open the possibility that an occupant might be injured rather than dead; furthermore, the defendant‘s mental condition was a relevant factor in the officers’ calculation of whether S needed emergency assistance and what actions were necessary to provide that assistance, as the defendant‘s conduct in attempting to fortify the home against intruders and in refusing to answer the door would have indicated to the officers that they were not going to be able to obtain timely information from the defendant about the whereabouts or condition of S, and the defendant‘s failure to remediate the fly infestation in plain view reasonably suggested that his mental condition may have impaired his capacity to appreciate the gravity of the conditions that existed and the need to elicit prompt medical assistance; in addition, there was no merit to the defendant‘s contentions that the officers’ actions in driving to the residence without activating their emergency lights or sirens and waiting for their supervisor‘s approval before entering the residence indicated that they did not perceive the situation as an emergency, and that the officers failed to consider alternative explanations for the facts presented that would indicate that no emergency existed.
Procedural History
Three substitute informations charging the defendant, in the first case, with two counts of the crime of attempt to commit assault in the first degree and, in the second case, with two counts of the crime of attempt to commit assault in the first degree and one count of the crime of assault in the first degree, and, in the third case, with the crime of murder, brought to the Superior Court in the judicial district of Windham, where the cases were consolidated; thereafter, the court, J. Fischer, J., denied the defendant‘s motion to suppress certain evidence; subsequently, the charge of murder was tried to a three judge panel, A. Hadden, J. Fischer and Solomon, Js., and the remaining charges were tried to the court, J. Fischer, J.; judgments of guilty of murder and one count each of attempt to commit assault in the first degree and assault in the first degree, from which the defendant appealed to this court. Affirmed.
Jeffrey C. Kestenband, for the appellant (defendant).
Timothy J. Sugrue, assistant state‘s attorney, with whom were Andrew J. Slitt, senior assistant state‘s attorney, and, on the brief, Anne F. Mahoney, state‘s attorney, for the appellee (state).
Opinion
KELLER, J. Following a trial to
The trial court made the following findings of fact. “On [Friday] June 21, 2013, Willimantic Police Officer[s] [Amy] Hartman [and Elvin Salas were] dispatched to 31 Tunxis Lane [in Willimantic] to check on the well-being of John Samuolis [Samuolis], the owner of the property. Earlier
“At about 7:30 that evening, [while it was still light out] . . . Salas and Hartman arrived . . . at [31] Tunxis Lane, which is a split-level style home [on a cul-de-sac] in a residential neighborhood described as ‘quiet.’ . . . A car . . . was parked in the driveway. Some of the [second floor] windows of the house were open and part[s] of the lawn had been mowed recently. There was no visible accumulation of trash or mail. The officers walked around the house and knocked on the doors, which were locked. They noticed a cat in the window. Salas called into the open windows announcing their presence, but they received no response. They concluded that no one was home.
“The officers then spoke with Curtis and the Lebiszczaks and learned that the house was occupied by [Samuolis] and his adult son, [the defendant], and that the [defendant‘s] mother . . . was deceased. The neighbors also noted that [the defendant] was ‘a little weird’ and ‘not all there’ and that he might be in the house. . . . The officers intended to return later that evening to recheck the house but . . . other duties . . . prevented them from returning.
“On [the morning of Monday] June 25, 2013 . . . Curtis called the Willimantic Police [Department] and asked them to recheck the Samuolis house because [of changes since the prior visit, namely] there was now chicken wire covering the lower rear windows of the house and there were a huge number of flies massing at an upper rear window. [Officer Kevin] Winkler was dispatched to the scene, and . . . Salas responded as back up when he recognized the address being broadcast. . . . [N]either officer used [his] lights or sirens on [his] way to 31 Tunxis Lane. . . . Since Salas’ earlier visit, the weather had been extremely hot and dry.
“Both officers exited their vehicles and walked around the house. They found the doors were all locked and all the curtains were [now] drawn. The front upper windows of the house were open. Salas saw [that] the car was still parked in the same place and ran the [license] plate. The registration came back to 31 Tunxis Lane. Salas did not check to see if any other vehicles were registered to the house.
“The officers also had a short discussion with Curtis, who told them that [the defendant] had put the chicken wire up after the police had left the home [following] the previous well-being check.1 Curtis also pointed out the mass of flies at the upper rear window. Salas told Winkler that neither the wire nor the flies had been there earlier. Salas, based on his experience, thought that the sheer number of flies indicated that there might be a dead body in the house.
