Com. v. Bates

• Decision Date: 12 January 1990
• Docket Number: No. 87-426,87-426
• Citation: 548 N.E.2d 889,28 Mass.App.Ct. 217
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. James H. BATES, Jr.
• Court: Appeals Court of Massachusetts

Page 889

548 N.E.2d 889

28 Mass.App.Ct. 217

COMMONWEALTH v. James H. BATES, Jr.

No. 87-426.

Appeals Court of Massachusetts,

Essex.

Argued Sept. 18, 1989.

Decided Jan. 12, 1990.

Susan B. Persky, for defendant.

Robert J. Bender, Asst. Dist. Atty., for Comw.

Before DREBEN, CUTTER and SMITH, JJ.

DREBEN, Justice.

This appeal presents the question whether there was an emergency justifying officers of the Newburyport police to enter a missing woman's apartment without a warrant. Upon entry they found the defendant lying intoxicated on a couch, his body covering a handgun and some ammunition. They also found another gun in a closet of a different room of the apartment. In his appeal from two convictions of unlawful possession of a firearm (one for each gun) and from his conviction of unlawful possession of ammunition, the defendant claims the motion judge erred in denying his motion to suppress the guns and ammunition. He also appeals from the denial of his motion for a new trial based on allegations of ineffective assistance of counsel.

In denying the motion to suppress, the judge made no findings. Since the evidence at the hearing on the motion to suppress, even in its light most favorable to the Commonwealth, does not, in our view, permit a conclusion that the Commonwealth sustained its burden of showing that the search fell within the "emergency exception" to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment, see Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385, 392, 98 S.Ct. 2408, 2413, 57 L.Ed.2d 290 (1978), no useful purpose would be served by remanding the case for additional findings. See Commonwealth v. Hosey, 368 Mass. 571, 574 n. 1, 334 N.E.2d 44 (1975). We set aside the convictions. ¹

We turn to the evidence. At the hearing on the motion to suppress, the two police officers from Newburyport who made the warrantless entry testified to what was known to the police at that time. Officer Donald L. Ray was on the midnight to 8:00 A.M. shift on April 16, 1985. At approximately 12:20 A.M. he was told by his police dispatcher to try to locate a woman who was reported missing or kidnapped from a restaurant. The woman had been out to dinner in Hampton, New Hampshire, with a James Bates (the defendant), had left the table to go to the ladies' room, and had not returned. Bates had called the Hampton police who, in turn, informed the Newburyport police that the woman, a resident of Newburyport, was missing.

Accompanied by Officer Harrison Whitney, Officer Ray went to the missing woman's apartment complex, rang the buzzer to her apartment, and, receiving no answer, rang the bell of the building manager's apartment. The manager let the officers into the complex. Officer Ray knocked twice on the door of the woman's apartment. He heard a television set. The volume seemed to increase between the first knock and the second knock. Officer Ray then tried the door, found it to be unlocked and entered the apartment. The defendant was lying intoxicated on a couch on top of a handgun and some ammunition.

Both Officers Ray and Whitney testified that, although they did not know it at the time they entered the apartment, the call from the Hampton, New Hampshire, police had been made to the Newburyport police at about 9:00 P.M., on April 15, 1985. Three hours and twenty minutes later Officers Ray and Whitney were sent into the apartment.

