State v. Brooks

CHARLES E. MOYLAN, Jr., Retired, Specially Assigned.- It is a well-settled principle of law that an appellate court, when reviewing a suppression hearing ruling, will accept as the basis for its analysis that version of the evidence (as well as that version of the inferences that may be drawn from the evidence) most favorable to the prevailing party. The principle is self-evidently a two-edged sword. The State, far more frequently than not, wields that sword with triumphant gusto, as again and again defense evidence and defense arguments ³⁷⁹ are disdained as if non-existent. It is a stern standard. 1 On rarer occasions, however, it is the State that may be cut by that same sword.

If there is a moral to this appeal, it is that those who are frequently content to live by the sword must accept the risk that occasionally they may die by the sword. The appellees, Jamar Brooks, Latonia Brooks, and Charlton Frederick Anderson, were all indicted by the Grand Jury for Harford County under a five-count indictment, charging the possession of cocaine and a variety of related offenses. Prior to trial in the Circuit Court for Harford County, the appellees moved to have all the physical evidence suppressed as the fruit of a Fourth Amendment violation. Following a hearing on May 24, 2002, Judge Stephen M. Waldron granted the motion to suppress.

Pursuant to Maryland Code, Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article, § 12 — 302(c)(3), the State has brought this appeal from that suppression hearing. The physical evidence in question was all recovered as a result of a warrantless entry into a residence at 646 Harpark Court at 4:35 P.M. on June 1, 2001, by Deputy Gregory Young of the Harford County Sheriffs Department. The only issue before Judge Waldron was the Fourth Amendment reasonableness of that warrantless entry. He ruled that it was unreasonable.

We hold that he was not in error in so ruling. The Nature of Our Holding There is a single overriding question before us on this appeal. Although the circumstances of the warrantless entry are, of course, tangentially involved in our analysis, the primary question before us is not whether the warrantless entry was unreasonable. We do not know whether it was or not and ³⁸⁰ it is not for us to say.

We did not see or hear the witnesses. We have no localized sense of what had been happening in the area where the entry occurred or of what the general reputation of local law enforcement was for restraint or for zealousness. We are far removed from the ground where the action took place. We were not then, and are not now, called upon to make the quintessential^ factual determination of whether the warrantless entry was unreasonable.

The far more limited issue before us is whether Judge Waldron was in error, as a matter of law, in making his determination that he deemed it to have been unreasonable. We hold that he was not. This case, therefore, does not stand for, and should not be cited for, the proposition that an evidentiary predicate indistinguishable from that in this ease would necessarily require a conclusion that a warrantless entry based upon it would be unreasonable. Such an evidentiary predicate would, we hold, permit that conclusion, but it would by no means compel it.

Had Judge Waldron, on the evidence before him in this case, reached the opposite conclusion that the warrantless entry was, indeed, reasonable and had the defendants appealed that hypothetical ruling, we would still have affirmed. That we, at least tentatively, might think that, had we been at the suppression hearing, we would have ruled the entry in this case to have been reasonable is beside the point. Judge Waldron, in making a ruling that was rooted in fact-finding, in credibility assessment even in its more subtle and modest ranges, and in the weighing of the significance of even essentially undisputed evidence, was free to go either way, secure from appellate second-guessing. Our holding is- not that Judge Waldron should have made the ruling that he did, but only that he could have made the ruling he did.

This case, therefore, to the extent that it will be categorized, is not primarily a case about the Fourth Amendment. It is more significantly a case about the highly deferential standard of appellate review for essentially fact-based trial court rulings. ³⁸¹ The Community Caretaking Function The State’s theory of the case is that Deputy Young entered 646 Harpark Court not in an investigatory capacity but in the execution of his community caretaking function, as he responded to a scene of possible domestic violence. In State v. Alexander, 124 Md.App. 258, 266-80 , 721 A.2d 275 (1998), we examined at length the community caretaking function of the police and its Fourth Amendment implications. We quoted with approval from 3 Wayne R. LaFave, A Treatise on the Fourth Amendment, § 6.6, pp. 389-90 (3d ed.1996), as Professor LaFave noted the distinction between entering a premises for investigative purposes and entering the same premises for other purposes.

