CA1: No QI for entry into wrong home chasing burglar; officer should have known this was unjustified

Officers pursuing a burglar down streets and into backyards was directed to a house by an unidentified person, and they entered it with a dog after allegedly announcing. No burglar, but the homeowner who was not pleased, and he got arrested and assaulted by the officers. There is no qualified immunity for the entry. It was based on the community caretaking function, and this case is not within the “heartland” of that exception to the warrant requirement. A reasonable officer should have known this entry was unlawful. Matalon v. Hynnes, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 20008 (1st Cir. Nov. 18, 2015):

Even on this favorable assumption, O’Neill’s claim founders. In MacDonald — the case upon which O’Neill primarily relies — local police responded to a telephone call from a person concerned that her neighbor’s door was open though he was not home. See id. at 10-11. Unable to contact the resident, the police entered the home and, once inside, found evidence of marijuana cultivation. See id. at 11. We concluded that the officers were entitled to qualified immunity because their entry into the home was arguably within the scope of the community caretaking exception. See id. at 15.

Wresting from their contextual moorings our statements in MacDonald that the doctrine was “nebulous” and surrounded by “rampant uncertainty,” id. at 14, O’Neill submits that this lack of certitude shields her actions. But this uncertainty does not assist O’Neill’s cause: while the parameters of the community caretaking exception are nebulous in some respects (such as whether the exception applies at all to residential searches), the heartland of the exception is reasonably well defined. Some attempts to invoke the exception plainly fall outside this heartland. This is such a case. As we explain below, a reasonable officer standing in O’Neill’s shoes should have known that her warrantless entry was not within the compass of the community caretaking exception and, thus, that her intrusion into the plaintiff’s home abridged his constitutional rights.

The community caretaking exception is distinguished from other exceptions to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement because it “requires a court to look at the function performed by a police officer” when the officer engages in a warrantless search or seizure. Hunsberger v. Wood, 570 F.3d 546, 554 (4th Cir. 2009). The Cady Court took pains to define community caretaking functions as being “totally divorced from the detection, investigation, or acquisition of evidence relating to the violation of a criminal statute.” 413 U.S. at 441. Cases that do not satisfy this requirement fall outside the heartland of the community caretaking exception, and it is therefore not surprising that the courts that have addressed the exception have stressed the separation between the police’s community caretaking functions and the normal work of criminal investigation. See, e.g., Hunsberger, 570 F.3d at 554; United States v. Quezada, 448 F.3d 1005, 1007 (8th Cir. 2006); United States v. Williams, 354 F.3d 497, 508 (6th Cir. 2003); People v. Ray, 21 Cal. 4th 464, 88 Cal. Rptr. 2d 1, 981 P.2d 928, 938 (Cal. 1999) (plurality opinion); People v. Davis, 442 Mich. 1, 497 N.W.2d 910, 920 (Mich. 1993); State v. White, 141 Wn. App. 128, 168 P.3d 459, 466-67 (Wash. Ct. App. 2007); cf. State v. Deneui, 2009 SD 99, 775 N.W.2d 221, 241 (S.D. 2009) (concluding that, even though the initial arrival at the home was connected to a potential criminal investigation, the entry into the home was reasonable because the officers entered the home “not as part of a criminal investigation, but in pursuance of their community caretaking function”).

Here, the record establishes beyond hope of contradiction that O’Neill was engaged in a quintessential criminal investigation activity — the pursuit of a fleeing felon in the immediate aftermath of a robbery — when she ordered the search of the plaintiff’s home. O’Neill testified at trial that she arrived at the plaintiff’s residence after being directed there by a witness to the crime and that she believed the suspect had fled into the dwelling. Thus, her actions fall far beyond the borders of the heartland of the community caretaking exception.

. . .

In sum, the contours of both the plaintiff’s right to enjoy the sanctity of his home and the heartland of the community caretaking exception were sufficiently clear to alert O’Neill that her plan of action — a warrantless entry — would infringe the plaintiff’s constitutional rights. Put another way, an objectively reasonable officer should have known that a warrantless entry into the plaintiff’s home could not be effected on the basis of the community caretaking exception. Though the precise dimensions of the community caretaking exception are blurred, that circumstance does not mean that every attempt to resort to the exception must be regarded as arguable. See DeMayo v. Nugent, 517 F.3d 11, 18 (1st Cir. 2008). What matters here is that the exception is sufficiently defined to place O’Neill’s conduct well outside its heartland and, thus, to render qualified immunity inapplicable.

We hasten to add that refusing to extend the community caretaking exception to ongoing manhunts does not unduly cramp the conduct of officers responding to potentially dangerous situations in the course of a criminal investigation. After all, there is a recognized exception to the warrant requirement for “exigent circumstances,” which applies when “there is such a compelling necessity for immediate action as will not brook the delay of obtaining a warrant.” …