“Curtis offered the use of a ladder, and Winkler put it in place and climbed up to look into the upper rear window. The window was propped open slightly by an air freshener. There were flies everywhere, but no odor. Winkler looked in but was unable to see anything. The officers did not have a phone number for the house; nor did they ask Curtis [if he had] any
“Salas and Winkler thought that an entry into the house might be necessary, so they called their supervisor, Sergeant [Roberto] Rosado, and related what they had found. Rosado came to the scene without using his lights and siren, [arriving a few minutes later] . . . . After being apprised of the current situation and what had transpired on June 21, Rosado concluded that there was a dead body in the house and that they would have to make an entry into the house in order to search for it and anyone else who might need help. . . . [T]hese officers . . . did not believe that criminal activity had occurred. . . . Winkler move[d] [the ladder around the house] to the front upper windows to gain entry [into a better lit room].2 The officers testified that they would have handled the issues differently if they were not in community caretaking mode.3
“Winkler then ascended the ladder [and] cut the window screen . . . . He told Rosado and Salas that he would go down and open the front door and let them in. . . . [After he entered the second floor of the residence] Winkler heard a noise from the basement. Winkler stopped and announced his presence as a police officer and waited, but he heard nothing in response. Winkler then went down the stairs to the front door, which was barred by a heavy metal bar. He removed the bar and tossed it . . . toward the basement . . . . Winkler then opened the front door . . . while keeping an eye on the basement . . . .
“At that point, Winkler saw a rifle barrel stick out around the wall at the bottom of the basement stairs carried by a male who was dressed ‘for battle’ in camouflaged clothing and a ballistic style vest. The male aimed and fired the weapon at Winkler, hitting him in the elbow. This male was later identified as the defendant . . . .”4 (Footnotes added.)
The officers then fled from the home. Salas saw the defendant run through the backyard of the house carrying the rifle and disappear into the woods. Rosado radioed police dispatch and reported what had occurred, and, thereafter, other officers arrived at the scene to assist. Detective Lucien Frechette received a text message that a Willimantic police officer had been shot and drove to the police station, where “he gathered information about the residence and the family, including a phone number. Frechette donned protective gear and went to the command center, which had been set up a short distance from 31 Tunxis Lane. Frechette asked for and received permission to call the phone number he had, and then he called it from the command center. No one answered the call, and he left a message on a recording device.”
At about 12:53 p.m., the state police reported that they had captured the defendant and that he was in their custody. “As soon as Frechette and the other officers learned that the defendant was in custody, he and other [special operations officers] entered the house to secure it and [to]
“Once outside, Frechette went up a ladder to the rear second floor window and raised the window enough to lean inside. The flies were still thick. Frechette saw a badly decomposed body on the floor directly below the window [wrapped in plastic]. He also visually inspected the room for booby traps, but found nothing. No physical evidence was seized during this protective sweep. The Connecticut State Police then procured a search warrant, which was executed later, and physical evidence [including what was later confirmed to be the dead body of Samuolis] was seized.”
While these events were unfolding, the defendant waived his rights and voluntarily gave a statement to Connecticut State Police Detective Adam Pillsbury. Prior to taking the defendant‘s statement, “Pillsbury did not know that [Samuolis] was dead or that his body was still in the house. The defendant told Pillsbury that the police had come to the house to check on his father. The defendant stated that he had shot his father several months earlier. He further stated that the body was still in the house, and it had started to smell so he sealed the room. Pillsbury then called his superiors to tell them that there was a body in the house.”
The defendant was charged with murder, assault in the first degree, and several counts of attempt to commit assault in the first degree. The defendant filed a motion to suppress the evidence seized from the warrantless entry into his home. The state objected to the motion on the ground that entry was justified under the emergency doctrine and other theories. During the hearing on the motion, testimony was adduced from a number of police officers and Curtis. The trial court expressly found that all of the witnesses were credible and none of their testimony was in substantial conflict.
