Robinson v. State

Melvin, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Pursuant to a jury trial conducted in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County, Gary Lynn Robinson, the appellant, was convicted of assault with intent to murder. Mr. Robinson has brought this appeal to contest the validity of that conviction. Appellant’s primary complaint is that much of the evidence used to convict him was the fruit of an illegal search, and, therefore, the judge below erred in refusing to suppress the evidence so obtained.

We find no merit in this or any of the other contentions made here by appellant; therefore, we shall affirm appellant’s conviction. Appellant’s conviction arose out of a knifing which occurred on the night of May 24, 1979 at 8400 Greenwood Avenue in Takoma Park, Maryland. Eighty-Four Hundred Greenwood Avenue is a residential building comprised of five apartments and what might be referred to as a utility area. Four of the apartments are at the street level or above and are accessible through the front door of the building ⁵⁶⁰ which opens onto Greenwood Avenue; the fifth apartment and utility area share the basement level.

The basement apartment is only accessible by an exterior stairwell located at the rear of the building. The utility area consists of two rooms (a laundry room and a boiler room) which are connected by an interior door. The sole entrance to the utility area is also at the foot of an exterior stairwell, and this entrance opens onto Wabash Avenue which is at the left side of the building as viewed from Greenwood Avenue. Although the basement apartment and the utility area are adjacent, there is no interior door connecting these two spaces.

At the time of the incident, appellant resided in apartment number two at 8400 Greenwood Avenue and was employed as the maintenance man for the building. The basement apartment, number five, was rented to Mrs. Joyce Belcher, the victim. At some point during the day of May 24, 1979, Mrs. Belcher, who lived alone, left her apartment. While she was out, one of the fuses in her apartment and at least one light bulb were unscrewed, so that the lights for the entire front half of her dwelling would not function.

Consequently, when she returned home that night, Mrs. Belcher entered an extremely dark apartment which, despite her efforts, she could not illuminate. Before she could escape the darkness, a man who had been lurking within the apartment when she arrived, grabbed her, held a knife to her throat and threatened to kill her. A struggle ensued in which Mrs. Belcher received severe lacerations to her throat and face. Ultimately, the assailant fled, and Mrs. Belcher managed to make her way out of her apartment to the front of the building where her screams for help were heard by neighbors.

Within minutes, both the police and a rescue squad arrived at the scene. When the police arrived, they found Mrs. Belcher lying on the inside front steps of the apartment building; she was covered with blood and, though conscious, she was virtually incoherent. While Mrs. Belcher was being treated for her injuries and rushed to the hospital, the police began an extensive investigation of the scene. Some of the officers ⁵⁶¹ searched and processed Mrs. Belcher’s apartment.

Others interviewed neighbors to learn what they might have seen or heard. Still others used police dogs in an attempt to track the assailant. During this investigation, a trail of blood was discovered which led from the front steps, where Mrs. Belcher was found, to the rear of the building. Blood was also found on the steps leading down to the victim’s apartment and in the doorway.

The door of the victim’s apartment was found open and the bedroom window slightly raised; however, there were no signs of forced entry. Further investigation of Mrs. Belcher’s apartment produced little evidence. Questioning of the neighbors was likewise unproductive. Owing to the large number of people present and the fact that it was raining heavily that night, the dogs were unable to pick up the assailant’s trail.

Thus, as of little more than an hour after the police had first arrived, neither the weapon nor the assailant had been found, and the police had no suspects. Consequently, one of the officers present, Corporal Thomas Weidmann of the Montgomery County Police, decided to walk around the building to see if anything had been overlooked; in the process, it occurred to him to look for the culprit in the utility area which theretofore had not been investigated. There was no blood leading to the utility area or even on that side of the building, and, of course, the canine did not lead Officer Weidmann there. Rather, the policeman’s attention was directed to the utility area by the plain fact that the assailant was still at large, and those darkened basement rooms offered a convenient and inviting place to hide.

Without attempting to obtain a warrant, Officer Weidmann sought the assistance of Corporal Robert German, and together they descended the exterior stairwell leading to the sole entrance to the utility area. According to appellant’s testimony, this door, which opens into the laundry room segment of the utility area, bore a 3" x 5" handwritten sign which admonished users to "help keep the place clean and lock the door before leaving.” Officers Weidmann and German both testified that they did not ⁵⁶² notice any such sign. Appellant also testified that the laundry room was usually locked, so that access thereto was limited by key to the residents of the five apartment units in that building and one person in the building across the street. Appellant admitted that the door was unlocked when he entered the laundry room on the evening of May 24 and that the door had been unlocked on two of three prior trips he had made to the laundry room that day; however, he claimed that he had closed and locked the door behind him when he entered that evening.

