State v. Hardin

• Decision Date: 17 January 1974
• Docket Number: No. 7393,7393
• Citation: 518 P.2d 151,90 Nev. 10
• Parties: The STATE of Nevada, Appellant, v. Manuel HARDIN, Respondent.
• Court: Nevada Supreme Court

Page 151

518 P.2d 151

90 Nev. 10

The STATE of Nevada, Appellant, v. Manuel HARDIN, Respondent.

No. 7393.

Supreme Court of Nevada.

Jan. 17, 1974.

[90 Nev. 11] Robert List, Atty. Gen., Carson City, Roy A. Woofter, Dist. Atty. and Charles L. Garner and H. Leon Simon, Deputy Dist. Attys., Las Vegas, for appellant.

Wiener, Goldwater & Galatz, Las Vegas, for respondent.

OPINION

GUNDERSON, Justice:

On the basis of incriminating evidence observed in plain view upon opening respondent's hotel room door, North Las Vegas policemen arrested respondent, found more evidence while searching respondent incident to his arrest, and charged him with the robbery and murder of the tenant of an adjoining room. After preliminary examination, the justice's court held respondent for trial; however, on his motion the district court suppressed all evidence discovered when respondent's room door was opened without a warrant, and through the ensuing warrantiess arrest and search. The State has appealed. ¹

The facts are not in dispute. Summoned to investigate a homicide in Room 83 of the Mintz Hotel, where a violent struggle apparently had taken place, the police found a blood-drenched corpse, its throat cut and multiple stab wounds in its chest. Identification officers began collecting physical evidence, and thereafter, having no suspect, detectives commenced interviewing occupants of neighboring rooms, seeking information to throw light on the crime. Although respondent had earlier been seen entering Room 82, he did not respond to the officers' knock. For all they knew, he might have been asleep, drunk, or merely attempting to avoid visitors. Believing it essential to interview respondent, whose room was closest to the death scene, and who therefore was most likely to have heard the final conflict, the officers opened his door with the manager's passkey.

The key to Room 83 lay on the floor in plain view. Wearing a blood-stained shirt, respondent was on the bed, staring up at the officers. When they ordered him to his feet, a knife later identified as the death weapon fell to the floor. Key and knife were blood stained. The officers placed respondent under arrest and, in the ensuing search, found the victim's wallet on his person. In ordering these items suppressed, the district court stated that the record 'is devoid of facts which might justify the officers' initial entry of Room 82.' We disagree.

1. As the district court noted, the hotel manager could not consent to a search of respondent's room. The United States Supreme Court has so held, saying:

'(W)hen a person engages a hotel room he undoubtedly gives 'implied or express permission' to 'such persons as maids, janitors or repairmen' to enter his room 'in the performance of their duties.' United States v. Jeffers, 342 U.S. 48, at 51, 72 S.Ct. 93, 96 L.Ed. 59. But the conduct of the night clerk and the police in the present case was of an entirely different order. In a closely analogous situation the Court has held that a search by police officers of a house occupied by a tenant invaded the tenant's constitutional right, even though the search was authorized by the owner of the house, who presumably had not only apparent but actual authority to enter the house for some purposes, such as to 'view waste.' Chapman v. United States, 365 U.S. 610, 81 S.Ct. 776, 5 L.Ed.2d 828. . . .

'No less than a tenant of a house, or the occupant of a room in a boarding house, McDonald v. United States, 335 U.S. 451, 69 S.Ct. 191, 93 L.Ed. 153, a guest in a hotel room is entitled to constitutional protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 68 S.Ct. 367, 92 L.Ed. 436. That protection would disappear if it were left to depend upon the unfettered discretion of an employee of the hotel.' Stoner v. California, 376 U.S. 483, 489--490, 84 S.Ct. 889, 893, 11 L.Ed.2d 856 (1964); United States v. Jeffers, 342 U.S. 48, 72 S.Ct. 93, 96 L.Ed. 59 (1951); Lustig v. United States, 338 U.S. 74, 69 S.Ct. 1372, 93 L.Ed. 1819 (1949).

However, we believe cases like Stoner, Jeffers and Lusting, cited above, have but superficial similarity to this one, and that reliance on such cases would here be misplaced. In each, a predetermination to search clearly existed; discovery of evidence was not inadvertent. The instant case, we feel, is of different character altogether, and should be considered in light of authorities decided under the so-called 'emergency doctrine' exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement.