Because two matters that were the subject of this testimony have particular significance to this case—the information provided to the officers about the defendant prior to entering the home and the nature of the conditions that the officers encountered—we elaborate on the testimony that supported the trial court‘s findings as to those two matters.5 With regard to information about the defendant, the officers initially entering the home were specifically made aware that the defendant had, or possibly had, mental deficiencies. Right after the initial well-being check, Salas was told by his supervising officer, who was familiar with the Samuolis family, that the defendant had “[m]ental health issues.” The dispatch to the officers for the second well-being check also was coded to indicate that the defendant was a possible “file 18,” a code that meant “a possible mentally disturbed or mentally malfunctioning person.”
With regard to the changed conditions that the officers encountered since the first visit, witnesses described the upper rear window of the house as follows: “totally caked with flies,” you “[c]ouldn‘t even see glass” because it was “[l]oaded” with flies, and flies were “pretty much
The trial court concluded, on the basis of the preceding facts, that the police entry into the home under the emergency doctrine was “objectively reasonable under the totality of the circumstances.” The court pointed to the following circumstances: the police went to the home on both occasions to make a welfare check, not to investigate a crime; the presence of flies indicated to the officers the presence of a dead body; the “bizarre” and “inexplicable” act of covering the windows with chicken wire; the “old man” remained missing; and there was a concern for the defendant‘s state of mind. The court found that the officers did not know for certain that there was a dead body in the home, or if there was, whose body it was, which left them reasonably concerned for the safety of “either an ‘old man’ or his son who had ‘mental issues.‘” The court concluded that, given the unsuccessful efforts of the police to make contact at the home and the circumstances presented, it was unnecessary for the police to obtain a telephone number to call the home or residents prior to their entry. Alternatively, the court determined that, even if the initial entry was unlawful, the defendant‘s alleged shooting of Winkler sufficiently attenuated that unlawful act from the subsequent lawful search and seizure of evidence. Accordingly, the trial court denied the defendant‘s motion to suppress.
At his trial to the court, the defendant raised the affirmative defense of lack of capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct or to control his conduct due to mental disease or defect, specifically, autism spectrum disorder. The court found the defendant guilty of murder, assault in the first degree, and attempt to commit assault in the first degree. The court imposed a total effective sentence of forty-five years of imprisonment, followed by eight years of special parole. The defendant‘s direct appeal to this court, challenging only his murder conviction, followed.
The defendant claims that, even if a warrantless entry into a home is permitted to assist someone who is injured or facing imminent injury, there was no emergency justifying entry into his home. He argues that the objective facts did not provide a reasonable basis to believe that someone in the home was dead or in need of immediate aid, and that recovery of a dead body is not an emergency in any event. The defendant further contends that his alleged criminal conduct did not justify the subsequent entries into the home, which resulted in the illegal seizure.
The state claims that all of the entries were part of the same justifiable emergency. It further contends that, if we conclude that an emergency did not exist when the police initially entered the home, we should conclude that it existed as a consequence of the defendant‘s shooting at the officers after they entered. Alternatively, the state contends that the evidence seized is admissible under the independent source doctrine because the home would have been searched pursuant to the search warrant issued in connection with the assault, or under the inevitable discovery doctrine, because the defendant independently confessed to the killing.
Our analysis begins with the observation that the defendant does not challenge any of the trial court‘s factual findings. His challenge instead is to the reasonableness of the conclusion drawn
Settled principles of fourth amendment jurisprudence guide this inquiry. “It is a basic principle of [f]ourth [a]mendment law that searches and seizures inside a home without a warrant are presumptively unreasonable. . . . Entry by the government into a person‘s home . . . is the chief evil against which the [f]ourth [a]mendment is directed.” (Citation omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Fausel, 295 Conn. 785, 793, 993 A.2d 455 (2010). “The warrant requirement protects an individual in his home from official intrusion whether the purpose of the search is to further a criminal investigation or the government‘s enforcement of an administrative regulation. Camara [v. Municipal Court, 387 U.S. 523, 530, 87 S. Ct. 1727, 18 L. Ed. 2d 930 (1967)] (‘[i]t is surely anomalous to say that the individual and his private property are fully protected by the [f]ourth [a]mendment only when the individual is suspected of criminal behavior . . . .‘).” State v. Vargas, 213 N.J. 301, 313, 63 A.3d 175 (2013). Thus, “merely because police activities are ‘divorced from the detection, investigation, or acquisition of evidence relating to the violation of a criminal statute,’ Cady [v. Dombrowski, 413 U.S. 433, 441, 93 S. Ct. 2523, 37 L. Ed. 2d 706 (1973)], does not mean that persons have a lesser expectation of privacy in their homes, see Camara, supra, 534 (concluding administrative searches constituted ‘significant intrusions upon the interests protected by the [f]ourth [a]mendment‘).” State v. Vargas, supra, 325-26.