Preceding sections of this Chapter have been concerned with the entry of private premises by police for the purpose of arresting a person thought to be within or for the purpose of finding the fruits, instrumentalities or evidence of some past crime. Although it is entries for those purposes which most often give rise to a motion to suppress, requiring a ruling upon the validity of the entry and subsequent conduct of the police, quite clearly police have occasion to enter premises without a warrant for a variety of other purposes. 124 Md.App. at 266 , 721 A.2d 275 (emphasis in original). Professor LaFave, id., went on to note the diversity of those other non-investigative purposes: The police have complex and multiple tasks to perform in addition to identifying and apprehending persons committing serious criminal offenses; by design or default, the police are also expected to reduce the opportunities for the commission of some crimes through preventative patrol and other measures, aid individuals who are in danger of physical harm, assist those who cannot care for themselves, resolve conflict, create and maintain a feeling of security in the community, and provide other services on an emergency basis. An entry and search of premises purportedly under ³⁸² taken for such reasons as these may sometimes result in the discovery of evidence of crime.

Id. at 267 , 721 A.2d 275 (emphasis supplied). In State v. Alexander, we attributed the label “community caretaking function” to a 1973 Supreme Court decision: What has been lacking for those other, non-investigative police functions is a convenient shorthand label. In the context of the police responsibility to handle vehicular accidents, Cady v. Dombrowski, 413 U.S. 433, 441 , 93 S.Ct. 2523 , 37 L.Ed.2d 706, 714-15 (1973), chose, as a ready reference, the term “community caretaking function.” Local police officers ... frequently investigate vehicle accidents in which there is no claim of criminal liability and 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.

(emphasis in original). In Stanberry v. State, 343 Md. 720 , 684 A.2d 823 (1996), the Court of Appeals placed its seal of approval on the label “community caretaking function” as it recognized the pivotal distinction between assessing police behavior when the police are “acting in their criminal investigatory capacity” and assessing police behavior when they are “acting to protect public, safety pursuant to their community caretaking function.” 343 Md. at 742-43 , 684 A.2d 823 . Judge Raker there wrote for the Court: [A]lthough we find today that, under the circumstances presented in the instant case, the police search of Petitioner’s luggage was unlawful, we stress that our holding is limited to the conduct of the police when they are acting in their criminal investigatory capacity. As the Iowa Supreme Court stated in discussing the rationale for the emergency-aid exception to the warrant requirement: In essence police officers function in one of two roles: (1) apprehension of criminals (investigative function); and (2) protecting the public and rescuing those in distress ³⁸³ (caretaking function).

Courts have noted that preservation of human life is paramount to the right of privacy protected by the fourth amendment. Thus the emergency-aid exception is justified because the motivation for the intrusion is to preserve life rather than to search for evidence to be used in a criminal investigation. State v. Carlson[,] 548 N.W.2d 138, 141 (Iowa 1996) (citations omitted). Our holding d,oes not apply to situations in which the police are acting to protect public safety pursuant to their community caretaking function.

(Emphasis in original). Avoiding Possible Analytic Confusion: Two Different “Exigency” Contexts The community caretaking function embraces an open-ended variety of duties and obligations that are not directly involved with the investigation of crime. As we analyzed in State v. Alexander, 124 Md.App. at 269-73 , 721 A.2d 275 , one subcategory of community caretaking involves rendering emergency aid to those believed to be in distress or in need of that assistance. Another subcategory involves the protection of property. 124 Md.App. at 273-75 , 721 A.2d 275 .

There are also situations, of course, involving the dual protection of both persons and property. 124 Md.App. at 276 , 721 A.2d 275 . The common denominator is that these instances of community caretaking arise in a context other than one involving the investigation of a crime or a search for evidence. Linguistic or analytic confusion may be avoided if it is carefully noted 1) that exigency is a factor in the emergency aid and protection cases that are part of the community caretaking function, see, e.g., Oken v. State, 327 Md. 628, 643-47 , 612 A.2d 258 (1992); Lebedun v. State, 283 Md. 257, 259-78 , 390 A.2d 64 (1978); Davis v. State, 236 Md. 389, 395-98 , 204 A.2d 76 (1964); and 2) that exigency is also a factor that sometimes justifies warrantless activity in the course of a criminal investigation, see, e.g., Wengert v. State, 364 Md. 76, 84-86 , 771 A.2d 389 (2001); Carroll v. State, 335 Md. 723, 728-39 , 646 A.2d 376 (1994); Stackhouse v. State, 298 Md. 203 , 468 ³⁸⁴ A.2d 333 (1983); Burks v. State, 96 Md.App. 173, 195-98 , 624 A.2d 1257 (1993). It may be (we do not here decide) that the measure of exigency is the same in both contexts.

