Opinion
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
Contra Costa County Super. Ct. No. 05-090160-3
Dondero, J.
Following the denial of her motions to suppress and to dismiss the information, defendant Cynthia Dumas-Violette pleaded no contest to one count of possession of methamphetamine (Health & Saf. Code, § 11377). She contends that the trial court erred in denying her motions because the search that preceded her detention was conducted in violation of her rights under the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution. We disagree and affirm.
All further statutory references are to the Health and Safety Code, except as otherwise indicated.
FACTUAL BACKGROUND AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
We take the facts from the transcript of the preliminary hearing, which was held on February 18, 2009.
On the morning of February 28, 2007, Deputy Sheriff Dan Wedemeyer was working traffic duty when he was dispatched to a location in the City of Oakley on a report that a pickup truck with an attached trailer was blocking two driveways. When he arrived at approximately 7:26 a.m., he observed a Ford F-150 pickup with a large RV-type trailer attached to the rear bumper hitch. The truck was blocking a driveway and the trailer was blocking a second driveway. Houses were being constructed above the driveways and the two vehicles were preventing workers from getting access to the construction sites. No one was in the truck. Wedemeyer called dispatch to request a second officer and waited outside the trailer.
The windows of the trailer were closed. While he was standing near the trailer, Wedemeyer noticed it starting to shake slightly back and forth as if someone was moving inside of it. He heard male and female voices inside the trailer. At some point, the conversation escalated into an argument, with a male voice stating, “Stop it. Leave me alone.” The trailer began to shake more violently as the argument became louder.
Wedemeyer decided to knock on the trailer and announce his presence, though the second officer had not yet arrived. He did not get a response. When he did not receive a response to a second knock, he opened the unlocked side door to the trailer. He saw two people, a man and a woman. At the preliminary hearing, he identified the woman as defendant.
Wedemeyer observed the man was standing just inside the door in a hallway. He appeared to be getting dressed. Defendant was seated on a couch. There was a handbag on her lap. Wedemeyer noticed she had a glass tube in her hand, which she was trying to slide under a cushion. He believed it was a glass pipe used to smoke either methamphetamine or cocaine base.
Wedemeyer twice asked defendant to show him her hands, but she failed to comply and continued to push the pipe in between the seat cushion and the wall of the trailer. At that point, fearing that she might be reaching for a weapon, he drew his pistol and again asked her to show him her hands. She refused. Instead, she stood up and faced away from him and continued to reach under the cushion. At that point, he grabbed her by her ponytail and pulled her away from the couch. She threw down what was in her hand and said, “There, damn.” He saw that the object was a glass pipe similar to one used to ingest methamphetamine. He placed her under arrest for possession of drug paraphernalia.
After Wedemeyer handcuffed defendant and placed her on the sidewalk, he entered the trailer and retrieved the purse. When he searched it, he found a plastic sandwich bag with three other plastic bags inside containing what appeared to be methamphetamine. He also found a scale with white crystal residue on its cover, and a letter addressed to defendant. Lab testing later confirmed the sandwich bags contained approximately 12 grams of methamphetamine when weighed with packaging.
The man who was inside the trailer, John Showaker, testified at the preliminary hearing that a construction supervisor knocked on the door of his trailer at around 7:00 a.m. and told him the police had been called and he should move his vehicle. Three or four minutes later, he heard another knock and yelled out that he was getting dressed and would be out in a minute. A few seconds later, a police officer with his gun drawn opened the door and pointed the gun at defendant. She did not have her purse with her on the couch. Showaker denied he had been arguing with defendant and denied yelling out “stop, ” or anything similar.
At the preliminary hearing, defendant moved to suppress the evidence under Penal Code section 1538.5 on the basis that Wedemeyer did not have sufficient justification to enter the trailer without a warrant. At the close of the preliminary hearing, the trial court denied the motion, citing to the exceptions for exigent circumstances under Brigham City v. Stuart (2006) 547 U.S. 398 (Brigham City), U.S. v. Snipe (9th Cir. 2008) 515 F.3d 947, and People v. Higgins (1994) 26 Cal.App.4th 247 (Higgins). The court also found the search of the purse was valid as a search made incident to arrest. Defendant was held to answer for a violation of section 11377.
On February 27, 2009, an information was filed charging defendant with one felony count of possession of methamphetamine (§ 11377, subd. (a)) and one misdemeanor count of possession of a smoking device (§ 11364). The information also alleged three prior drug convictions (§ 11370.2, subd. (c)), and one prior methamphetamine conviction (Pen. Code, § 1203.07, subd. (a)(11)).
