United States v. Giambro
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Opinion
United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit
No. 24-1052
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Appellee,
v.
DARIO GIAMBRO,
Defendant, Appellant.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MAINE
[Hon. George Z. Singal, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Rikelman, Lynch, and Aframe, Circuit Judges.
Edward S. MacColl, with whom Marshall J. Tinkle and Thompson, MacColl & Bass, LLC, P.A. were on brief, for appellant.
Brian S. Kleinbord, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom Darcie N. McElwee, United States Attorney, was on brief, for appellee.
January 15, 2025 RIKELMAN, Circuit Judge. Dario Giambro appeals his
conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), the felon-in-possession
statute, on two grounds. First, Giambro argues that the district
court erred in denying his motion to suppress evidence found by
police officers after they forcibly entered his Hebron, Maine home
without a warrant. The district court concluded that the entry
fell within the emergency aid exception to the Fourth Amendment's
warrant requirement, which would apply here only if the officers
had an objectively reasonable basis to believe that Giambro's wife,
Arline, was inside the couple's home and in need of immediate aid.
Giambro argues that the exception cannot apply because the
information reported by Arline's family to the police officers was
exactly the opposite: that Arline was not in the home and that she
had died at least one day earlier. Second, he argues that the
district court erred in denying his motion to dismiss the charge
against him on Second Amendment grounds.
We agree with Giambro that the officers' entry into his
home cannot be justified under the emergency aid exception to the
warrant requirement and thus violated his Fourth Amendment rights.
Considering the record facts here, there was no objectively
reasonable basis for the officers to conclude that they needed to
enter the home to render emergency assistance to Arline. Further,
the officers conducting the search knew that Arline's adult son
and husband were nearby and available for questioning immediately
- 2 - before the warrantless entry, yet they never tried to speak to the
family members. We conclude that officers may not ignore obvious
and available options for gathering facts to determine if an
emergency actually exists. Accordingly, we reverse the district
court's denial of Giambro's motion to suppress the evidence used
against him and remand for further proceedings. Given our ruling
on the Fourth Amendment issue, we do not reach Giambro's Second
Amendment claim.1
I. BACKGROUND
The events leading up to the warrantless entry and search
of Giambro's home began when Antonio, his son,2 visited his
parents' trailer in Hebron, Maine on the morning of January 26,
2022. Antonio had returned from a week-long vacation the day
before and, understandably, wanted to check on his parents, both
of whom were in their seventies. After arriving in Hebron, Antonio
spoke to his father inside the trailer, and his father told him
that his mother had died while Antonio was on vacation. During
their conversation, Antonio became concerned about his father's
mental health and decided to drive him to a hospital in a nearby
town, about 15 minutes away. Importantly, Antonio did not see his
1At oral argument, Giambro agreed that if we reverse the district court's Fourth Amendment ruling, we need not address his Second Amendment claim. 2To avoid confusion, we refer to Giambro's wife and son by their first names; we mean no disrespect in doing so.
- 3 - mother inside his parents' trailer that morning. Antonio also did
not call 911 or take any other steps indicating that he was worried
that his mother was still alive and in need of aid.
Instead, the hospital where Antonio brought Giambro
called the police and asked for an officer to respond to the
hospital. At noon, about 45 minutes after that initial call by
the hospital, police officers broke into Giambro's home without a
warrant. The underlying facts about what transpired on January 26
come from hearing testimony on Giambro's motion to suppress. We
recite those facts as found by the district court.
A. Initial Entry into the Hebron Trailer
At about 11:12 a.m. on January 26, the Oxford County
Regional Communication Centers Dispatch ("Dispatch") received a
non-emergency call from Stephens Memorial Hospital (the
"Hospital") in Norway, Maine. A Hospital employee requested that
an officer come to the Hospital. The employee recounted that an
individual (Antonio) had "just brought in his father to the
hospital because [his father] is confused but he said that his
mother is at the house deceased and . . . they don't know what
happened to the mother." Dispatch then spoke to Corporal Robert
Federico, an officer from the Norway Police Department, and relayed
that "Antonio Giambro brought his dad Dario Giambro in who is ill
and is stating that the mother is at their residence. I don't
- 4 - have that information. She is deceased and they are not sure what
happened." Cpl. Federico then proceeded to the Hospital.
Ten minutes later, Cpl. Federico arrived at the hospital
and spoke with Antonio in the lobby of the emergency department
while Giambro waited in Antonio's car. As the district court
summarized, Antonio relayed the following information to Cpl.
Federico:
[Antonio] had recently returned from vacation and, the night prior, had gone to plow the snow outside the residence of his parents, Dario and Arline Giambro ("Arline"), in Hebron ("the residence"). However, he was unable to make contact with either of them despite knocking on the front door of the residence and calling throughout the evening. It was not until the following morning, January 26, that Dario answered the phone. Because Dario sounded "off" during that phone conversation, Antonio again traveled to his parents' residence. Once there, Antonio did not see his mother (and Dario's wife), Arline, but spoke with Dario. Dario commented that Arline had died while Antonio had been away on vacation. When Antonio attempted to inquire as to what specifically had happened to Arline, Dario would offer only cryptic or evasive answers to the effect of "she didn't wake up" and "these sorts of things happen." Antonio asked whether any ambulance or police had been by the house, and Dario responded that they had not. He also asked where Arline's body was, and Dario responded that she was not in the house and that they lived "on a homestead." Antonio told his father that he would take him to lunch but instead brought him to Hospital.
