Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN OFFICIAL REPORTS
Humboldt County Super. Ct. No. CR073887
Haerle, Acting P.J.
I. INTRODUCTION
Following the denial of his motion to suppress, appellant Keith Cole Christian pled guilty to possession of heroin (Health & Saf. Code, § 11350, subd. (a), (the lesser included offense to the offense charged in count one)) and no contest to possession for sale of methadone (§ 11351 (count two)). On appeal, he contends his motion to suppress should have been granted because the evidence was seized pursuant to a search warrant which was tainted by a prior illegal warrantless entry into his motel room. We disagree and hence affirm the judgment.
Except as otherwise specified, all further statutory references are to the Health and Safety Code.
II. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
On September 4, 2007, by an information filed in Humboldt County Superior Court, appellant was charged in count one with possession for sale of heroin (section 11351); in count two with possession for sale of methadone (§ 11351); in count three with possession for sale of morphine (§ 11351); in count four with possession for sale of Phenobarbital (§ 11351); in count five with possession for sale of MDMA/Ecstasy (§ 11378); in count six with possession for sale of Klonopin (§ 11375, subd. (b)(1)); in count seven with possession for sale of Alprazolam (§ 11375, subd. (b)(1)); in count eight with possession of methamphetamine (§ 11377, subd. (a)); in count nine with maintaining a place for the storage of a controlled substance (§ 11366.5, subd. (a)); and in count ten with possession of a hypodermic needle (Bus. & Prof. Code, § 4140), a misdemeanor. The information also alleged a prior conviction within the meaning of section 11370.2, subdivision (a), as to counts one through five and a prior prison term within the meaning of Penal Code section 667.5, subdivision (b), as to counts one through nine. At his arraignment on September 4, 2007, appellant pled not guilty and denied the priors.
Counts one through nine were felony offenses.
On October 9, 2007, appellant filed a motion to suppress evidence pursuant to Penal Code section 1538.5.
Eureka Police Officer Gary Cooper testified at the suppression hearing that on August 3, 2007, at around 2:45 p.m., he was dispatched to the Discovery Inn on a report that “there were two people at the Discovery Inn trying to break into a room.” On his way there, Officer Cooper learned from an officer who was already at the scene that the two suspects had gone around to the back of the motel. Two men were taken into custody outside the bathroom window of appellant’s motel room. The screen and molding had been taken off the window.
Officer Cooper spoke with both men. The first identified himself as “Cory Sellars,” which Officer Cooper testified was not his real name. “Sellars” told Officer Cooper he was there with the other man and that “supposedly [appellant] had sometime earlier put a gun in his friend’s house and threatened to kill his family.” The other man identified himself as Corbin Stoner and said he had “heard that the person in that room [appellant] had a lot of money and a lot of drugs, and they were there to rob him.”
Officer Cooper observed that Stoner had a large sheathed knife concealed in his pants pocket under his shirt. Stoner was dressed in black clothing, was wearing gloves, and had a ski mask in his back pocket. He also had an empty black duffel bag on the ground. Officer Cooper testified that “Sellars” also had a knife, but it had been “tossed aside” and officers were not able to recover it from the heavy bushes and brush.
The officers “felt that [they] should welfare check [appellant] to make sure that he was okay.” The officers knocked on the door of room 134 a number of times and yelled to announce their presence in an effort to get appellant’s attention. Officer Cooper estimated that the officers spent “maybe 30 seconds” knocking on the door and windows without getting any response. Officer Cooper eventually asked one of the hotel employees to open the door for the officers.
Once the door was open, Officer Cooper looked inside and saw appellant lying on the bed with his arms crossed across his chest. Officer Cooper yelled into the room to try to get appellant’s attention, to try to wake him up, but appellant did not respond. At that point, “[b]ased on the information that someone was there to rob him,” and that “they were each armed with knives,” Officer Cooper entered the room to “make sure he [appellant] was okay, to shake him awake.”
As Officer Cooper approached the bed, he saw “a large knife laying [sic] on the bed.” Officer Cooper picked up the knife and put it on top of the television, which was two or three feet away from the end of the bed. When Officer Cooper placed the knife on the television, he saw a rounded tin with a lid and what he believed was methamphetamine also on top of the television.
