The community-caretaking/emergency-aid exception to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement allows a law-enforcement officer with objectively reasonable grounds to believe that there is an immediate need for his or her assistance to protect life or prevent serious injury to effect a community-caretaking/emergency-aid stop. 131 Ohio St.3d 325, 2012-Ohio-1008, ¶ 26, 964 N.E.2d 1037. In concluding that the community caretaking exception did not supply a valid basis for Trooper Byers's stop of Moiduddin's vehicle, the trial court found that the "totality of the circumstances * * * d[id] not suggest that there was an immediate need for assistance to protect life or prevent serious injury."

'Numerous state and federal cases have recognized 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.'" State v. Dunn, 131 Ohio St.3d 325, 2012-Ohio-1008, 964 N.E.2d 1037, ¶ 18, quoting Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385, 392, 98 S.Ct. 2408, 57 L.Ed.2d 290 (1978). "The need to protect or preserve life or avoid serious injury is justification for what would be otherwise illegal absent an exigency or emergency." Id., quoting Wayne v. United States, 318 F.2d 205, 212 (D.C.Cir.1963).

However, there are several exceptions to the rule, including the "emergency-aid exception" or the "exigent-circumstance exception." State v. Dunn, 131 Ohio St.3d 325, 2012-Ohio-1008, 964 N.E.2d 1037, ¶13-15. {¶21} "[I]n Michigan v. Fisher, 558 U.S. 45, 130 S.Ct. 546, 175 L.Ed.2d 410 (2009), the [U.S. Supreme C]ourt upheld an officer's warrantless entry into the defendant's residence as reasonable when the police officers who were responding to a call regarding a disturbance observed a tumultuous situation when they arrived at the home, including blood on a damaged vehicle parked in the driveway and witnesses reporting that the defendant was 'going crazy' inside. * * * The Fisher court noted that '[o]fficers do not need ironclad proof of "a likely serious, life-threatening" injury to invoke the emergency aid exception.' * * * Rather, '[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.

{¶23} But police may also stop a vehicle pursuant to their community caretaker function. The Ohio Supreme Court recently examined the community caretaker function in State v. Dunn, 131 Ohio St.3d 325, 2012-Ohio-1008, 964 N.E.2d 1037, ¶17: The [United State Supreme Court in Cady v. Dombrowski, 413 U.S. 433, 93 S.Ct. 2523, 37 L.Ed.2d 706 (1973)] court explained that local law-enforcement officers "frequently investigate vehicle accidents in which there is no claim of criminal liability and 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."

Instead, O'Malley points to Standard 23-1.1 of the American Bar Association ("ABA") Criminal Justice Standards on Treatment of Prisoners. Courts have relied on the persuasive authority of the ABA's Criminal Justice Standards in countless federal and state opinions. E.g., Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 689 (1984) (referencing ABA Criminal Justice Standards when describing norms of criminal defense representation and stating that "[prevailing norms of practice as reflected in American Bar Association standards and the like . . . are guides to determining what is reasonable, but they are only guides"); State v. Dunn, 964 N.E.2d 1037 (Ohio 2012) (citing ABA Standards for Criminal Justice § 1-2.2 for the proposition that "police officers are duty-bound to provide emergency services to those who are in danger of physical harm" in analysis of community-caretakinglemergency-aid exception to warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment). However, as influential as the ABA's Criminal Justice Standards have been to courts, they are only persuasive authority.

Ohio courts also recognize that the community-caretaker exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement may justify seizure of a person. E.g., State v. Dunn, 131 Ohio St.3d 325, 964 N.E.2d 1037, 2012–Ohio–1008 (2012) (applying exception to police seizure of suicidal man); State v. Engle, No. 25226, 2013–Ohio–1818, 2013 WL 1870544 (Ohio Ct.App. May 3, 2013) (community-caretaking function justified seizure of injured, bleeding man to determine need for immediate medical attention). Furthermore, in United States v. Garner, 416 F.3d 1208 (10th Cir.2005), a police officer responded to reports of a man seen unconscious and slumped over.

eb. 372, 730 N.W.2d 335, 338 (2007) (“[W]e hereby adopt the community caretaking exception to the Fourth Amendment.”); State v. Rincon, 122 Nev. 1170, 147 P.3d 233, 237 (2006) (adopting the community caretaking exception to the Fourth Amendment); State v. Boutin, 161 N.H. 139, 13 A.3d 334, 337 (2010) (discussing prior New Hampshire cases applying the community caretaking exception); State v. Edmonds, 211 N.J. 117, 47 A.3d 737, 752 (2012) (“The community-caretaking doctrine is an exception to the warrant requirement, not a roving commission to conduct a nonconsensual search of a home in the absence of exigent circumstances.”); Ryon, 2005–NMSC–005, ¶ 20, 108 P.3d at 1041 (acknowledging that its earlier description of community caretaking as a form of consensual encounter “was wrong” and cautioning that certain prior decisions should “not be viewed as limiting the community caretaker exception to voluntary or consensual police-citizen encounters”); State v. Dunn, 2012–Ohio–1008, at ¶ 22, 131 Ohio St.3d 325, 964 N.E.2d 1037, 1042 (2012) (“Thus, we hold that the community-caretaking/emergency-aid exception to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement allows police officers to stop a person to render aid if they reasonably believe that there is an immediate need for their assistance to protect life or prevent serious injury.”); Coffia v. State, 2008 OK CR 24, ¶¶ 10–13, 191 P.3d 594, 597–98 (2008) (discussing the community caretaking exception to the Fourth Amendment); State v. Wood, 149 P.3d 1265, 1267–68 (Or.Ct.App.2006) (describing an Oregon statute as a community caretaking exception to the warrant requirement); State v. Deneui, 2009 SD 99, ¶ 33, 775 N.W.2d 221, 235 (2009) (“The community caretaker exception has been recognized only in the context of automobiles by the United States Supreme Court.” (citing Cady v. Dombrowski, 413 U.S. 433, 441, 93 S.Ct. 2523, 37 L.Ed.2d 706 (1973)));

'[C]ourts recognize that a community-caretaking/emergency aid exception to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement is necessary to allow police to respond to emergency situations where life or limb is in jeopardy.' " Weese at ¶ 13, quoting State v. Dunn, 131 Ohio St.3d 325, 2012-Ohio-1008, ¶ 21. "The bounds of an officer's ability to investigate, pursuant to the community caretaking function, are not limitless." Id. "A police officer must possess 'objectively reasonable grounds to believe that there is an immediate need for his or her assistance to protect life or prevent serious injury to effect a community-caretaking/emergency-aid stop.

{¶19} There are a number of exceptions to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement, including the community-caretaking exception, also referred to as the "emergency-aid exception" or "exigent-circumstance exception." See State v. Dunn, 131 Ohio St.3d 325, 2012-Ohio-1008, ¶15. {¶20} In this case, following the suppression hearing, the trial judge made the following observations from the bench: