State v. Friscia

Montana Supreme Court·Decided July 21, 2026·No. DA 24-0023·Published·Rice

Opinion

07/21/2026

DA 24-0023

Case Number: DA 24-0023

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF MONTANA 2026 MT 158

STATE OF MONTANA, Plaintiff and Appellee,

v.

PHILLIP MICHAEL FRISCIA, Defendant and Appellant.

APPEAL FROM: District Court of the Eighth Judicial District, In and For the County of Cascade, Cause No. BDC-22-804 Honorable Elizabeth A. Best, Presiding Judge

COUNSEL OF RECORD:

For Appellant:

Pete Wood, Attorney at Law, Boise, Idaho For Appellee:

Austin Knudsen, Montana Attorney General, Roy Brown, Assistant Attorney General, Helena, Montana

Joshua A. Racki, Cascade County Attorney, Amanda L. Lofink, Deputy County Attorney, Great Falls, Montana

Submitted on Briefs: March 25, 2026 Decided: July 21, 2026

Filed:

Clerk

Justice Jim Rice delivered the Opinion of the Court.

¶1 Phillip Michael Friscia (Friscia) appeals from his conviction by Alford1 plea of the charge of threatening an officer, a felony, in violation of § 45-7-102(1)(a)(i), MCA. He challenges the order entered by the Eighth Judicial District Court, Cascade County, denying his motion to suppress (Order), which he reserved the right to appeal in the plea agreement. We restate the issues raised by Friscia as follows:

1. Did the District Court err by denying the motion to suppress and dismiss?

2. Did the District Court err by denying the facial constitutional challenge to § 45-7-102(1)(a)(i), MCA?

We affirm.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

¶2 On November 18, 2022, a call was made in Great Falls to 9-1-1, wherein, according to the District Court’s post-hearing findings, “a clearly frantic and distraught female is heard crying, pleading for help because her former partner had locked her out of the house and has ‘our’ baby.” The caller would later be identified as Shanelle Parker (Parker). The operator asked Parker where she was calling from, and Parker reported her location as 1626 6th Avenue North, in Great Falls. The operator asked for her name, but Parker did not immediately respond, and instead indiscernible shouting could be heard in the background of the call, with Parker yelling “Don’t! Don’t! Don’t!” and “Don’t do this!” A male voice is heard and Parker continued to scream until the call disconnected, without

1 North Carolina v. Alford, 400 U.S. 25, 91 S. Ct. 160 (1970).

Parker giving any additional information. The male was later identified as Friscia. Parker and Friscia lived together in a multifamily apartment dwelling.2

¶3 Law enforcement dispatch coded the call as a priority disturbance requiring immediate police response, and provided a “use caution” advisory. Lead Officer Zaine O’Meara believed it was a serious call with “a female who was potentially being assaulted.” When he and other officers from the Great Falls Police Department arrived at 1626 6th Avenue North, they did not know which unit in the building was involved with the disturbance, given the limited information provided by Parker in the call. To gain more information, O’Meara knocked on the door of a unit in the building. The male inhabitant answered the door holding a firearm, stating there had been an “ongoing disturbance” in another unit and that he was fearful about answering the door. O’Meara asked dispatch to try to re-contact the caller, but the attempt was unsuccessful.3

¶4 After O’Meara spoke with this neighbor, he saw a man leaving a different unit, who, after noticing the police, turned and attempted to re-enter his unit. O’Meara made verbal contact with the man and asked to speak with him. The man, who was later identified as Friscia’s brother, Marc, lived on the first floor of the apartment building. Marc informed Officer O’Meara that he had heard the sounds of a disturbance from Friscia and Parker’s

2 This case was not tried. The District Court conducted an evidentiary hearing on Friscia’s motion to suppress, at which time testimony was taken and exhibits admitted, including the 9-1-1 call and photographs of the scene. 3 Officers would find Parker’s broken phone after ultimately entering Friscia’s unit.

unit. Marc did not then advise, as police would later learn, that Marc’s 15-year-old son was babysitting in Friscia’s unit.

¶5 O’Meara, Officer Patina, and a trainee officer, Officer Whitsitt, then heard a male and a female indiscernibly screaming within Friscia’s unit. O’Meara testified of a concern the female was being assaulted therein, which he explained was based upon the 9-1-1 call, the location of the continuing screaming, and his six years of experience as a police officer. O’Meara was advised by dispatch that the caller’s phone had not been answered.

¶6 O’Meara and Whitsitt entered an exterior door on the first floor of the building, which led into to a stairwell and a set of stairs going up to a landing. O’Meara testified that he thought the exterior door and the stairwell were “like a common area that would open up to other apartments.” From the landing, the steps took an L-turn and continued up, out of sight from the exterior door, to the front door of a single unit, wherein Friscia resided. O’Meara explained that, looking up from the landing, there was about an inch of open space under the unit door through which he could see into the unit. Through this space O’Meara saw a set of feet, which he testified made it “very obvious that somebody was standing just on the other side of the door.”

¶7 O’Meara called out several times identifying himself as law enforcement and asked the person to open the door and step outside to talk to them, as he needed to figure out what was going on. The person, Friscia, loudly and angrily refused, told police to leave, and began repeatedly opening the door and slamming it closed again, which, as O’Meara testified, “was making it very difficult for me to communicate with him, because I would only have moments, seconds, to see him physically . . . . And on one or two of the times

that he opened the door the kid would be in his arms. And then the other two times he wouldn’t have the kid with him.” O’Meara testified that “my mind [was] trying to process this information and determine what his intent is,” including whether there was a woman harmed inside, whether Friscia intended to harm the child, and whether he would grab a weapon during one of the times he closed the door. Then, as captured on the officers’ Watchguard audio, Friscia loudly stated, “please get out of my house,” and then shouted, “I have the right to fucking defend myself from people that are in my house!”

¶8 O’Meara testified he immediately became concerned because, “that to me means they’re threatening to cause harm to me if I don’t omit [sic] from my investigation and just simply leave. And that’s exactly what I – how I perceive it, was that he plans to quote/unquote ‘defend’ his property if I don’t leave.” Concerned that the officers had bunched themselves in a “fatal funnel” on the stairway that left “no way for us to defend ourselves” if Friscia charged them, O’Meara told the officers, “we need to get out of this staircase right now,” and they exited the building.

¶9 Back outside of the building, O’Meara noticed the curtains moving in Friscia’s unit on the second floor, which O’Meara testified “was obvious that he was looking out on the street to us to find out where we were.” Concerned about Friscia having a weapon and Friscia’s statement about defending his residence, O’Meara feared Friscia “was going to take up some form of a defensive position from these windows and start shooting at us from that second story apartment,” or that this could become a hostage situation. Friscia then came down the stairs to the exterior door and began speaking with his brother, Marc. O’Meara, saying he “fell back on [his] training,” began to approach the door and said to

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