People v. Kluhsman, 98SA417

• Decision Date: 29 March 1999
• Docket Number: No. 98SA417,98SA417
• Citation: 980 P.2d 529
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Gregory Mark KLUHSMAN, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: Colorado Supreme Court

Page 529

980 P.2d 529

The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Gregory Mark KLUHSMAN, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 98SA417.

Supreme Court of Colorado En Banc.

March 29, 1999.

Robert S. Grant, District Attorney, Seventeenth Judicial District, Michael J. Milne, Senior Deputy District Attorney, Brighton, Colorado, Attorneys for Plaintiff-Appellant.

David F. Vela, Colorado State Public Defender, Raymond F. Joachim, Deputy State Public Defender, Brighton, Colorado, Attorneys for Defendant-Appellee.

Justice KOURLIS delivered the Opinion of the Court.

This case comes before us on interlocutory appeal from a trial court order suppressing evidence in a prosecution for possession of explosive or incendiary devices. We conclude that in seizing evidence of bomb-making from the defendant's house, the police acted in conformity with the exigent circumstances and plain view exceptions to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement. Accordingly, we reverse the trial court's suppression order with regard to that evidence.

I.

On August 24, 1997, officers from the Aurora Police Department responded to a call at 1821 Memphis Street regarding a man hiding in some bushes. Officer Jad Lanigan arrived on the scene first at approximately 8:30 a.m. and discovered about twenty people standing in the street, some of whom were clothed in their bathrobes. A resident of the area told Officer Lanigan that his neighbor, later identified as defendant Gregory Mark Kluhsman, was hiding in the resident's shed. Officer Lanigan testified that when he asked the resident the reason for his neighbor's behavior, he replied that Kluhsman had "gone crazy."

The record indicates that as Officer Lanigan approached the resident's shed, the door to the shed burst open and Kluhsman rushed out, charging at Officer Lanigan with what appeared to be a baseball bat or a pipe. After a short struggle, Officer Lanigan took Kluhsman into custody with the help of Officer Andrew Crowley, who had arrived shortly after Officer Lanigan's first contact with Kluhsman. The officers testified that Kluhsman stated that people had been chasing him all night, that they were trying to kill him, and that he had killed a couple of his pursuers. Kluhsman also told the police that there were many people in his home, whom he said had engaged in sexual acts and urinated inside the house. Furthermore, Officer Lanigan noted that Kluhsman was covered with both dried and wet blood, that he had cuts on his skin, and that he was sweating profusely. The police called an ambulance, which soon arrived to take Kluhsman to the hospital.

Kluhsman's remarks and appearance led Officer Lanigan to be concerned for the safety of any people who might have been inside Kluhsman's house. Officer Lanigan repeated Kluhsman's statements to fellow officers who had arrived on the scene. Acting upon that information, Officer Jerry Kirby and one or two other officers entered Kluhsman's residence to look for injured people. Officer Kirby testified that once they were inside the house, they observed a number of guns "laid about," and a mercury switch, tape, alligator clips, and wiring on top of the dining room table.

Officers Lanigan and Crowley soon joined the officers inside Kluhsman's home. Officer Lanigan undertook only a brief check of the house before proceeding to the hospital to question Kluhsman. ¹ Officer Crowley searched the attic and a crawl space under the floor and found a firearm. ² He then helped Officer Kirby and the officers with him remove the firearms from the premises. At that time, the officers did not seize materials that they suspected to be physical components of explosives because of the potential danger.

As Officer Kirby and his fellow officers proceeded through the residence, they found diagrams and directions for bomb-making on top of a computer table, as well as what appeared to be an active pipe bomb on top of a box in a storage area of the home. Moreover, in that same area, the officers observed wires coming from the door toward what they thought was a firearm, wires from the door leading outside of the house, and "a lot of gunpowder" along the work bench in the room. Officer Kirby testified that the discovery of the bomb and "booby trap" materials prompted the police to notify the bomb squad and to evacuate the neighborhood because of the potential danger to the community. ³ After the bomb squad secured the area, the police seized the bomb-making materials from the house. The bomb squad eventually detonated the active pipe bomb the police had found in the storage area of Kluhsman's house.