On May 21, 2009, defendant filed a renewed motion to suppress in conjunction with a motion to dismiss the information pursuant to Penal Code section 995. Defendant asserted the trial court had erred in denying her motion to suppress at the preliminary hearing.
On June 10, 2009, the trial court heard and denied the suppression motion.
On July 13, 2009, defendant pled no contest to possession of methamphetamine, and the remaining allegations were dismissed. The court placed her on probation for two years, with 180 days in jail. This appeal followed.
DISCUSSION
I. Standard of Review
The trial court found Wedemeyer’s testimony concerning the search and arrest to be credible. “ ‘The standard of appellate review of a trial court’s ruling on a motion to suppress is well established. We defer to the trial court’s factual findings, express or implied, where supported by substantial evidence. In determining whether, on the facts so found, the search or seizure was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment, we exercise our independent judgment. [Citations.]’ ” (People v. Weaver (2001) 26 Cal.4th 876, 924, quoting People v. Glaser (1995) 11 Cal.4th 354, 362.) “We are prohibited from ordering the suppression of evidence unless federal constitutional standards require us to do so.” (People v. Mikesell (1996) 46 Cal.App.4th 1711, 1716.)
II. The Trial Court Properly Denied the Motion to Suppress
Defendant contends her motion to suppress should have been granted. She argues that the search and seizure violated her Fourth Amendment rights because Wedemeyer’s initial entry was unreasonable and unjustified under the exigent circumstances exceptions to the warrant requirement.
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution protects “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures....” (U.S. Const., 4th Amend.) “It is a ‘basic principle of Fourth Amendment law’ that searches and seizures inside a home without a warrant are presumptively unreasonable.” (Payton v. New York (1980) 445 U.S. 573, 586.) The warrant requirement is not absolute, however, and the presumption of unreasonableness may be overcome in a few “ ‘ “specifically established and well-delineated” ’ ” circumstances. (People v. Thompson (2006) 38 Cal.4th 811, 817–818; Brigham City, supra, 547 U.S. 398, 403 [“[B]ecause the ultimate touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is ‘reasonableness, ’ the warrant requirement is subject to certain exceptions.”].)
Established exceptions to the presumption of unreasonableness include exigent circumstances such as “ ‘ “ ‘hot pursuit of a fleeing felon, or imminent destruction of evidence, ... or the need to prevent a suspect’s escape, or the risk of danger to the police or to other persons inside or outside the dwelling’ ” [citation]....’ [Citation.]” (People v. Ormonde (2006) 143 Cal.App.4th 282, 292 (Ormonde).) One type of exigent circumstance is an emergency situation requiring swift action to prevent imminent danger to life. (Ibid.) This has been called the “ ‘emergency aid’ ” exception. (Brigham City, supra, 547 U.S. 398, 401.) Under this exception, “police officers may enter a home to render emergency assistance when they have an objectively reasonable basis to believe someone inside is seriously injured or imminently threatened with such injury.” (People v. Gemmill (2008) 162 Cal.App.4th 958, 960 (Gemmill).)
“Absolute proof of an imminent emergency is not required: A warrantless entry will be justified if there is probable cause to believe there is a risk of danger to persons inside the dwelling.” (People v. Seminoff (2008) 159 Cal.App.4th 518, 528.) “ ‘There is no ready litmus test for determining whether such circumstances exist, and in each case the claim of an extraordinary situation must be measured by the facts known to the officers.’ [Citation.]” (Ormonde, supra, 143 Cal.App.4th 282, 292.) “Generally, a court will find a warrantless entry justified if the facts available to the officer at the moment of the entry would cause a person of reasonable caution to believe that the action taken was appropriate.” (People v. Rogers (2009) 46 Cal.4th 1136, 1157.)
Defendant attempts to distinguish the present case from Brigham City, in which officers responded at 3:00 in the morning to complaints about a loud party and through a window witnessed an altercation in the kitchen involving four adults struggling to restrain a juvenile, who broke loose and punched one of the adults, sending him to the sink spitting blood. (Brigham City, supra, 547 U.S. 398, 406.) In finding the officers’ subsequent entry into the home was valid, the court found they had an objectively reasonable basis for believing both that the injured adult inside the house might need help and that the violence in the house was escalating: “Nothing in the Fourth Amendment required them to wait until another blow rendered someone ‘unconscious’ or ‘semi-conscious’ or worse before entering.” (Ibid.)