“As a result, [w]arrants are generally required to search a person‘s home . . . unless the exigencies of the situation make the needs of law enforcement so compelling that the warrantless search is objectively reasonable under the [f]ourth [a]mendment. . . . Brigham City v. Stuart, 547 U.S. 398, 403, 126 S. Ct. 1943, 164 L. Ed. 2d 650 (2006). Searches conducted pursuant to emergency circumstances are one of the recognized exceptions to the warrant requirement under both the federal and state constitutions. State v. Blades, 225 Conn. 609, 617-18, 626 A.2d 273 (1993).
“The emergency exception to the warrant requirement allows police to enter a home without a warrant when they have an objectively reasonable basis for believing that an occupant is seriously injured
“The need to protect or preserve life or avoid serious injury is justification for what would be otherwise illegal absent an exigency or emergency. . . . Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385, 392, 98 S. Ct. 2408, 57 L. Ed. 2d 290 (1978).” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Fausel, supra, 295 Conn. 794; see also United States v. Barone, 330 F.2d 543, 545 (2d Cir.) (“[t]he right of the police to enter and investigate in an emergency without the accompanying intent to either search or arrest is inherent in the very nature of their duties as peace officers, and derives from the common law“), cert. denied, 377 U.S. 1004, 84 S. Ct. 1940, 12 L. Ed. 2d 1053 (1964). “The state bears the burden of demonstrating that a warrantless entry falls within the emergency exception.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Fausel, supra, 795.
In the present case, the trial court concluded that the police were confronted with an emergency but also emphasized the fact that the case had commenced as a well-being check and not as a criminal investigation. Although courts have recognized that the emergency aid doctrine has its roots in the police‘s caretaking function, as opposed to its law enforcement function,7 this doctrine must be distinguished from what had been called the “community caretaking” exception to the warrant requirement. Many courts, including our own, have interpreted the United States Supreme Court‘s decision in Cady v. Dombrowski, supra, 413 U.S. 433, as recognizing a community caretaking warrant exception. See, e.g., Sutterfield v. Milwaukee, 751 F.3d 542, 553-54, 556-57 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 574 U.S. 993, 135 S. Ct. 478, 190 L. Ed. 2d 362 (2014); State v. Pompei, supra, 338 Conn. 758. The court in Cady had sustained the warrantless search of an automobile in police custody that was conducted for a routine public safety purpose, noting that police officers frequently “engage in what, for want of a better term, may be described as community caretaking functions, totally divorced from the detection, investigation, or acquisition of evidence relating to the violation of a criminal statute.” Cady v. Dombrowski, supra, 441. Following Cady, courts held that, under the community caretaking doctrine, when the police take actions “not for any criminal law enforcement purpose but, rather, to protect members of the public . . . searches . . . conducted for the latter purpose are deemed exempt from the [f]ourth [a]mendment warrant requirement.” Sutterfield v. Milwaukee, supra, 553-54; see also id., 553 n.5 (acknowledging overlap and distinction between community caretaking exception and emergency aid exception); Hunsberger v. Wood, 570 F.3d 546, 554 (4th Cir. 2009) (noting overlap and distinction between community caretaking and exigent circumstances doctrines), cert. denied, 559 U.S. 938, 130 S. Ct. 1523, 176 L. Ed. 2d 113 (2010). State and federal courts have divided, however, over whether the community caretaking exception was limited to automobile searches or extended more broadly to include warrantless entry into a home. See Sutterfield v. Milwaukee, supra, 556-57 (citing cases).