Based on this observation, the officers obtained a search warrant for appellant’s hotel room. When the warrant was executed, officers found methamphetamine, Ecstasy (MDMA), Klonopin, Alprazolam, methadone, morphine, heroin, clonidine, pseudoephedrine, Phenobarbital, hydrochlorothiazide, Dolophine, hypodermic syringes, and $769 in cash.
Just as Officer Cooper was setting the knife on the television, appellant “sat up on his own accord.” Officer Cooper checked to make sure he was all right, and he was. Officer Cooper did not open any drawers or doors, or go through any of appellant’s personal items. On cross-examination, Officer Cooper acknowledged a second reason for entering the room--to find out if appellant knew the two men who were trying to rob him.
The trial court denied the motion to suppress: “The court finds that Officer Cooper’s warrantless entry into Room 134 was proper, both under the ‘community caretaking function’ exception to the warrant requirement and its subcategory the ‘emergency aid exception.’ People v. Ray (1999) 21 Cal.4th 464, 470-477 [Ray]. Given the circumstances of this case, Officer Cooper viewed the defendant as a potential victim as opposed to a potential suspect. It was reasonable to enter the room to determine whether the occupant was in distress and in need of assistance.”
On October 23, 2007, pursuant to a negotiated disposition, appellant pled guilty to the lesser included offense of violating section 11350, subdivision (a), in count one and no contest to violating section 11351 in count two, with the understanding that there would be a three-year maximum on any prison sentence imposed. Appellant admitted the prior prison term allegation pursuant to Penal Code section 667.5, subdivision (b). On motion by the prosecution, the court dismissed the remaining counts and allegations.
On December 13, 2007, the trial court sentenced appellant to concurrent midterms of three years on each count.
No mention of the prior prison term enhancement, which appellant admitted, was made at the sentencing hearing.
On December 17, 2007, appellant filed a timely notice of appeal based upon the denial of his motion to suppress evidence.
III. DISCUSSION
The search at issue in this appeal is not Officer Cooper’s actual entry into appellant’s motel room; appellant raises no argument that a warrant was required for the officer to enter the room based upon what he saw through the open door. Rather, appellant contends that an illegal search occurred when Officer Cooper looked into the room after causing the door to be unlocked and opened. He argues that the warrantless search was not justified under either the community caretaking exception or the emergency aid exception to the warrant requirement.
A. Standard of Review
In reviewing an order denying a motion to suppress evidence, we view the record in the light most favorable to the trial court’s ruling and defer to the trial court’s findings of fact, both express and implied, if they are supported by substantial evidence. Our review of the trial court’s selection of the applicable legal principles, and the application of those principles to the facts as found, is de novo. (People v. Ayala (2000) 23 Cal.4th 225, 255; People v. Jenkins (2000) 22 Cal.4th 900, 969.) “Under California law, issues relating to the suppression of evidence derived from police searches and seizures must be reviewed under federal constitutional standards.” (People v. Robles (2000) 23 Cal.4th 789, 794.)
B. Legal Principles
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution protects “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures . . . .” (U.S. Const., 4th Amend.) “It is a ‘basic principle of Fourth Amendment law’ that searches and seizures inside a home without a warrant are presumptively unreasonable.” (Payton v. New York (1980) 445 U.S. 573, 586.) The warrant requirement is not absolute, however, and the presumption of unreasonableness may be overcome in a few “ ‘ “specifically established and well-delineated” ’ ” circumstances. (People v. Thompson (2006) 38 Cal.4th 811, 817-818; Brigham City v. Stuart (2006) 547 U.S. 398, 403 (Brigham City), [“[B]ecause the ultimate touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is ‘reasonableness,’ the warrant requirement is subject to certain exceptions.”].)