2. In this regard, it should first be observed that the United States Supreme Court has said the 'core' of the Fourth Amendment is the security of the individual's 'privacy against arbitrary intrusion by the police.' Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U.S. 25, 27, 69 S.Ct. 1359, 93 L.Ed. 1782 (1949). Implementing this principle, the Court has mandated that warrantless police invasions of personal privacy 'are per se unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment--subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions.' Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 357, 88 S.Ct. 507, 514, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967). The burden rests with those seeking exemption from the general rule requiring a warrant to prove that 'the exigencies of the situation made that course imperative.' McDonald v. United States, 335 U.S. 451, 456, 69 S.Ct. 191, 193, 93 L.Ed. 153 (1956). Subject to that burden, an 'emergency doctrine' exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement is generally recognized.

One court has claimed the 'emergency doctrine' exception derives from a dictum of Justice Jackson in Johnson v. United States, 333 U.S. 10, 68 S.Ct. 367, 92 L.Ed. 436 (1948). See: Root v. Gauper, 438 F.2d 361, 364 (8th Cir. 1971). However, another has asserted '(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.' United States v. Barone, 330 F.2d 543, 545 (2d Cir. 1964). In any event, although the doctrine's origins may be debatable, and although it has never been definitively explained by the Supreme Court of the United States, lower courts have consistently recognized and applied it in a variety of fact situations. ² One author has summarized the doctrine as follows:

'Law enforcement officers may enter private premises without either an arrest or a search warrant to preserve life or property, to render first aid and assistance, or to conduct a general inquiry into an unsolved crime, provided they have reasonable grounds to believe that there is an urgent need for such assistance and protective action, or to promptly launch a criminal investigation involving a substantial threat of imminent danger to either life, health, or property, and provided, further, that they do not enter with an accompanying intent to either arrest or search. If, while on the premises, they inadvertently discover incriminating evidence in plain view, or as a result of some activity on their part that bears a material relevance to the initial purpose for their entry, they may lawfully seize it without a warrant.' E. Mascolo, The Emergency Doctrine Exception to the Warrant Requirement Under the Fourth Amendment, 22 Buff.L.Rev. 419, 426--427 (1973).

We note that in the instant case the police officers were confronted, not merely with a violent homicide, but one which reasonably justified fears that its perpetrator constituted 'a substantial threat of imminent danger' to life. The condition of the victim and his room suggested a killer who might strike repeatedly if not apprehended. These facts obviously provided the police grounds to believe there was urgent need to launch and pursue their investigation.

Clearly, after interviews with more distant neighbors of the victim proved unproductive, and after other methods of gaining respondent's attention proved unavailing, opening the door to seek an audience was both reasonably directed toward and confined to the officers' legitimate, nonexploratory, emergency purpose. In our view, therefore, this conduct did not constitute an 'unreasonable search' in the constitutional dimension. The ensuing arrest clearly was on probable cause, and respondent tenders no suggestion that the incident search exceeded the scope approved in Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752, 89 S.Ct. 2034, 23 L.Ed.2d 685 (1969).

3. Respondent relies heavily on Horack v. Superior Court of Orange County, 3 Cal.3d 720, 91 Cal.Rptr. 569, 478 P.2d 1 (Cal.1970). In that case, police attempted to justify entering and going throughout a home where a large stereo was playing loudly, by testifying that a neighbor, whose reliability they had not confirmed, called in a report that 'she had seen two 'hippietype' individuals with sleeping bags enter what she believed to be the vacant residence.' Id., 3 Cal.3d at 723, 91 Cal.Rptr. at 570, 478 P.2d at 2. Not surprisingly, the California Supreme Court held this demonstrated no emergency, and therefore suppressed a small plastic 'baggie' of marijuana found on the bedroom closet shelf, and more marijuana and a piece of hashish found in a shoe box on the linen closet's bottom shelf. The court noted that '(t)he only property to be protected was the bare carpeted house containing a stereo system, and the officers saw nothing to indicate any threat of damage or destruction,' and observed further that 'even the most vivid imagination would be unable to contrive imminent danger to human life.' Id., 3 Cal.3d at 726, 91 Cal.Rptr. at 572, 478 P.2d at 4.

Respondent also relies on People v. Smith, 7 Cal.3d 282, 101 Cal.Rptr. 893, 496 P.2d 1261 (1972), in which a policeman sought to justify entering and going through a woman's apartment although a neighbor...