Brigham City v. Stuart

(Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, 2005 1

Syllabus

NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is

being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.

The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been

prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.

See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

Syllabus

BRIGHAM CITY, UTAH v. STUART ET AL.

CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF UTAH

No. 05–502. Argued April 24, 2006—Decided May 22, 2006

Responding to a 3 a.m. call about a loud party, police arrived at the

house in question, heard shouting inside, proceeded down the drive

way, and saw two juveniles drinking beer in the backyard. Entering

the yard, they saw through a screen door and windows an altercation

in the kitchen between four adults and a juvenile, who punched one

of the adults, causing him to spit blood in a sink. An officer opened

the screen door and announced the officers’ presence. Unnoticed

amid the tumult, the officer entered the kitchen and again cried out,

whereupon the altercation gradually subsided. The officers arrested

respondents and charged them with contributing to the delinquency

of a minor and related offenses. The trial court granted their motion

to suppress all evidence obtained after the officers entered the home

on the ground that the warrantless entry violated the Fourth

Amendment, and the Utah Court of Appeals affirmed. Affirming, the

State Supreme Court held that the injury caused by the juvenile’s

punch was insufficient to trigger the “emergency aid doctrine” be

cause it did not give rise to an objectively reasonable belief that an

unconscious, semiconscious, or missing person feared injured or dead

was in the home. Furthermore, the court suggested the doctrine was

inapplicable because the officers had not sought to assist the injured

adult but had acted exclusively in a law enforcement capacity. The

court also held that the entry did not fall within the exigent circum

stances exception to the warrant requirement.

Held: Police may enter a home without a warrant when they have an

objectively reasonable basis for believing that an occupant is seri

ously injured or imminently threatened with such injury.

Because the Fourth Amendment’s ultimate touchstone is “reason

ableness,” the warrant requirement is subject to certain exceptions.

For example, one exigency obviating the requirement is the need to

2 BRIGHAM CITY v. STUART

Syllabus

render emergency assistance to occupants of private property who are

seriously injured or threatened with such injury. Mincey v. Arizona,

437 U. S. 385, 392. This Court has repeatedly rejected respondents’

contention that, in assessing the reasonableness of an entry, consid

eration should be given to the subjective motivations of individual of

ficers. Because the officers’ subjective motivation is irrelevant, Bond

v. United States, 529 U. S. 334, 338, n. 2, it does not matter here

whether they entered the kitchen to arrest respondents and gather

evidence or to assist the injured and prevent further violence. Indi

anapolis v. Edmond, 531 U. S. 32, 46, and Florida v. Wells, 495 U. S.

1, 4, distinguished. Relying on this Court’s holding in Welsh v. Wis

consin, 466 U. S. 740, 753, that “an important factor to be considered

when determining whether any exigency exists is the gravity of the

underlying offense for which the arrest is being made,” respondents

further contend that their conduct was not serious enough to justify

the officers’ intrusion into the home. This contention is misplaced.

In Welsh, the “only potential emergency” confronting the officers was

the need to preserve evidence of the suspect’s blood-alcohol level, an

exigency the Court held insufficient under the circumstances to jus

tify a warrantless entry into the suspect’s home. Ibid. Here, the offi

cers were confronted with ongoing violence occurring within the

home, a situation Welsh did not address.

The officers’ entry here was plainly reasonable under the circum

stances. Given the tumult at the house when they arrived, it was ob

vious that knocking on the front door would have been futile. More

over, in light of the fracas they observed in the kitchen, the officers

had an objectively reasonable basis for believing both that the injured

adult might need help and that the violence was just beginning.

Nothing in the Fourth Amendment required them to wait until an

other blow rendered someone unconscious, semiconscious, or worse

before entering. The manner of their entry was also reasonable, since

nobody heard the first announcement of their presence, and it was

only after the announcing officer stepped into the kitchen and an

nounced himself again that the tumult subsided. That announce

ment was at least equivalent to a knock on the screen door and, un

der the circumstances, there was no violation of the Fourth

Amendment’s knock-and-announce rule. Furthermore, once the an

nouncement was made, the officers were free to enter; it would serve

no purpose to make them stand dumbly at the door awaiting a re

sponse while those within brawled on, oblivious to their presence.