Notwithstanding their common use of the term “exigency,” however, it would seem helpful to keep the two contexts scrupulously distinct. As Professor LaFave, op cit at § 6.6(a), p. 390 n. 5, noted: Though this “emergency aid exception” is one of many “community caretaking functions” of the police, it ... must be distinguished from “the exigent circumstance exception” ... for the former are only invoked when the police are not engaged in crime-solving activities. The Facts in This Case: The Initial Response It is undisputed that the initial response of Deputy Young to 646 Harpark Court was in the reasonable execution of his community caretaking function. At 4:21 P.M. on June 1, 2001, the 911 emergency telephone center in Harford County received a telephone call in which no one spoke.

A great deal of commotion and yelling, however, was heard in the background. After the call was disconnected at the caller’s end, the dispatcher at the 911 center properly notified the Sheriffs Office. The dispatcher reported that the situation “sounds like a fight, sounds like it was going pretty good, then it disconnected.” A member of the Sheriffs Office immediately dialed the residence from which the 911 call had originated. The telephone was answered by a female, who subsequently identified herself as Latonia Brooks, one of the appellants.

At first she stated that someone had dialed the wrong number. She then changed her story and said that her daughter had dialed 911. When the Sheriffs Office asked Latonia Brooks what was going on, she replied, “Nothing.” The caller then informed her, “[We] could hear something in the background, we’re coming anyway.” At that point, there was audible in the background a male voice, yelling and cursing at the female for “calling the cops on him.” Periodically, Latonia Brooks yelled back at the male voice. When the caller demanded to know what was going on, Brooks, sounding distressed, replied, “It’s ³⁸⁵ nothing.

I’m just arguing with him.” When the call was again disconnected, the Sheriffs Office called back. An answering machine immediately came on. Deputy Young was then dispatched to the scene to look “for a possible fight, domestic fight.” He testified as to what had been told him: The information was that it was very heated inside the location. A 911 hang-up was the original call.

The dispatchers were tying to make contact, and we were furnished with information that it was a heated argument. Upon his arrival at the scene, Deputy Young was met by Latonia Brooks, standing in the doorway. The Unquestioned Propriety Of The Initial Response It is beyond dispute that Deputy Young reasonably concluded that an emergency situation, involving possible domestic violence, existed when the 911 call was made and was probably still operational as he drove to 646 Harpark Court. Indeed, Judge Waldron concluded in this regard: We have a call made.

We have the police going to the scene of a possible domestic dispute, which he certainly should. Thank goodness finally society is being sensitive to that. I used to practice domestic law when society was really not clued into domestic violence and I represented lots of women. Thank goodness that society has come around.

I am glad he is there. He is supposed to be there and it sounds like he is very conscientious. He shows up. If, when Deputy Young arrived at 646 Harpark Court, no one was about and no one responded to his knock at the door, it seems beyond dispute that he could have entered the premises warrantlessly.

The single most important purpose behind the community caretaking function is to protect citizens from likely physical harm. In State v. Alexander, 124 Md.App. at 269-70 , 721 A.2d 275 , we discussed that overriding purpose: ³⁸⁶ Whether labeled a “community caretaking function” or not, one such duty is to aid persons in apparent need of assistance. If when glancing through the window of a home from the public sidewalk, for instance, the police see an elderly man clutch his chest and fall to the floor or even if they only see a prostrate figure already on the floor, their duty is to respond promptly to a possible medical emergency. Undue concern with Fourth Amendment niceties could yield a dead victim who might otherwise have survived.

In Wayne v. United States, 318 F.2d 205 (D.C.Cir.1963), Judge Warren E. Burger (later Chief Justice of the United States) articulated this overarching but often overlooked fact of police life: [A] warrant is not required to break down a door to enter a burning home to rescue occupants or extinguish a fire, to prevent a shooting or to bring emergency aid to an injured person. The need to protect or preserve life or avoid serious injury is justification for what would be otherwise illegal absent an exigency or emergency. Fires or dead bodies are reported to police by cranks where no fires or bodies are to be found. Acting in response to reports of “dead bodies,” the police may find the “bodies” to be common drunks, diabetics in shock, or distressed cardiac patients.

But the business of policemen and firemen is to act, not to speculate or meditate on whether the report is correct. People could well die in emergencies if police tried to act with the calm deliberation associated with the judicial process. Even the apparently dead often are saved by swift police response. A myriad of circumstances could fall within the terms “exigent circumstances” * * *, e.g., smoke coming out a window or under a door, the sound of gunfire in the house, threats from the inside to shoot through the door at police, reasonable grounds to believe an injured or seriously ill person is being held within.