Defendant contends “Raised voices, movement, or a verbal argument inside a residence do not amount to an emergency requiring swift action to prevent imminent danger to life or serious danger to property.” She argues the emergency aid exception does not apply here because Wedemeyer had no objectively reasonable basis for believing that someone inside the trailer was seriously injured or imminently threatened with injury. We agree that the circumstances in the present case are less egregious than those at issue in Brigham City. We note, however, that the Supreme Court did not limit its holding to the specific factual circumstances of that case. Instead, the court held police may enter a home without a warrant whenever they have an objectively reasonable basis for believing that an occupant is seriously injured or imminently threatened with such injury. As the court stated: “The role of a peace officer includes preventing violence and restoring order....” (Brigham City, supra, 547 U.S. 398, 406.)
Defendant also contrasts the facts in the instant case with those described in several cases involving incidents of domestic violence. For example, in People v. Frye (1998) 18 Cal.4th 894 (Frye), (disapproved on other grounds in People v. Doolin (2009) 45 Cal.4th 390, 421, fn. 22), officers responded to an apartment on a domestic violence call. They knocked on the defendant’s door and saw the victim with a bruised, swollen face, and what appeared to be blood on the outside of the door. The officers asked the victim who injured her. She stepped outside the door and pointed to the defendant, who was still inside the apartment. The officers entered and arrested the defendant. (Frye, supra, at pp. 935, 989.) The Supreme Court held the officers’ warrantless entry into the apartment was objectively reasonable and justified by exigent circumstances of the domestic violence situation, even though the victim had stepped out of the apartment. (Id. at p. 990.) In light of the facts known to the officers, “they could reasonably have concluded that immediate action was necessary.” (Id. at p. 989.) The court further held that if the officers left the scene to obtain a warrant, there was “a significant risk” the victim would have suffered “additional harm, ” and the likely delay “could have posed a safety risk to not only [the victim] but the remaining officers as well.” (Id. at pp. 989–990.)
Defendant also cites to Higgins, supra, 26 Cal.App.4th 247, for the proposition that the police must have probable cause of ongoing spousal abuse to support a warrantless entry into a residence based on suspected domestic violence. In Higgins, the officers responded to a domestic disturbance report of a man shoving a woman around at a residence. The officers knocked on the back door and no one answered. They walked around to the front door, and saw a man inside the residence and heard a shout from within. They knocked on the front door and a woman answered. She was frightened, nervous, and had marks on her face consistent with being recently struck or slapped. She claimed she was fine, she had fallen down the stairs, and her boyfriend had been there but he was gone. As she talked to the officers, she tried to edge them away from the open front door. (Id. at pp. 249–250.) Based on her appearance and demeanor, the officers believed she was a domestic violence victim and the perpetrator was still in the house. The officers entered the house to make sure everything was secure. The woman called out to her boyfriend, who emerged from upstairs and said he had been sleeping. While talking to him, an officer smelled marijuana and saw a scale, marijuana and a bindle of cocaine on the floor. The boyfriend consented to a search of the residence, the police found more contraband, and they were both arrested on narcotics violations. (Id. at p. 250.)
The appellate court in Higgins held the officers’ warrantless entry into the house was valid based on the exigent circumstances of responding to a domestic disturbance report, and immediate action was necessary given the battered victim’s frightened appearance at the front door. (Higgins, supra, 26 Cal.App.4th 247, 252, 255.) The officers’ actions were “objectively reasonable and motivated by their concern for [the victim’s] well being....” (Id. at p. 255.)
In a more recent case, People v. Hochstraser (2009) 178 Cal.App.4th 883, officers were dispatched to conduct a welfare check after a woman and her two-year-old son were reported missing following an incident of domestic violence committed by the woman’s boyfriend. The officers found the apartment dark and received no response to repeated knocks and calls. (Id. at p. 887.) After speaking with the woman’s adult daughter, who stated that it was very unusual that she had not heard from or been able to reach her mother, officers decided to enter the apartment to make sure there was no one inside who was injured or needed help. (Id. at pp. 888–889.) After encountering the boyfriend inside the apartment, they subsequently located the woman’s dismembered body in his vehicle. The Court of Appeal held the officer’s entry into the apartment was permissible, concluding the officers’ conduct was justified based on the totality of the circumstances known to them. (Id. at pp. 900–901.)