The United States Supreme Court recently made clear that the mere fact that the police are acting solely for community caretaking purposes is not sufficient, in and of itself, to excuse warrant requirements for entry into a home. Caniglia v. Strom, U.S. , 141 S. Ct. 1596, 1599, 209 L. Ed. 2d 604 (2021); see id., 1598 (Cady‘s acknowledgment of police‘s “‘caretaking’ duties” did not create “a standalone doctrine that justifies warrantless searches and seizures in the home“). Significantly for our purposes, the court‘s majority opinion in Caniglia, as well as the three concurring opinions, underscored that the court‘s decision was not intended to undermine settled law holding that no warrant is required to enter a home when there is a “need to assist persons who are seriously injured or threatened with such injury.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Id., 1600 (Roberts, C. J., with whom Breyer, J., joins, concurring); see also id., 1599 (majority opinion); id., 1601-1602 (Alito, J., concurring);8 id., 1603-1604 (Kavanaugh, J., concurring). The majority opinion made a point of noting that the courts below had relied exclusively on the so-called community caretaker warrant exception.9 Id., 1599.
The issue before us, therefore, is whether there was an objectively reasonable basis for the responding officers to believe that there was a need to render emergency assistance to an injured occupant or to protect an occupant from imminent injury, either the defendant or Samuolis, when Winkler made the initial entry into the home. With regard to the defendant, we disagree that it would have been objectively reasonable for the officers to believe that he needed emergency assistance. There was every reason to believe that, in the days immediately preceding the initial warrantless entry, the defendant had performed tasks around the house. All of the evidence points to the defendant‘s being present at the home when the police first attempted to make contact with the occupants and thereafter actively seeking to avoid that contact. See Florida v. Jardines, 569 U.S. 1, 6, 133 S. Ct. 1409, 18 L. Ed. 2d 495 (2013) (“[a]t the . . . very core [of the fourth amendment] stands the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Without more, odd behavior that might be symptomatic of some sort of mental disability (placing chicken wire over windows, cutting a spy hole in window blinds, and leaving some parts of the lawn unmowed) does not reasonably indicate a need for immediate medical assistance, physical or mental. That the facts suggested that the defendant could be living in a house with a dead or decomposing body raises a concern of a different magnitude, no doubt. It is significant that the state has not claimed that the police had reasonable cause to believe that the defendant suffered from a mental condition that would have permitted them to take him into custody for an emergency examination pursuant to
With regard to Samuolis, although we share some of the defendant‘s concerns about shortcomings in the officers’ investigation prior to their entry into the home, we conclude that there was a reasonably objective basis for believing that an elderly occupant was in need of immediate medical assistance.12 The “old man,” Samuolis,
Two of the officers testified that, when they previously had encountered similar conditions, a dead body had been found. We need not decide, however, whether the presence of a dead body in a home would constitute an emergency.14 Although the responding officers thought, based on their experience, that the most likely explanation for this fly infestation was the presence of a dead body, they also left open the possibility that an occupant might be injured rather than dead. We cannot say that this supposition was unreasonable. See State v. Scott, 343 N.C. 313, 329, 471 S.E.2d 605 (1996) (emergency doctrine was applicable when officer investigating missing person report noticed flies accumulating at door to underside of house and smelled odor of decaying flesh, and officer testified that he had previously encountered similar conditions and discovered, upon further investigation, live person with rotting feet). It is well documented
Courts have concluded that the discovery of other circumstances that may be suggestive of death will not necessarily render the emergency doctrine inapplicable.16 See, e.g., People v. McGee, 140 Ill. App. 3d 677, 680-81, 489 N.E.2d 439 (1986) (“In Illinois, appellate decisions have applied the ‘emergency’ exception to the warrant requirement where [the] police entered a residence without a warrant while investigating a possible missing person and after detecting a stench they believed came from [a] dead body inside . . . and where [the] police investigating a report of a homicide observed
Although the defendant‘s mental condition did not indicate his need for emergency assistance, that condition nonetheless would have been a relevant factor in the officers’ reasonable calculation of whether Samuolis needed such aid and what actions were necessary to provide that aid. The defendant‘s conduct in attempting to fortify the home against intruders and refusing to answer the door would have indicated to the officers that they were not going to be able to obtain timely information from the defendant about Samuolis’ whereabouts or condition. The defendant‘s failure to remediate the fly infestation in plain view reasonably suggested that his mental disabilities may have impaired his capacity to appreciate the gravity of the conditions that existed and the need to elicit prompt medical assistance, if such assistance was required.