Pp. 3–7.

2005 UT 13, 122 P. 3d 506, reversed and remanded.

ROBERTS, C. J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court. STE

VENS, J.,filed a concurring opinion.

Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 1

Opinion of the Court

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the

preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to

notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash

ington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order

that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

_________________

No. 05–502

_________________

BRIGHAM CITY, UTAH, PETITIONER v. CHARLES W.

STUART ET AL.

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF UTAH

[May 22, 2006]

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS delivered the opinion of the

Court.

In this case we consider whether 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. We

conclude that they may.

I

This case arises out of a melee that occurred in a Brig-

ham City, Utah, home in the early morning hours of July

23, 2000. At about 3 a.m., four police officers responded to

a call regarding a loud party at a residence. Upon arriving

at the house, they heard shouting from inside, and pro

ceeded down the driveway to investigate. There, they

observed two juveniles drinking beer in the backyard.

They entered the backyard, and saw—through a screen

door and windows—an altercation taking place in the

kitchen of the home. According to the testimony of one of

the officers, four adults were attempting, with some diffi

culty, to restrain a juvenile. The juvenile eventually

“broke free, swung a fist and struck one of the adults in

the face.” 2005 UT 13, ¶2, 122 P. 3d 506, 508. The officer

2 BRIGHAM CITY v. STUART

Opinion of the Court

testified that he observed the victim of the blow spitting

blood into a nearby sink. App. 40. The other adults con

tinued to try to restrain the juvenile, pressing him up

against a refrigerator with such force that the refrigerator

began moving across the floor. At this point, an officer

opened the screen door and announced the officers’ pres

ence. Amid the tumult, nobody noticed. The officer en

tered the kitchen and again cried out, and as the occu

pants slowly became aware that the police were on the

scene, the altercation ceased.

The officers subsequently arrested respondents and

charged them with contributing to the delinquency of a

minor, disorderly conduct, and intoxication. In the trial

court, respondents filed a motion to suppress all evidence

obtained after the officers entered the home, arguing that

the warrantless entry violated the Fourth Amendment.

The court granted the motion, and the Utah Court of

Appeals affirmed.

Before the Supreme Court of Utah, Brigham City ar

gued that although the officers lacked a warrant, their

entry was nevertheless reasonable on either of two

grounds. The court rejected both contentions and, over

two dissenters, affirmed. First, the court held that the

injury caused by the juvenile’s punch was insufficient to

trigger the so-called “emergency aid doctrine” because it

did not give rise to an “ objectively reasonable belief that

an unconscious, semi-conscious, or missing person feared

injured or dead [was] in the home.” 122 P. 3d, at 513

(internal quotation marks omitted). Furthermore, the

court suggested that the doctrine was inapplicable because

the officers had not sought to assist the injured adult, but

instead had acted “exclusively in their law enforcement

capacity.” Ibid.

The court also held that the entry did not fall within the

exigent circumstances exception to the warrant require

ment. This exception applies, the court explained, where

Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 3

Opinion of the Court

police have probable cause and where “a reasonable per

son [would] believe that the entry was necessary to pre

vent physical harm to the officers or other persons.” Id.,

at 514 (internal quotation marks omitted). Under this

standard, the court stated, the potential harm need not be

as serious as that required to invoke the emergency aid

exception. Although it found the case “a close and difficult

call,” the court nevertheless concluded that the officers’

entry was not justified by exigent circumstances. Id., at

515.

We granted certiorari, 546 U. S. ___ (2006), in light of

differences among state courts and the Courts of Appeals

concerning the appropriate Fourth Amendment standard

governing warrantless entry by law enforcement in an

emergency situation. Compare In re Sealed Case 96–3167,

153 F. 3d 759, 766 (CADC 1998) (“[T]he standard for

exigent circumstances is an objective one”) and People v.