Kluhsman was charged with possession of explosive or incendiary devices in contravention of § 18-12-109, 6 C.R.S. (1998). Prior to trial, Kluhsman moved to suppress the evidence that the police discovered on his property and the statements that he allegedly made to law enforcement personnel. The findings of the trial court relevant to this appeal are the following: (1) that the warrantless entry of Officer Lanigan "and possibly some of the other officers" into Kluhsman's home was permissible because of exigent circumstances regarding the potential presence of injured individuals inside the residence; (2) that the police permissibly discovered the mercury switch, tape, and alligator clips on the dining room table and the diagrams and instructions on the computer table in plain view; (3) that once Officer Kirby first discovered what looked like bomb-making equipment in plain view, he was obligated to stop the search and obtain a warrant for the search of the rest of the house; and (4) that because Officer Kirby and the other officers continued the warrantless search of Kluhsman's home after finding bomb-making equipment in plain view, and because Officer Lanigan did not obtain Kluhsman's consent to search until after the other officers had searched the home, all of the items police found in the house after Officer Kirby first discovered the mercury switch, tape, and alligator clips were the fruits of an invalid search. Thus, the trial court suppressed the pipe bomb and the booby trap materials police found in the storage area of Kluhsman's home. ⁴

Pursuant to C.A.R. 4.1, the People filed an interlocutory appeal of the trial court's suppression order. We conclude that in this case, the police were justified in searching without a warrant any area large enough to accommodate an injured person, and that the court should not have suppressed any evidence that the police found in plain view during the course of such a search. Moreover, the plain view discovery of bomb-making equipment created a new exigent circumstance, the danger of explosion, which provided an independent justification for police to continue to search the house. We therefore reverse the trial court's suppression order with regard to the evidence of explosives that police found in Kluhsman's storage area, and we remand for further proceedings.

II.

In this appeal, the parties do not dispute that exigent circumstances justified the officers' initial entry into Kluhsman's home and that consequently the police made a valid plain view discovery of the mercury switch, tape, alligator clips, and bomb-making instructions. Rather, the question before us is the propriety of the trial court's suppression of evidence that the police found in Kluhsman's home subsequent to their initial plain view discovery of incriminating evidence.

The People argue that the seizure of the incriminating evidence in Kluhsman's residence was reasonable because police acted pursuant both to the exigent circumstances and to the plain view exceptions to the warrant requirement. They contend that once the police legitimately entered the home to search for injured people, they were entitled to complete such a search of the entire premises. Accordingly, the People argue, the trial court erred in ruling that police were obligated to stop searching and to obtain a warrant as soon as they discovered the first evidence of explosives in Kluhsman's home. Moreover, the People allege, the discovery of materials related to bomb-making in the house created an additional justification for the police to search Kluhsman's home for any active explosive devices that might threaten public safety. Thus, police seized all evidence from Kluhsman's home in accordance with established exceptions to the warrant requirement. Under the circumstances of this case, we agree.

A.

In order to pass constitutional muster, searches and seizures of private property must be reasonable. See U.S. Const. amend. IV; Colo. Const. art. II, § 7; see also, e.g., People v. Archuleta, 980 P.2d 509, 512 (Colo.1999). A warrantless search and seizure is unreasonable unless justified by an established exception to the Warrant Clause of the Fourth Amendment. See, e.g., People v. Salazar, 964 P.2d 502, 504 (Colo.1998).

One such exception applies when exigent circumstances exist that necessitate immediate police action. See, e.g., People v. Jansen, 713 P.2d 907, 911 (Colo.1986). In these circumstances, evidence discovered in the course of a warrantless search is admissible if the prosecution establishes both probable cause to support the search and exigent circumstances justifying the unauthorized entry. See People v. Crawford, 891 P.2d 255, 258 (Colo.1995); Jansen, 713 P.2d at 911. There are three situations in which exigent circumstances justify a warrantless search: (1) the police are engaged in "hot pursuit" of a fleeing suspect; (2) there is a risk of immediate destruction of evidence; or (3) there is a colorable claim of emergency threatening the life or safety of another. See, e.g., People v. Lewis, 975 P.2d 160, 168 (Colo. 1999); People v. Schafer, 946 P.2d 938, 945 (Colo.1997). The scope of the intrusion must be strictly circumscribed by the exigency justifying the initiation of the warrantless intrusion. See People v. Wright, 804 P.2d 866, 869 (Colo.1991); People v. Higbee, 802...