5.6.1

• Jurisdiction: Arizona

§ 5.6.1 Emergency Aid

1. General Rule. Unlike the exigent circumstances exception, officers do not need probable cause that a crime is occurring before they can enter a home based on the emergency aid exception. Rather, such an entry is based on the need to render emergency assistance. As the Arizona Supreme Court observed:

Officers also “may enter a home without a warrant to render emergency assistance to an injured occupant or to protect an occupant from imminent injury.” Brigham City v. Stuart,547 U.S. 398, 403, 126 S. Ct. 1943, 164 L.Ed.2d 650 (2006). This “emergency aid exception” does not depend on the officers’ subjective intent or the seriousness of any crime they are investigating when the emergency arises. Id. at 404–05, 126 S. Ct. 1943. Instead, it requires only “an objectively reasonable basis for believing,” that “a person within [the house] is in need of immediate aid.” Michigan v. Fisher,558 U.S. 45, 47, 130 S. Ct. 546, 175 L.Ed.2d 410 (2009) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). The Supreme Court’s decision in Brigham City supersedes our case law holding that the emergency aid exception turns on the officers’ “primary motive” in entering the home. See, e.g., State v. Fisher,141 Ariz. 227, 237, 686 P.2d 750, 760 (1984).

State v. Wilson, 237 Ariz. 296, 299, 350 P.3d 800, 803 (2015) (no exigency existed for home entry); see alsoBrigham City v. Stuart, 547 U.S. 398, 403 (2006) (officers could enter home without warrant to render emergency aid after seeing fight take place inside; Court found that the “emergency aid” analysis is an objective test, overruling decisions that had employed a “primary motivation” prong, i.e., whether an officer’s entry was primarily motivated to seize evidence). SeeWilson, 237 Ariz. at 299, 350 P.3d 803 (“The Supreme Court’s decision in Brigham City supersedes our case law holding that the emergency aid exception turns on the officers’ ‘primary motive’ in entering the home.”); see, e.g.,State v. Sharp, 193 Ariz. 414, 419, 973 P.2d 1171, 1176 (1999) (stating, before Brigham City, that an emergency aid entry “must be motivated primarily by safety concerns and not by the desire to seize evidence”).

An officer’s emergency aid entry did not justify a search of a cellphone (belonging to defendant) located next to the victim’s body after she was pronounced dead. State v. Peoples, 240 Ariz. 245, 378 P.3d 421 (2016) (overnight guest defendant who left his cellphone in victim’s apartment did not lose expectation of privacy in phone; officer’s subsequent discovery of video on phone, without a warrant or warrant exception, was unlawful under Fourth Amendment).

2. Cases. See also § 5.6.2, “Examples of Exigent Circumstances and/or Emergency Aid Entries.”

In Brigham City v. Stuart, 547 U.S. 398, 403 (2006), officers responded to loud party complaints at the home at three o’clock in the morning and they heard fighting and yelling from within the home as they approached the front door. They saw nothing through the front window and went around to the backyard and entered it; from the backyard, they saw through glass that a juvenile in the kitchen was being held back by several adults, and the juvenile struck one of the adults, sending the adult to the sink spitting blood. Even though the fight had appeared to subside by the time the officers opened the sliding glass door and entered...