(Emphasis supplied). See also State v. Hetzko, 283 So.2d 49 (Fla.App.1973) (the question is whether “the officers would have been derelict in their duty had they acted otherwise”); ³⁸⁷ State v. Plant, 236 Neb. 317 , 461 N.W.2d 253 (1990) (entry-proper, as “had the police officers failed to enter the home to determine the well-being of the children, they may well have been derelict in their duty”). Professor LaFave, op cit at 396-400, catalogued a number of the diverse circumstances involving the entering of a premises in order to give aid to a person or protecting a person threatened with harm. Doubtless there are an infinite variety of situations in which entry for the purpose of rendering aid is reasonable.

Included are those in which entry is made to thwart an apparent suicide attempt; to rescue people from a burning building; to seek an occupant reliably reported as missing; to seek a person known to have suffered a gunshot or knife wound; to assist a person recently threatened therein to retrieve his effects; to seek possible victims of violence in premises apparently burglarized recently; to assist a person within reported to be ill or injured; to rescue a person being detained therein; to assist unattended small children; to ensure a weapon within does not remain accessible to children there; to respond to what appears to be a fight unthin; or to check out an occupant’s hysterical telephone call to the police, screams in the dead of the night, or an inexplicably interrupted telephone call from the premises. Entry may be justified even though the endangered persons are not in the premises, as where police entered premises in an attempt to discover what substance might have been eaten by several children who were critically ill. (Emphasis supplied). In Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.8. 385, 392, 98 S.Ct. 2408 , 57 L.Ed.2d 290, 300 (1978), the Supreme Court observed: 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 ivhen they reasonably believe that a person unthin is in need of immediate aid. Similarly, when the police ³⁸⁸ 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. (Footnotes omitted; emphasis supplied). Cf.

Michigan v. Tyler, 436 U.S. 499, 509-10 , 98 S.Ct. 1942 , 56 L.Ed.2d 486 (1978); Thompson v. Louisiana, 469 U.S. 17, 20-21 , 105 S.Ct. 409 , 83 L.Ed.2d 246, 250-51 (1984). Was the Emergency Still Extant When the Threshold Was Crossed? In none of those situations, however, was the officer who responded to the apparent emergency 1) met by the person who was feared to have been the victim of the emergency 2) who then disclaimed the continuing existence of the emergency and 3) whose appearance and demeanor corroborated the disclaimer. The problem is one of Newtonian momentum.

Deputy Young was unquestionably an object in motion in the right direction. When possible brake lights appeared in his path, however, did his momentum carry him one critical step beyond the point where he should have stopped? The question, therefore, was not whether the circumstances surrounding the 911 telephone call properly triggered the red alert. They unquestionably did.

The issue, rather, was whether the emergency had dissipated prior to the warrant-less crossing of the threshold and the red alert had turned green. If the transition from red to green was right on the cusp, moreover, who was responsible for making that close judgment call, what precisely was the judgment call supposed to decide, and by what standard will that judgment call be reviewed? Who Makes the Call on Community Caretaking And Precisely What Does It Decide? In State v. Alexander, 124 Md.App. at 276-77 , 721 A.2d 275 , we explained the nature of the call in question: ³⁸⁹ When the police cross a threshold not in their criminal investigatory capacity but as part of their community care-taking function, it is clear that the standard for assessing the Fourth Amendment propriety of such conduct is whether they possessed a reasonable basis for doing what they did.

Professor LaFave explained that the concern is with the basic reasonableness of an officer’s belief that it is necessary to act: “An objective standard as to the reasonableness of the officer’s belief must be applied.” Thus, the question is whether there were ‘reasonable grounds to believe that some kind of an emergency existed, ’ that is, whether there is ‘evidence which would lead a prudent and reasonable official to see a need to act. ’ The officer must ‘be able to point to specific and articulable facts which, taken with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant that intrusion.’’ ” (Emphasis in original). The call that has to be made is not whether the officer on the scene subjectively believed that there was “a need to act.” It is whether the historic facts, as found to exist by the suppression hearing judge, established, objectively, circumstances “which would lead a prudent and reasonable official to see a need to act.” The judgment call thus required in this case was an objective assessment of whether the emergency was still extant. It was a call that was entrusted, moreover, to Judge Waldron. His call was that the emergency no longer existed.