We note that both Frye and Higgins were decided several years prior to Brigham City, and are therefore not entirely persuasive as authority on the scope of the emergency aid exception. Again, while the circumstances in the present case are not as egregious as those at issue in Frye, Higgins or Brigham City, it does not necessarily follow that Wedemeyer’s conduct of opening the trailer’s door and looking inside was unjustified by the need to determine whether an emergency existed inside.
We find persuasive the reasoning of Gemmill, supra, 162 Cal.App.4th 958, a recent case by our colleagues in the Third District. In Gemmill, after finding an unattended two-year-old child wandering in the neighborhood, a police officer reasonably suspected that something might be awry inside the child’s house when no one answered his knocking and yelling at the front door. He searched the home by looking through a side window from a nonpublic area, and saw an infant playing with a plastic bag and a nonresponsive adult male inside the house. (Id. at pp. 961, 967.)
The Gemmill court framed the issue as “whether [the officer] could-after finding an unattended child-search defendant’s home by looking through a side window not impliedly accessible to the public when the information available to him was sufficient to support a reasonable suspicion that someone inside might be seriously injured or imminently threatened with such injury, but insufficient to support a reasonable belief that someone inside was seriously injured or threatened with such injury.” (Gemmill, supra, 162 Cal.App.4th 958, 970.) The court answered the question in the affirmative, concluding that the degree of intrusion should inform the determination of whether the search was justified by exigent circumstances. (Ibid., quoting Terry v. Ohio (1968) 392 U.S. 1, 18–19, fn. 5 [“ ‘In our view the sounder course is to recognize that the Fourth Amendment governs all intrusions by agents of the public upon personal security, and to make the scope of the particular intrusion, in light of all the exigencies of the case, a central element in the analysis of reasonableness.’ ”].)
With respect to the degree of intrusion, the Gemmill court observed that, in adopting the emergency aid doctrine, the United States Supreme Court in Brigham City had concluded that “ ‘police may enter a home without a warrant when they have an objectively reasonable basis for believing that an occupant is seriously injured or imminently threatened with such injury.’ ” (Gemmill, supra, 162 Cal.App.4th 958, 970, quoting Brigham City, supra, 547 U.S. 398, 400.) The court contrasted that situation with its own, where the officer’s initial search, looking through the window, was “far less intrusive than a physical entry of the home.” (Gemmill, supra, at p. 970.) The scope of the search was proportional to the exigency confronting the officer, concluded the court. “While a reasonable belief someone inside a home is seriously injured or imminently threatened with such injury justifies entry into the home to render aid, a reasonable suspicion someone inside a home may be seriously injured or imminently threatened with such injury justifies a more limited search to confirm or dispel the suspicion.” (Id. at p. 971.)
Based on the totality of the circumstances, we conclude Wedemeyer’s conduct was objectively reasonable. As in Gemmill, the scope of the search in the present case was proportional to the exigency before the officer. Wedemeyer lawfully conducted a limited intrusion based on an objectively reasonable suspicion that someone inside the trailer might be seriously injured or imminently threatened with such injury. Given the yelling and the movement of the trailer, an officer would reasonably believe the occupants were engaged in a physical confrontation. The disregard of his presence after he twice had knocked and announced, suggested that the confrontation was serious and unlikely to abate. Because the windows were closed, he could not view what was occurring inside without opening the door. His initial search, opening the door and looking into the trailer, was much less invasive than a physical entry into the residence. As the court in Brigham City noted, “it would serve no purpose to require [officers] to stand dumbly at the door awaiting a response while those within brawled on, oblivious to their presence.” (547 U.S. 398, 407.) We also note it was only after he saw the glass pipe in defendant’s hands and witnessed her reaching under the seat cushions, against his repeated orders for her to stop, that he entered the trailer. At that point, he had reasonable suspicion to detain defendant for possession of drug paraphernalia.
In sum, Wedemeyer’s initial entry was justified by exigent circumstances-the urgent need to prevent an apparent physical altercation from escalating, and the scope of intrusion was reasonable under the circumstances. The motions to suppress were properly denied. Accordingly, we need not and do not address defendant’s arguments concerning the applicability of the community caretaking function exception to the warrant requirement as described in People v. Ray (1999) 21 Cal.4th 464, 471–472 (lead opn. of Brown, J.), the vehicle exception, or the reach of the exclusionary rule.
DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
We concur: Marchiano, P. J., Banke, J.