Unless this entry fell within "a well defined exception" to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment, it was a search "conducted outside the judicial process without prior approval by judge or magistrate" and was "per se unreasonable." Thompson v. Louisiana, 469 U.S. 17, 20, 105 S.Ct. 409, 410, 83 L.Ed.2d 246 (1984). The exception relied on by the Commonwealth is the "emergency" exception ² which applies when the purpose of the police entry is not to gather evidence of criminal activity but rather, because of an emergency, to respond to an immediate need for assistance for the protection of life or property. "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. at 392, 98 S.Ct. at 2413, quoting from Wayne v. United States, 318 F.2d 205, 212 (D.C.Cir.), cert. denied, 375 U.S. 860, 84 S.Ct. 125, 11 L.Ed.2d 86 (1963). Commonwealth v. Kingsbury, 7 Mass. App.Ct. 51, 54, 385 N.E.2d 1020, S.C., 378 Mass. 751, 393 N.E.2d 391 (1979). United States v. Barone, 330 F.2d 543, 545 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 377 U.S. 1004, 84 S.Ct. 1940, 12 L.Ed.2d 1053 (1964). People v. Boyd, 123 Misc.2d 634, 641, 474 N.Y.S.2d 661 (N.Y.Sup.Ct.1984), aff'd, 135 A.D.2d 1149, 523 N.Y.S.2d 22 (N.Y.App.Div.1987). Duquette v. Godbout, 471 A.2d 1359, 1362 (R.I.1984). See generally 2 LaFave, Search and Seizure § 6.6(a) (2d ed.1987 & Supp.1989); Mascolo, The Emergency Doctrine Exception to the Warrant Requirement Under the Fourth Amendment, 22 Buffalo L.Rev. 419, 433-437 (1973); Model Code of Pre-Arraignment Procedure § SS 260.5 (1975). For the exception to apply, the burden of proof is on the Commonwealth to show that the warrantless entry falls within the exception and that there were reasonable grounds for the Newburyport police to believe (an objective standard) that an emergency existed. Root v. Gauper, 438 F.2d 361, 364 (8th Cir.1971). People v. Mitchell, 39 N.Y.2d 173, 177, 383 N.Y.S.2d 246, 347 N.E.2d 607, cert. denied, 426 U.S. 953, 96 S.Ct. 3178, 49 L.Ed.2d 1191 (1976). 2 LaFave, Search & Seizure § 6.6(a), at 698.

Thus, in cases involving missing persons, the showing of a true emergency is required. See, e.g., People v. Smith, 7 Cal.3d 282, 286, 101 Cal.Rptr. 893, 496 P.2d 1261 (1972) (six year old child found crying outside mother's apartment did not establish emergency in absence of evidence to assume mother was incapacitated inside); People v. Clayton, 34 Ill.App.3d 376, 379, 339 N.E.2d 783 (1975) (emergency found where woman had been missing six hours, defendant had history of harassing her, including holding her at gunpoint); People v. Mitchell, 39 N.Y.2d at 177, 383 N.Y.S.2d 246, 347 N.E.2d 607 (emergency found where highly probable that missing hotel employee was in hotel and some grave misfortune had befallen her); State v. Beede, 119 N.H. 620, 627-629, 406 A.2d 125 (1979), cert. denied, 445 U.S. 967, 100 S.Ct. 1659, 64 L.Ed.2d 244 (1980) (no emergency found where police waited many hours before conducting search--emergency can disappear with the passage of time); Commonwealth v. Maxwell, 505 Pa. 152, 164, 477 A.2d 1309, cert. denied, 469 U.S. 971, 105 S.Ct. 370, 83 L.Ed.2d 306 (1984) (police had reason to believe that missing person was in the defendant's house and in need of immediate aid where person's last whereabouts were traced to defendant's house, his credit card had been used by someone other than himself, and where defendant's daughter had told the police that an unfamiliar large trash bag was in the basement and that she had found unidentified shoes and a briefcase in the house); Duquette v. Godbout, 471 A.2d at 1361 (emergency found where woman shouting and banging on door of apartment believing her sixteen year old daughter was inside and screaming).

We recognize that the determination of what is constitutionally sufficient to justify a search has been held to be "less stringent" where the police are looking for missing persons rather than engaging in a criminal search for evidence. Duquette v. Godbout, 471 A.2d at 1362. State v. Beede, 119 N.H. at 626-627, 406 A.2d 125. See generally Bacigal, The Emergency Exception to the Fourth Amendment, 9 U. Rich. L.Rev. 249, 268 (1975). Indeed, we have no doubt that the circumstances described by officers Ray and Whitney made it appropriate to look into the apartment to see if there was evidence leading to the missing woman. "But the Fourth Amendment requires that this judgment ... be made in the first instance by a neutral magistrate." Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. at 395, 98 S.Ct. at 2415. "We cannot be true to that constitutional requirement and excuse the absence of a search warrant without a showing by those who seek exemption from the constitutional mandate that the exigencies of the situation made that course imperative." McDonald v. United States, 335 U.S. 451,...