That being the case, there was no justification for the warrantless crossing of the threshold — unless his call is overturned for having been clearly erroneous. We turn now to the question of whether Judge Waldron had some evidentiary basis for finding as he did. The Facts in This Case: The Ultimate Crossing of the Threshold The dispatch that sent Deputy Young to 646 Harpark Court was not, in and of itself, dispositive of his entitlement to cross ³⁹⁰ the threshold upon his arrival. Also important was the scene that presented itself to him upon his arrival.

Even in terms of momentum, Deputy Young’s trip to 646 Harpark Court had been less than frenetic. With reference to the radioed information he was receiving from his dispatcher, he testified, “En route, they were telling me that the normal procedure was to be a normal drive to the location, not an emergency response.” He did not speed. He did not activate his siren. Arriving at the scene, he did not screech to a halt and double-park in front of 646 Harpark Court.

He parked “approximately two to three houses prior to 646 Harpark” and then walked to the scene. The first thing that Deputy Young saw upon his arrival was indicative of tranquility. He “observed a young female anywhere from eight to twelve years of age exit 646 Harpark.” On cross-examination, he described her demeanor more fully. Q. Was she crying or distressed in any way?

A. No. Q. Based on your observation, she was exiting that apartment? A. It was a townhome. It looked as if she walked away from the front door of the residence. Q. And the child seemed fíne?

A. Yes, ma'am. Indeed, in this regard Judge Waldron found: Like I said, I am glad he is there. He is supposed to be there and it sounds like he is very conscientious. He shows up.

The first thing he sees is this young child walking peacefully away out of the residence, not running, not screaming, no sign of anything there other than peaceful life. (Emphasis supplied). Deputy Young then made contact with Latonia Brooks, who was standing in the doorway of what was her residence. ³⁹¹ [T]here was a female standing in the doorway. She was later identified as Latonia Brooks who resided at 646 Harpark Court.

I exited my vehicle to make contact with Ms. Brooks. She immediately told me I was no longer needed or I wasn’t needed and did not need to be there. Deputy Young’s testimony was that Latonia Brooks was calm rather than excited. Q. Did she seem upset?

A. Not really. Q. Was she crying? A. No, not really. Q. Was she in any kind of — did you hear any yelling or screaming?

A. No, I did not. Q. Would it be fair to say that Ms. Brooks seemed pretty calm? A. For the most part, yes, ma'am. In this regard, Judge Waldron found: On cross-examination of the officer, he saw no bruises.

She is not upset. She is not crying. There is no screaming. She is calm for the most part.

(Emphasis supplied). On cross-examination, Deputy Young testified both as to Latonia Brooks’s physical appearance and her appraisal of the situation. Q. Now, a couple of questions I forgot to ask you on Ms. Brooks. In the way of her clothing or blood, did you see any disarray in her clothing?

A. No, ma'am. Q. Did she tell you that everything was okay and she affirmatively stated you were no longer needed? A. Yes. One snippet of Deputy Young’s testimony leant itself to judicial interpretation and evidentiary weighing.

On his arriv ³⁹² al, he observed on the face of Latonia Brooks “a slight trickle of blood,” which he characterized as “an injury.” As I was making contact with her, I observed a slight scratch to the left side of her face that had a slight trickle of blood coming down from it. It wasn’t a severe injury, but it was an injury. On a later occasion, he acknowledged that he had seen no bruises but he adverted again to the “cut.” Q. When you walked up to speak to Ms. Brooks, she wasn’t crying or bruised and didn’t seem distraught or upset; did she? A. Bruises?

She had the small cut. On the basis of that “injury” or “cut” combined with the 911 call, Deputy Young apparently concluded that Latonia Brooks had been the victim of an assault. Based on the information that I had received from the 911 call from the dispatchers, I believed that there was an assault that had taken place inside the location and something was wrong. Although this observation by Deputy Young of an “injury” or a “cut” would be appropriate in a version of the evidence most favorable to the State, it does not exist as far as our present analysis is concerned.

It is neither part of a version of the evidence most favorable to the defense nor was it a finding by Judge Waldron. Latonia Brooks did not recall any blood on her face that morning. She expressly denied having either a scratch or a cut. She testified that because of being eight months pregnant, she had a severe case of acne and that sometimes a pimple might “pop.” Q. What was the skin condition?

A. I had severe acne break-out from being pregnant. I was eight months pregnant. Q. If you recall, on the day of June 1, 2001, were any parts of your face bleeding? A. I had acne pimples that might have popped.

I know it was a whole bunch of pimples on my face and I had