Hebert, 46 P. 3d 473, 480 (Colo. 2002) (en banc) (consider

ing the circumstances as they “would have been objec

tively examined by a prudent and trained police officer”),

with United States v. Cervantes, 219 F. 3d 882, 890 (CA9

2000) (“[U]nder the emergency doctrine, ‘[a] search must

not be primarily motivated by intent to arrest and seize

evidence’ ” (quoting People v. Mitchell, 39 N. Y. 2d 173,

177, 347 N. E. 2d 607, 609 (1976)) and State v. Mountford,

171 Vt. 487, 492, 769 A. 2d 639, 645 (2000) (Mitchell test

“requir[es] courts to find that the primary subjective moti

vation behind such searches was to provide emergency

aid”).

II

It is a “ ‘ basic principle of Fourth Amendment law that

searches and seizures inside a home without a warrant

are presumptively unreasonable.’ ” Groh v. Ramirez, 540

U. S. 551, 559 (2004) (quoting Payton v. New York, 445 U. S.

573, 586 (1980) (some internal quotation marks omitted)).

4 BRIGHAM CITY v. STUART

Opinion of the Court

Nevertheless, because the ultimate touchstone of the

Fourth Amendment is “reasonableness,” the warrant

requirement is subject to certain exceptions. Flippo v.

West Virginia, 528 U. S. 11, 13 (1999) (per curiam); Katz v.

United States, 389 U. S. 347, 357 (1967). We have held, for

example, that law enforcement officers may make a war

rantless entry onto private property to fight a fire and

investigate its cause, Michigan v. Tyler, 436 U. S. 499, 509

(1978), to prevent the imminent destruction of evidence,

Ker v. California, 374 U. S. 23, 40 (1963), or to engage in

“hot pursuit” of a fleeing suspect, United States v. Santana,

427 U. S. 38, 42–43 (1976). “[W]arrants are generally re

quired to search a person’s home or his person unless ‘the

exigencies of the situation’ make the needs of law enforce

ment so compelling that the warrantless search is objec

tively reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.” Mincey v.

Arizona, 437 U. S. 385, 393–394 (1978).

One exigency obviating the requirement of a warrant is

the need to assist persons who are seriously injured or

threatened with such injury. “ ‘The need to protect or

preserve life or avoid serious injury is justification for

what would be otherwise illegal absent an exigency or

emergency.’ ” Id., at 392 (quoting Wayne v. United States,

318 F. 2d 205, 212 (CADC 1963) (Burger, J.)); see also

Tyler, supra, at 509. Accordingly, law enforcement officers

may enter a home without a warrant to render emergency

assistance to an injured occupant or to protect an occupant

from imminent injury. Mincey, supra, at 392; see also

Georgia v. Randolph, 547 U. S. ___, ___ (2006) (slip op., at

13–14) (“[I]t would be silly to suggest that the police would

commit a tort by entering . . . to determine whether vio

lence (or threat of violence) has just occurred or is about to

(or soon will) occur”).

Respondents do not take issue with these principles, but

instead advance two reasons why the officers’ entry here

was unreasonable. First, they argue that the officers were

Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 5

Opinion of the Court

more interested in making arrests than quelling violence.

They urge us to consider, in assessing the reasonableness

of the entry, whether the officers were “indeed motivated

primarily by a desire to save lives and property.” Brief for

Respondents 3; see also Brief for National Association of

Criminal Defense Lawyers as Amicus Curiae 6 (entry to

render emergency assistance justifies a search “only when

the searching officer is acting outside his traditional law-

enforcement capacity”). The Utah Supreme Court also

considered the officers’ subjective motivations relevant.

See 122 P. 3d, at 513 (search under the “emergency aid

doctrine” may not be “primarily motivated by intent to

arrest and seize evidence” (internal quotation marks

omitted)).

Our cases have repeatedly rejected this approach. An

action is “reasonable” under the Fourth Amendment,

regardless of the individual officer’s state of mind, “as long

as the circumstances, viewed objectively, justify [the]

action.” Scott v. United States, 436 U. S. 128, 138 (1978)

(emphasis added). The officer’s subjective motivation is

irrelevant. See Bond v. United States, 529 U. S. 334, 338,

n. 2 (2000) (“The parties properly agree that the subjective

intent of the law enforcement officer is irrelevant in deter

mining whether that officer’s actions violate the Fourth

Amendment . . . ; the issue is not his state of mind, but the

objective effect of his actions”); Whren v. United States, 517

U. S. 806, 813 (1996) (“[W]e have been unwilling to enter

tain Fourth Amendment challenges based on the actual

motivations of individual officers”); Graham v. Connor, 490

U. S. 386, 397 (1989) (“[O]ur prior cases make clear” that

“the subjective motivations of the individual officers . . .

ha[ve] no bearing on whether a particular seizure is ‘unrea

sonable’ under the Fourth Amendment”). It therefore does

not matter here—even if their subjective motives could be

so neatly unraveled—whether the officers entered the

kitchen to arrest respondents and gather evidence against

6 BRIGHAM CITY v. STUART

Opinion of the Court

them or to assist the injured and prevent further violence.