The defendant‘s mental condition also bears on the defendant‘s complaint that the officers’ actions—driving to the scene without activating lights or sirens, and waiting for supervisor approval to conduct a warrantless search before entering the home—indicated that they did not perceive the situation as an emergency.17 The officers
The defendant nonetheless contends that the officers did not consider the “totality of circumstances,” as they were required to do, because they failed to consider alternative explanations for the facts presented that would indicate that no emergency existed.18 We disagree with the significance that the defendant ascribes to the “primary” facts that the officers did not consider—when Winkler climbed the ladder and looked in the window, he did not see anything amiss inside the house or smell an odor of decomposition. Winkler testified that it was difficult to see into the rear bedroom because it was so dark. Although Winkler was never asked whether he detected any odor, he testified that he never put any part of his body (presumably face included) into the window opening. The air freshener wedged in the small opening may have done its job of masking any odor emanating from inside
The defendant also suggests that there were other reasonable explanations for the fly infestation: a dead animal (e.g., the cat that had been seen in the front window on the prior visit) or rotting food or garbage. The officers indicated in their testimony that they did not consider either scenario as a possible cause of the fly infestation because those explanations did not jibe with the conditions and the officers’ past experience. We note that one would similarly expect an odor to be emitted from a dead animal or rotting food or garbage on a hot summer day. The defendant does not explain why it would have been reasonable for the officers to credit either of those explanations when they did not detect an odor but it was unreasonable for the officers to believe that there was an injured or dead person because they did not detect an odor of decomposition.
It defies common sense to conclude that, if there is any plausible, nonemergency explanation for the facts presented, no entry can be made until there is definitive proof that a person is present who is in need of emergency aid. The standard “must be applied by reference to the circumstances then confronting the officer, including the need for prompt assessment of sometimes ambiguous information concerning potentially serious consequences. As one court usefully put it, the question is whether the officers would have been derelict in their duty had they acted otherwise. This means, of course, that it is of no moment that it turns out there was in fact no emergency.” (Footnotes omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) 3 W. LaFave, supra, § 6.6 (a), pp. 629-31; see also Michigan v. Fisher, supra, 558 U.S. 49 (“[o]nly when an apparent threat has become an actual harm can officers rule out innocuous explanations for ominous circumstances“); United States v. Cooks, 920 F.3d 735, 743 (11th Cir.) (“we must be mindful that the police must act quickly, based on hurried and incomplete information” (internal quotation marks omitted)), cert. denied, U.S. , 140 S. Ct. 218, 205 L. Ed. 2d 137 (2019). The defendant‘s position could prove especially deadly when an elderly person is the potential victim. See R. Gurley et al., “Persons Found in Their Home Helpless or Dead,” 334 New Eng. J. Med. 1710, 1710 (June, 1996) (study of patients found in their homes helpless determined that such circumstances increased with age and that total mortality was 67 percent for patients who were estimated to have been helpless for more than seventy-two hours, as compared with 12 percent for those who had been helpless for less than one hour).
We conclude that, under the totality of the circumstances, it was objectively reasonable for the officers to conclude that there was an emergency justifying their initial entry into the defendant‘s home. In light of this conclusion, the subsequent entries were similarly justified. We therefore need not consider the state‘s alternative arguments that the defendant‘s criminal conduct subsequent to the initial entry established an emergency that justified the subsequent entries or that the search and seizure were proper under the inevitable discovery or the independent source doctrines.
The judgment is affirmed.
In this opinion the other justices concurred.
Notes
We note that there does not appear to be any material distinction between courts’ use of the terms “emergency aid” doctrine or exception and “emergency” doctrine or exception.
We note that the evidence indicates that three neighbors spoke with the police to express concern about Samuolis’ absence: Curtis, who lived next door to the Samuolis home, and Shirley Lebiszczak and Andy Lebiszczak, who lived directly across the cul-de-sac from the Samuolis home. Only Curtis testified. He stated that he had lived next door to the Samuolis family for seventeen years at the time of the incident. Curtis indicated that he had minimal direct contact with the family. In the three or four years preceding the incident, following the death of Samuolis’ wife, Curtis would see Samuolis driving his car up the road once a week and returning thereafter with a cup of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. Curtis told the officers that he found it odd that the car had not been moved “for some time.” It would be reasonable to infer from Curtis’ testimony that the car had not been moved in the month or more during which Samuolis had not been seen. It also would be reasonable to infer from the fact that the neighbors were concerned enough about Samuolis’ absence to ask the police to investigate that this extended absence was an anomaly.