C. Analysis
1. Community Caretaking Exception
The exception to the warrant requirement relied on in this case by the parties and the trial court is the community caretaking exception. The United States Supreme Court first used the term “community caretaking” in Cady v. Dombrowski (1973) 413 U.S. 433, 447, in ruling that the warrantless search of the trunk of an impounded car was lawful because of safety concerns for the public who might be endangered if an intruder removed a gun from the trunk of the car. The court noted that officers must “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.” (Id. at p. 441.) In Ray, supra, 21 Cal.4th at p. 471, Justice Brown, writing for a plurality, extended the community caretaking exception to residences, similarly concluding that the exception “ ‘is only invoked when the police are not engaged in crime-solving activities.’ ”
In Ray, police officers were dispatched to the defendant’s home in response to a call from a neighbor who stated that “the door has been open all day and it’s all a shambles inside.” (Ray, supra, 21 Cal.4th at p. 468.) Through the open front door, the officers saw clothing and paper strewn on the floor and sofa and the front room appeared to have been ransacked. Based on the officers’ experience, “this circumstance correlated to a ‘95 percent’ likelihood they had encountered a burglary or similar situation.” After knocking and loudly announcing their presence several times, the officers entered the house to check on the welfare of any persons inside and also to determine whether a burglary had occurred or was in progress. (Ibid.) They found no one inside, but did observe a large quantity of money and suspected cocaine in plain view. (Ibid.) They touched nothing and opened no containers. Subsequently, the police obtained a search warrant based on their observations inside the house. (Id. at pp. 468-469.)
Justice Brown concluded that “circumstances short of a perceived emergency may justify a warrantless entry, including the protection of property, as ‘where the police reasonably believe that the premises have recently been or are being burglarized.’ [Citation.] . . . Of necessity, officers may enter premises to resolve the situation and take further action if they discover a burglary has occurred or their assistance is otherwise required. [Citations.]” (Ray, supra, 21 Cal.4th at p. 473.) “The appropriate standard under the community caretaking exception is one of reasonableness: Given the known facts, would a prudent and reasonable officer have perceived a need to act in the proper discharge of his or her community caretaking functions?” (Id. at pp. 476-477.)
By a separate concurring opinion, Chief Justice George, joined by Justices Werdegar and Chin, expressed no opinion on the community caretaking exception but concluded that exigent circumstances justified the warrantless entry. (Ray, supra, 21 Cal.4th at pp. 480-482 (conc. opn. of George C.J.).) In his dissenting opinion, Justice Mosk concluded that there was no exigency and rejected the creation of a community caretaking exception. (Id. at pp. 482-488 (dis. opn. of Mosk J.).)
Here, the trial court found that Officer Cooper viewed appellant as a potential victim and that he acted reasonably in having the door unlocked and looking into the room out of concern for appellant’s well-being. His conduct was limited to achieving the objective which justified the search--ascertaining whether appellant was in need of assistance. (Ray, supra, 21 Cal.4th at p. 477 [“ ‘[T]he officer may do no more than is reasonably necessary to ascertain whether someone is in need of assistance [or property is at risk] and to provide that assistance [or to protect that property].’ ”].)
Appellant argues that we should not recognize the Ray plurality’s community caretaking exception for three reasons: (1) the lead opinion is not binding; (2) Justice Mosk’s dissent in Ray is better reasoned than Justice Brown’s opinion; and (3) the United States Supreme Court has not recognized the community caretaking exception in the context of a warrantless search of a residence. In turn, the Attorney General contends that the United States Supreme Court based its decision in Brigham City on the community caretaking exception and that the lead opinion in Ray is persuasive authority.
Although the plurality opinion in Ray is not binding precedent because it garnered fewer than four votes (9 Witkin, Cal. Procedure, Appeal (4th ed. 1997) Decision of Divided Court, § 974, pp. 1023-1025; Board of Supervisors v. Local Agency Formation Com. (1992) 3 Cal.4th 903, 918), we view it as persuasive authority. In addition, although the lead and concurring opinions employed different rationales, we find it significant that six justices voted to uphold the search in Ray under analogous exceptions to the warrant requirement. The concurring opinion did not dispute the lead opinion’s reliance on the community caretaking exception; rather, it upheld the search based on the exigent circumstances exception. Both the trial court and the court of appeal in Ray relied on exigent circumstances in finding the warrantless search justified; neither lower court decision was based on community caretaking. That said, as we shall explain, the community caretaking exception is one ground upon which we affirm the trial court’s ruling, but it is not critical to our decision.
Appellant argues that, assuming the community caretaking exception is valid, it is not applicable here because Officer Cooper did not testify to any “specific and articulable facts” that pointed to a possibility that the suspects had already entered the hotel room and harmed appellant. Further, such a conclusion was unreasonable, according to appellant, because the suspects were apprehended prior to entering the room. Substantial evidence supports the trial court’s rejection of this argument. Officer Cooper testified that, although the bathroom window was closed, he did not know if the suspects had been able to get the window open or if they had been able to enter the room. He also stated that he did not know whether the window was locked or just appeared to be closed. The trial court reasonably concluded that the information Officer Cooper had at the time “warranted further inquiry” into whether someone inside the room required assistance. (See Ray, supra, 21 Cal.4th at p. 478.)