As respondents note, we have held in the context of

programmatic searches conducted without individualized

suspicion—such as checkpoints to combat drunk driving or

drug trafficking—that “an inquiry into programmatic

purpose” is sometimes appropriate. Indianapolis v. Ed

mond, 531 U. S. 32, 46 (2000) (emphasis added); see also

Florida v. Wells, 495 U. S. 1, 4 (1990) (an inventory search

must be regulated by “standardized criteria” or “established

routine” so as not to “be a ruse for a general rummaging in

order to discover incriminating evidence”). But this inquiry

is directed at ensuring that the purpose behind the pro

gram is not “ultimately indistinguishable from the general

interest in crime control.” Edmond, 531 U. S., at 44. It

has nothing to do with discerning what is in the mind of

the individual officer conducting the search. Id., at 48.

Respondents further contend that their conduct was not

serious enough to justify the officers’ intrusion into the

home. They rely on Welsh v. Wisconsin, 466 U. S. 740, 753

(1984), in which we held that “an important factor to be

considered when determining whether any exigency exists

is the gravity of the underlying offense for which the

arrest is being made.” This contention, too, is misplaced.

Welsh involved a warrantless entry by officers to arrest a

suspect for driving while intoxicated. There, the “only

potential emergency” confronting the officers was the need

to preserve evidence (i.e., the suspect’s blood-alcohol

level)—an exigency that we held insufficient under the

circumstances to justify entry into the suspect’s home.

Ibid. Here, the officers were confronted with ongoing

violence occurring within the home. Welsh did not address

such a situation.

We think the officers’ entry here was plainly reasonable

under the circumstances. The officers were responding, at

3 o’clock in the morning, to complaints about a loud party.

As they approached the house, they could hear from

Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 7

Opinion of the Court

within “an altercation occurring, some kind of a fight.”

App. 29. “It was loud and it was tumultuous.” Id., at 33.

The officers heard “thumping and crashing” and people

yelling “stop, stop” and “get off me.” Id., at 28, 29. As the

trial court found, “it was obvious that . . . knocking on the

front door” would have been futile. Id., at 92. The noise

seemed to be coming from the back of the house; after

looking in the front window and seeing nothing, the offi

cers proceeded around back to investigate further. They

found two juveniles drinking beer in the backyard. From

there, they could see that a fracas was taking place inside

the kitchen. A juvenile, fists clenched, was being held

back by several adults. As the officers watch, he breaks

free and strikes one of the adults in the face, sending the

adult to the sink spitting blood.

In these circumstances, the officers had an objectively

reasonable basis for believing both that the injured adult

might need help and that the violence in the kitchen was

just beginning. Nothing in the Fourth Amendment re

quired them to wait until another blow rendered someone

“unconscious” or “semi-conscious” or worse before enter

ing. The role of a peace officer includes preventing vio

lence and restoring order, not simply rendering first aid to

casualties; an officer is not like a boxing (or hockey) refe

ree, poised to stop a bout only if it becomes too one-sided.

The manner of the officers’ entry was also reasonable.

After witnessing the punch, one of the officers opened the

screen door and “yelled in police.” Id., at 40. When no

body heard him, he stepped into the kitchen and an

nounced himself again. Only then did the tumult subside.

The officer’s announcement of his presence was at least

equivalent to a knock on the screen door. Indeed, it was

probably the only option that had even a chance of rising

above the din. Under these circumstances, there was no

violation of the Fourth Amendment’s knock-and-announce

rule. Furthermore, once the announcement was made, the

8 BRIGHAM CITY v. STUART

Opinion of the Court

officers were free to enter; it would serve no purpose to

require them to stand dumbly at the door awaiting a

response while those within brawled on, oblivious to their

presence.

Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Supreme

Court of Utah, and remand the case for further proceed

ings not inconsistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 1

STEVENS, J., concurring

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

_________________

No. 05–502

_________________

BRIGHAM CITY, UTAH, PETITIONER v. CHARLES W.

STUART ET AL.

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF UTAH

[May 22, 2006]

JUSTICE STEVENS, concurring.

This is an odd flyspeck of a case. The charges that have

been pending against respondents for the past six years

are minor offenses—intoxication, contributing to the de

linquency of a minor, and disorderly conduct—two of

which could have been proved by evidence that was gath

ered by the responding officers before they entered the

home. The maximum punishment for these crimes ranges

between 90 days and 6 months in jail. And the Court’s

unanimous opinion restating well-settled rules of federal

law is so clearly persuasive that it is hard to imagine the

outcome was ever in doubt.

Under these circumstances, the only difficult question is

which of the following is the most peculiar: (1) that the

Utah trial judge, the intermediate state appellate court,

and the Utah Supreme Court all found a Fourth Amend

ment violation on these facts; (2) that the prosecution

chose to pursue this matter all the way to the United

States Supreme Court; or (3) that this Court voted to

grant the petition for a writ of certiorari.

A possible explanation for the first is that the suppres

sion ruling was correct as a matter of Utah law, and nei

ther trial counsel nor the trial judge bothered to identify

the Utah Constitution as an independent basis for the

decision because they did not expect the prosecution to

2 BRIGHAM CITY v. STUART

STEVENS, J., concurring

appeal.* The most plausible explanation for the latter two

decisions is that they were made so police officers in Utah

may enter a home without a warrant when they see ongo

ing violence—we are, of course, reversing the Utah Su

preme Court’s conclusion to the contrary. But that pur

pose, laudable though it may be, cannot be achieved in

this case. Our holding today addresses only the limita

tions placed by the Federal Constitution on the search at

issue; we have no authority to decide whether the police in

this case violated the Utah Constitution.

The Utah Supreme Court, however, has made clear that

the Utah Constitution provides greater protection to the

privacy of the home than does the Fourth Amendment.

See State v. Debooy, 2000 UT 32, ¶12, 996 P. 2d 546, 549.

And it complained in this case of respondents’ failure to

raise or adequately brief a state constitutional challenge,

thus preventing the state courts from deciding the case on

anything other than Fourth Amendment grounds. See

2005 UT 13, ¶12, 122 P. 3d 506, 510. “[S]urpris[ed]” by

“[t]he reluctance of litigants to take up and develop a state

constitutional analysis,” ibid., the court expressly invited

future litigants to bring challenges under the Utah Consti

tution to enable it to fulfill its “responsibility as guardians

of the individual liberty of our citizens” and “undertak[e] a

principled exploration of the interplay between federal and

state protections of individual rights,” id., at 511. The fact

that this admonishment and request came from the Utah

Supreme Court in this very case not only demonstrates

that the prosecution selected the wrong case for establish

ing the rule it wants, but indicates that the Utah Supreme

Court would probably adopt the same rule as a matter of

state constitutional law that we reject today under the

——————

* Indeed, it was the prosecution that prepared the trial court’s order

granting respondents’ motion to suppress. See 2002 UT App. 317, ¶4,

57 P. 3d 1111, 1112.

Cite as: 547 U. S. ____ (2006) 3

STEVENS, J., concurring

Federal Constitution.

Whether or not that forecast is accurate, I can see no

reason for this Court to cause the Utah courts to redecide

the question as a matter of state law. Federal interests

are not offended when a single State elects to provide

greater protection for its citizens than the Federal Consti

tution requires. Indeed, I continue to believe “that a policy

of judicial restraint—one that allows other decisional

bodies to have the last word in legal interpretation until it

is truly necessary for this Court to intervene—enables this

Court to make its most effective contribution to our federal

system of government.” Michigan v. Long, 463 U. S. 1032,

1067 (1983) (STEVENS, J., dissenting). Thus, while I join the

Court’s opinion, I remain persuaded that my vote to deny

the State’s petition for certiorari was correct.