Mr. Gray Goes to Washington
Publication year | 2006 |
Pages | 2 |
Citation | Vol. 19 No. 6 Pg. 2 |
Vol. 19, No. 6, 2. Mr. Gray Goes to Washington
Utah Bar Journal
Vol. 19, No. 6
November/December 2006
Vol. 19, No. 6
November/December 2006
Mr. Gray Goes to Washington
Mr. Gray Goes to Washington
by Brett J. DelPorto and Jeffrey S. Gray
MR. GRAY: ...[T]he defendants in this case were the
adults inside the home.
JUSTICE STEVENS: Oh, they charge that the adults were
intoxicated.
MR. GRAY: Yes.
JUSTICE STEVENS: Well, thatÃ.s a serious crime in Utah I
guess. (Laughter.)
MR. GRAY: We anticipated that comment actually
(Laughter.)
JUSTICE STEVENS: And what's your response?
When Jeff Gray first announced he was appealing Brigham
City v. Stuart to the United States Supreme Court, the
response from colleagues in the Criminal Appeals Division of
the Utah Attorney General's Office was immediate
Congratulations. The obligatory "high five." Some
even named Jeff as a personal hero.1
Privately, however, the mood was a bit more subdued. The
United States Supreme Court? The big guys? Virtually every
case handled by the office goes no further than the Utah
Supreme Court. By one estimate, the State's last cert
petition to the U.S. Supreme Court on an issue of criminal
law was 17 years ago. And that one was denied. What chance do
we have now? Shouldn't Jeff just let this one go
"I never thought he'd get cert, but it couldn't
hurt to try," said Assistant AG Joanne Slotnik. But
"[w]hen Jeff aggressively garnered so many states as
amici, I felt much more encouraged."
Ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court not only granted cert, but
also agreed with Jeff about as thoroughly as the court agrees
on anything. By a 9-0 vote, the court adopted the State's
position and, in doing so, clarified the scope of warrantless
searches under the emergency aid and exigent circumstances
doctrines.
Now, five months later, it's time to ask a pertinent
question: What was he thinking?
In a sense, the saga began on February 18, 2005, the day the
Utah Supreme Court weighed in on Brigham City v.
Stuart. It is fair to say this was not a good day for
anyone in the office, Jeff in particular. Jeff had received
the customary phone call the day before informing him that
the opinion was to be released the next day. Accordingly,
Jeff arrived at work bleary-eyed from a fitful night of
worrying about the case and a little apprehensive about the
strong possibility that he was about to get skunked.
"I'm usually a sound sleeper, even when I have
something important the next day. But it had taken more than
eight months after oral argument for the Court to issue an
opinion, and oral argument had not gone well. This was an
important case we could not afford to lose. Officers deal
with domestic violence on a daily basis. I felt a loss would
severely hamper their ability to effectively deal with
violence. I was already thinking cert."
In taking the case to the Utah Supreme Court, Jeff had hoped
to undo at least some of the concerns raised by earlier
rulings from the trial court and then from the Court of
Appeals. In the State's view, the legal issues presented
in Brigham City were very straightforward. Should
police officers be required to wait until violence becomes
life-threatening before entering a home in order to break up
a fight? Brigham City police had responded to a loud party
complaint at 3 a.m.2 When they arrived, they quickly
determined that some kind of physical altercation was
occurring inside. Their investigation led them into the back
yard. After entering the back yard, the officers watched
through windows and a screen door as four adults attempted to
pin a juvenile against a refrigerator. When the juvenile
freed his hand and socked one adult in the nose, the officers
opened the screen door and yelled "Police!" When no
one inside heard, the officers entered the home and stopped
the fight. In addition to arresting the juvenile, the
officers arrested the adults, who were charged with
contributing to the delinquency of a minor, disorderly
conduct and intoxication.
Defense counsel filed a motion to suppress all the evidence
seized inside the home, claiming the search was illegal under
the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Brigham City
countered that the search was legal because the officers
entered the home based on probable cause - an ongoing assault
- and exigent circumstances. The trial court disagreed,
holding that the officers should have knocked, even though
the "loud, tumultuous thing going on" inside would
probably have made it impossible for anyone to hear a knock.3
The trial court granted the motion to suppress and the Utah
Court of Appeals affirmed.
It was at this point that Jeff became involved. Because the
case concerned misdemeanors, the matter was not handled
initially by the AGÃ.s Criminal Appeals Division, which
generally handles appeals of felonies only. But in the wake
of the Court of Appeals' Brigham City opinion,
it became clear that the case was, from the Office's
perspective, a precedent that needed to be overturned.
After receiving authorization from the Brigham City Attorney,
Jeff petitioned for certiorari to the Utah Supreme Court,
which was granted. This was taken as a positive sign.
However, any initial optimism about the court's decision
to accept cert was largely dissipated after oral argument.
The court's Brigham City opinion was
disappointing, but not entirely surprising. By a 3-2 margin
the Utah court affirmed the Court of Appeals' decision,
but with a new component. The court agreed that there were no
exigent circumstances warranting the officers' entry into
the home.4 The court also concluded that the entry was not
justified under the so-called "emergency aid
doctrine" Ã a theory the State had not briefed.
According to the Court, "the circumstances known to the
officers at the time of entry did not create a reasonable
belief that...
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