Appellant also argues that, when there was no response to the officers’ knocking on appellant’s door, there was no reasonable basis for believing that anyone inside might be injured or need help. Appellant suggests a number of possibilities, other than an injury, for the lack of a response to the knocking. However, again, we draw the inferences in favor of the trial court’s ruling. The lack of a response was consistent with a reasonable belief that someone inside the room might well need help.
Next, appellant contends that Officer Cooper’s investigatory purpose for entering the room, to find out whether appellant knew the two men who were there to rob him, rendered any reliance on the community caretaking exception improper. In Ray, Justice Brown drew a sharp distinction between the community caretaking exception and the exigent circumstances exception: “With respect to Fourth Amendment guaranties, this is the key distinction: “the defining characteristic of community caretaking functions is that they are totally unrelated to the criminal investigation duties of the police.” Further, “[a]ny intention of engaging in crime-solving activities will defeat the community caretaking exception even in cases of mixed motives.” (Ray, supra, 21 Cal.4th at p. 477.)
We decline to read this language in Ray as narrowly as appellant suggests because, in our view, to do so would invalidate application of this exception in Ray itself. Examining Justice Brown’s recitation of the facts in Ray, one of the officers testified that, upon arrival at the scene, he “ ‘was concerned for possibly the life and property on the inside of the house, welfare of the people inside.’ ” (Ray, supra, 21 Cal.4th at p. 468.) There was no sign of forced entry, and no response when the officers knocked several times and loudly announced their presence. “Increasingly concerned, they entered to conduct a security check ‘to see if anyone inside might be injured, disabled, or unable to obtain help’ and to determine whether a burglary had been committed or was in progress.” (Ibid., emphasis added.) We find the circumstances under which the officers in Ray entered the residence remarkably similar those present when Officer Cooper looked into appellant’s room. In both cases, the officers effected a search to check on the welfare of any occupants and to investigate a suspected burglary.
The key to the apparent inconsistency may lie in a clarification the Ray court provided regarding an officer’s investigatory and non-investigatory capacities: “ ‘When in the context of a possible burglary or breaking and entering, the police enter a home or other structure in order to come to the aid of a possibly injured or threatened owner or to protect the property of that owner, they are, in one sense of the term, quite obviously investigating the possibility that a crime has occurred. Their purpose vis-à-vis the burglar they may catch is, of course, “investigatory.” [¶] With respect, on the other hand, to the presumably innocent victims of possible crimes, where persons and/or property are in apparent danger, the police intervention is “non-investigatory” in its purpose and the constraints and hesitation that routinely inhibit a criminal investigation are inappropriate.’ [Citations.]” (Ray, supra, 21 Cal.4th at p. 476, fn. 4.)
Here, Officer Cooper’s purpose with respect to appellant, the presumably innocent victim, was “non-investigatory.”
2. Emergency Aid Exception
The trial court also based its denial of the suppression motion on the emergency aid exception, and cited specifically to the plurality opinion in Ray. In that opinion, Justice Brown expressed the view that the emergency aid exception was not properly understood to be an exigent circumstance, but rather was a subcategory of the community caretaking exception. She concluded that this exception was inapplicable in Ray because the officers lacked probable cause to believe an occupant of the residence was seriously injured or imminently threatened with such injury.
A more recent United States Supreme Court opinion addressed the emergency aid exception as an exigent circumstance: “ ‘[W]arrants are generally required to search a person’s home or his person unless “the exigencies of the situation” make the needs of law enforcement so compelling that the warrantless search is objectively reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.’ ” (Brigham City, supra, 547 U.S. at p. 403.) Under this exception, police officers may enter a home without a warrant to render emergency assistance when they have an objectively reasonable basis for believing the occupant is seriously injured or imminently threatened with such injury. (Id. at pp. 404-406.) “ ‘ “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. at p. 403.)
Because our Fourth Amendment jurisprudence is governed by federal law, we will address the emergency aid exception within the framework of exigent circumstances.