In sharp contrast, Officer Weidmann testified that the door had a padlock and hasp, suggesting that it could not be secured from the inside, and, moreover, that when he and Officer German approached the door, they found it unlocked and slightly ajar. Officer German clarified this testimony by estimating that there was a space between the door and the frame of approximately a quarter to one-half an inch. According to Officer Weidmann’s testimony, he and Officer German opened the door the rest of the way, entered the laundry room and turned on the light. They found themselves in a large room containing a washer, dryer, ping pong table and some articles of personal property placed there for storage.

Appellant testified that tools and other items belonging to him were stored there in the laundry room. Observing nothing of a suspicious nature in the laundry room, Officer Weidmann proceeded ahead into the adjoining boiler room; according to Weidmann, the door connecting the laundry and boiler room was also slightly ajar. Appellant testified that the door was closed. In addition to a boiler, the boiler room houses a hot water heater, oil tanks and sinks.

According to appellant, only he and. the landlord were authorized to enter the boiler room; however, there was no lock on the door or other evidence indicating that access was so restricted. Appellant also claimed that he had slept in the boiler room on occasion and that he was sleeping there on the night of May 24, but both Officers Weidmann and German testified that the boiler room was extremely hot (90° or more), suggesting that it was not fit for sleeping. Further, appellant admitted that he had never eaten in the boiler room, that he did not store any personal property there, and that it was not his office. ⁵⁶³ After Officer Weidmann entered the boiler room and turned on the light, he observed in plain view a knife, a sheath, a jacket, a hat and gloves. The knife had blood on it, and the sheath contained the name "Gary Lynn Robinson” written in blue ink; the name was legible to Officer Weidmann without his moving the sheath.

The articles just described were noticeably free of dust unlike the fixtures in the room. At some point, Officer German joined Officer Weidmann in the boiler room and shortly thereafter spied appellant’s body protruding from under some foam rubber carpet padding, where appellant appeared to be hiding. Officer German ordered appellant to stand up; he complied, and German observed blood on his trousers and arm. Following a brief inquiry by the officers, appellant was placed under arrest.

Subsequently, the articles of clothing and the weapon discovered in the boiler room were seized. Search and Seizure Appellant now contends, as he did below, that by entering the boiler room and seizing the articles found therein, the police violated his Fourth Amendment rights. Accordingly, he asserts that the articles so obtained should have been suppressed. At the conclusion of a two-day suppression hearing, Judge Frosh decided to deny the motion to suppress because he found: 1) appellant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the boiler room; and 2) there were exigent circumstances justifying the search complained of.

We would note at the outset that each of these two findings is an independently sufficient basis for having denied appellant’s motion. Hence, in affirming Judge Frosh’s ruling, we shall ground our decision upon the finding that is, in our opinion, the most clear in view of the facts adduced at the suppression hearing: the entry into the boiler room — though warrantless — was, nevertheless, reasonable given the exigent circumstances then existing. In so grounding our decision, we assume — without deciding — that appellant had a legitimate expectation of privacy in the boiler room such that the disputed search and seizure, had it been unreasonable, would have infringed an interest of the appel ⁵⁶⁴ lant which the Fourth Amendment was designed to protect. See generally Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128 , 99 S. Ct. 421 , 58 L. Ed. 2d 387 (1978).

The Fourth Amendment does not prohibit all searches and seizures, nor does it absolutely prohibit every search and seizure that is warrantless; on the contrary, the Fourth Amendment proscribes only those governmental intrusions into our spheres of privacy which are deemed "unreasonable.” In that connection, it has long been the rule that "searches conducted outside the judicial process, without prior approval by judge or magistrate, 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 , 19 L. Ed. 2d 576 (1967). Nevertheless, over the years, the courts have willingly, but with the appropriate measure of judicial caution, established and broadened exceptions to the warrant requirement where to do otherwise would have elevated our right to freedom from governmental intrusion above values which we cherish even more dearly. One such exception, born of this very reasoning, is the "emergency doctrine.” The emergency doctrine exception to the warrant requirement has been recognized by the Supreme Court on a number of occasions. Notably, the Court in Warden, Maryland Penitentiary v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294, 298-299 , 87 S. Ct. 1642 , 18 L. Ed. 2d 782 (1967) stated that, "The Fourth Amendment does not require police officers to delay in the course of an investigation if to do so would gravely endanger their lives or the lives of others.” Recently, in Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385 , 98 S. Ct. 2408 , 57 L. Ed. 2d 290 (1978), the Court found the emergency doctrine inapplicable but, nevertheless, reaffirmed its faith in the principle: "We do not question the right of the police to respond to emergency situations.

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 ⁵⁶⁵ need of immediate aid. Similarly, when the police come upon the scene of a homicide they may make a prompt warrantless search of the area to see if there are other victims or if a killer is still on the premises.” Id. at 392 (emphasis added). As this quotation suggests, while the Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized the emergency doctrine exception, the task of delineating the reach of this exception has been left for the most part to the state and lower federal courts. A review of the decisions of those courts reveals that "emergency doctrine” is now a generic term that has come to be applied in a myriad of factual situations involving virtually every brand of exigent circumstance.