California courts have upheld warrantless searches under a traditional exigent circumstances analysis when police officers respond to a report of a suspected burglary and, prior to entering the residence, observe physical signs of a burglary. In People v. Duncan (1986) 42 Cal.3d 91, 98-99, the officer responded to a report of a burglary in progress at a residence. Upon arrival, the officer saw a television set and other items outside a back window and entered the house to search for suspects. Inside the house, he found himself in the midst of a methamphetamine laboratory. (Ibid.) In Tamborino v. Superior Court (1986) 41 Cal.3d 919, 921-922, police responded to a residence on a report of a robbery and a wounded victim. The police encountered an individual at the scene who was wounded and bleeding, but they did not know if he was a victim or a suspect. The officer conducted a limited search of the residence to determine whether there were any other wounded persons on the premises. (Ibid.; see also Ray, supra, 21 Cal.4th at p. 481 (conc. opn. of George, C.J.) [“[T]he officers were justified in entering the residence without a warrant because they reasonably believed that a burglary was in progress or that a burglary had occurred and there might be occupants in need of assistance inside the residence.”].)
Appellant contends the emergency aid exception does not apply here because the officers had no objectively reasonable basis for believing that someone inside the room was seriously injured or imminently threatened with injury. He contrasts the facts in the instant case with those in Brigham City, in which officers responded at 3:00 in the morning to complaints about a loud party and witnessed an altercation in the kitchen involving four adults struggling to restrain a juvenile, who broke loose and punched one of the adults, sending him to the sink spitting blood. (Brigham City, supra, 547 U.S. at p. 406.)
We disagree with appellant that the search here, the unlocking of the door and looking inside, was not justified by the need to determine whether an emergency existed inside the room. We find persuasive the reasoning of People v. Gemmill (2008) 162 Cal.App.4th 958 (Gemmill), a recent case by our colleagues in the Third District. In Gemmill, after finding an unattended two-year-old child wandering in the neighborhood, a police officer reasonably suspected that something might be awry inside the child’s house when no one answered his knocking and yelling at the front door. He searched the home by looking through a side window from an area to which the public was not impliedly invited, and saw an infant playing with a plastic bag and a nonresponsive adult male inside the house. (Id. at pp. 961, 967.)
The Gemmill court framed the issue as “whether [the officer] could--after finding an unattended child--search defendant’s home by looking through a side window not impliedly accessible to the public when the information available to him was sufficient to support a reasonable suspicion that someone inside might be seriously injured or imminently threatened with such injury, but insufficient to support a reasonable belief that someone inside was seriously injured or threatened with such injury.” (Gemmill, supra, 162 Cal.App.4th at p. 970.) The court answered the question in the affirmative, concluding that the degree of intrusion should inform the determination of whether the search was justified by exigent circumstances. (Id. at p. 970, quoting Terry v. Ohio (1968) 392 U.S. 1, 18-19, fn. 5 [“ ‘In our view the sounder course is to recognize that the Fourth Amendment governs all intrusions by agents of the public upon personal security, and to make the scope of the particular intrusion, in light of all the exigencies of the case, a central element in the analysis of reasonableness’ ”].)
With respect to the degree of intrusion, the Gemmill court observed that, in adopting the emergency aid doctrine, the United States Supreme Court concluded that “ ‘police may enter a home without a warrant when they have an objectively reasonable basis for believing that an occupant is seriously injured or imminently threatened with such injury.’ ” (Gemmill, supra, 162 Cal.App.4th at p. 970, quoting Brigham City, supra, 547 U.S. at p. 398.) The court contrasted that situation with its own, where the officer’s initial search, looking through the window, was “far less intrusive than a physical entry of the home.” (Gemmill at p. 970.) The scope of the search was proportional to the exigency confronting the officer, concluded the court. “While a reasonable belief someone inside a home is seriously injured or imminently threatened with such injury justifies entry into the home to render aid, a reasonable suspicion someone inside a home may be seriously injured or imminently threatened with such injury justifies a more limited search to confirm or dispel the suspicion. [Citations.]” (Id. at p. 971.)
We find this reasoning persuasive. Officer Cooper’s initial search, opening the door and looking into the room, was much less invasive than a physical entry into the room. As in Gemmill, the scope of this search was proportional to the exigency before him. (Gemmill, supra, 162 Cal.App.4th at p. 971.) Officer Cooper lawfully conducted a limited search based on a reasonable suspicion that someone inside the room was seriously injured or threatened with such injury. The warrantless search of the room was justified and the trial court properly denied the motion to suppress.
IV. DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
We concur: Lambden, J., Richman, J.