E.g., Lebedun v. State, 283 Md. 257 , 390 A.2d 64 (1978); see Mascolo, The Emergency Doctrine Exception to the Warrant Requirement Under the Fourth Amendment, 22 Buffalo L. Rev. 419 (1972); Note, The Emergency Doctrine, Civil Search and Seizure, and the Fourth Amendment, 43 Fordham L. Rev. 571 (1975). Although on occasion, it has been applied to the protection of property, the essence of the emergency doctrine exception is the belief that the interest in preserving human life is paramount to the right of privacy secured by the Fourth Amendment. Note, 43 Fordham L. Rev. 571 supra. Accordingly, the justification for and ultimate purpose of an emergency doctrine search is the protection of human life.

Typically, this means that a law enforcement officer’s otherwise illegal intrusion will be legitimized by the fact that he is entering the premises to render aid to one whom he reasonably believes to be in urgent need; however, the purpose of the emergency doctrine is nonetheless accomplished and a warrantless governmental intrusion may be justified thereby, where the officer enters a premises in an effort to apprehend or locate a virulent criminal and, in that way, eliminate what he reasonably believes to be an imminent threat of continuing criminal activity. This latter variety of the emergency doctrine has been employed in a number of cases, at least three of which are particularly analogous to the case at bar. In the case of Fellows v. State, 13 Md. App. 206 , 283 A.2d ⁵⁶⁶ 1 (1971), this Court was faced with an analogous situation. The Baltimore City Police had been summoned to the scene of a stabbing death which had just occurred in the second floor office of a multi-story building comprised of a restaurant on the first floor and apartments on the floors above the second story office.

"Upon arrival [the police] were directed to the second floor landing. There they observed a large pool of blood outside the office door, with bloody footprints and a trail of blood leading up the stairs to the third and fourth floor apartments. Observing that the outside windows were closed and suspecting that [the] assailant was still in the building, they first went to the fourth floor apartment occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Haywood Simon. After knocking, the Simons, who were still in their bed clothes, came to the door but upon questioning they denied hearing any disturbance.

The officers then returned to the third floor where the blood trail led to the third floor apartment, the door of which was partially open. After knocking, they entered the apartment and searched to see if anyone was hiding. The search revealed the apartment was empty but [Officer] Brauner observed a pair of bloodstained pants on a hanger in the closet.” Id. at 209 . Appellant there argued that the warrantless entry and search of his third floor apartment was unlawful and that the trial judge, therefore, erred in denying his motion to suppress the State’s evidence concerning the bloodstained pants.

After thoughtful consideration we rejected appellant’s arguments, concluding that the officers’ search was reasonable under the exigent circumstances then existing: "The officers had good reason to believe that [the] assailant was still in the building, and they entered the apartment for the sole purpose of locating and apprehending him.” Id. at 209-210 . In perhaps more explicit terms, the Supreme Court of Nevada applied the emergency doctrine to similar facts in ⁵⁶⁷ the leading case of State v. Hardin, 90 Nev. 10 , 518 P.2d 151 (1974). The facts of that case were well summarized as follows: "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.” 518 P.2d at 152 . The court in Hardin upheld the warrantless entry of respondent’s hotel room, opining that, "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 officer’s legitimate, ⁵⁶⁸ nonexploratory, emergency purpose. In our view, therefore, this conduct did not constitute an 'unreasonable search’ in the constitutional dimension.” Id. at 154 . Most recently, the New York Supreme Court had occasion to apply the emergency doctrine to facts almost identical to those of Hardin and clearly analogous to the present case. As summarized by the New York court, those facts were as follows: "Shortly after 7 P.M. on July 8, 1977, shots were heard coming from Room 643 at 611 West 112th Street, a single room occupancy hotel.

Within minutes several police officers had responded to the scene, among them an Officer Sullivan. Sullivan entered Room 643, which was at one end of the hall, and observed within it the dead body of a woman who had been shot in the head at close range apparently shortly before his arrival. Directly opposite the room was a communal kitchen which Sullivan entered. He then tried the door of an adjacent bathroom which was locked.

Next to the bathroom was Room 645. Sullivan knocked on the door and no one responded. A hotel employee stated that the room was occupied by a man and a woman who had just been observed leaving the hotel, the man carrying a television set. Sullivan directed the employee to unlock the door and with his gun drawn opened the door and stepped into the room.

On top of a bureau of drawers he saw a pillowcase with red spots on it and something underneath the pillowcase which proved to be a woman’s wallet. Another police officer removed the pillowcase and wallet to the Fifth Homicide Zone.” People v. Devine, 66 A.D.2d 244 , 414 N.Y.S.2d 128, 129 (1979). In upholding the warrantless entry, the court stated: "The emergency character of the situation confronting Officer Sullivan cannot seriously be ⁵⁶⁹ questioned. A woman had been shot to death within a few moments prior to