United States v. Giambro, No. 2:22-CR-00044, 2023 WL 3123001, at
*2 (D. Me. Apr. 27, 2023) (summarizing testimony of Cpl. Federico).
- 5 - After speaking with Antonio for about five minutes, Cpl.
Federico reached back out to Dispatch. At 11:26 a.m., Cpl.
Federico informed Dispatch that the residence at issue was in
Hebron and that "the father is telling the son that the mother
died but she's not in the house and he won't say where she is."
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United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit
No. 24-1052
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Appellee,
v.
DARIO GIAMBRO,
Defendant, Appellant.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MAINE
[Hon. George Z. Singal, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Rikelman, Lynch, and Aframe, Circuit Judges.
Edward S. MacColl, with whom Marshall J. Tinkle and Thompson, MacColl & Bass, LLC, P.A. were on brief, for appellant.
Brian S. Kleinbord, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom Darcie N. McElwee, United States Attorney, was on brief, for appellee.
January 15, 2025 RIKELMAN, Circuit Judge. Dario Giambro appeals his
conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), the felon-in-possession
statute, on two grounds. First, Giambro argues that the district
court erred in denying his motion to suppress evidence found by
police officers after they forcibly entered his Hebron, Maine home
without a warrant. The district court concluded that the entry
fell within the emergency aid exception to the Fourth Amendment's
warrant requirement, which would apply here only if the officers
had an objectively reasonable basis to believe that Giambro's wife,
Arline, was inside the couple's home and in need of immediate aid.
Giambro argues that the exception cannot apply because the
information reported by Arline's family to the police officers was
exactly the opposite: that Arline was not in the home and that she
had died at least one day earlier. Second, he argues that the
district court erred in denying his motion to dismiss the charge
against him on Second Amendment grounds.
We agree with Giambro that the officers' entry into his
home cannot be justified under the emergency aid exception to the
warrant requirement and thus violated his Fourth Amendment rights.
Considering the record facts here, there was no objectively
reasonable basis for the officers to conclude that they needed to
enter the home to render emergency assistance to Arline. Further,
the officers conducting the search knew that Arline's adult son
and husband were nearby and available for questioning immediately
- 2 - before the warrantless entry, yet they never tried to speak to the
family members. We conclude that officers may not ignore obvious
and available options for gathering facts to determine if an
emergency actually exists. Accordingly, we reverse the district
court's denial of Giambro's motion to suppress the evidence used
against him and remand for further proceedings. Given our ruling
on the Fourth Amendment issue, we do not reach Giambro's Second
Amendment claim.1
I. BACKGROUND
The events leading up to the warrantless entry and search
of Giambro's home began when Antonio, his son,2 visited his
parents' trailer in Hebron, Maine on the morning of January 26,
2022. Antonio had returned from a week-long vacation the day
before and, understandably, wanted to check on his parents, both
of whom were in their seventies. After arriving in Hebron, Antonio
spoke to his father inside the trailer, and his father told him
that his mother had died while Antonio was on vacation. During
their conversation, Antonio became concerned about his father's
mental health and decided to drive him to a hospital in a nearby
town, about 15 minutes away. Importantly, Antonio did not see his
1At oral argument, Giambro agreed that if we reverse the district court's Fourth Amendment ruling, we need not address his Second Amendment claim. 2To avoid confusion, we refer to Giambro's wife and son by their first names; we mean no disrespect in doing so.
- 3 - mother inside his parents' trailer that morning. Antonio also did
not call 911 or take any other steps indicating that he was worried
that his mother was still alive and in need of aid.
Instead, the hospital where Antonio brought Giambro
called the police and asked for an officer to respond to the
hospital. At noon, about 45 minutes after that initial call by
the hospital, police officers broke into Giambro's home without a
warrant. The underlying facts about what transpired on January 26
come from hearing testimony on Giambro's motion to suppress. We
recite those facts as found by the district court.
A. Initial Entry into the Hebron Trailer
At about 11:12 a.m. on January 26, the Oxford County
Regional Communication Centers Dispatch ("Dispatch") received a
non-emergency call from Stephens Memorial Hospital (the
"Hospital") in Norway, Maine. A Hospital employee requested that
an officer come to the Hospital. The employee recounted that an
individual (Antonio) had "just brought in his father to the
hospital because [his father] is confused but he said that his
mother is at the house deceased and . . . they don't know what
happened to the mother." Dispatch then spoke to Corporal Robert
Federico, an officer from the Norway Police Department, and relayed
that "Antonio Giambro brought his dad Dario Giambro in who is ill
and is stating that the mother is at their residence. I don't
- 4 - have that information. She is deceased and they are not sure what
happened." Cpl. Federico then proceeded to the Hospital.
Ten minutes later, Cpl. Federico arrived at the hospital
and spoke with Antonio in the lobby of the emergency department
while Giambro waited in Antonio's car. As the district court
summarized, Antonio relayed the following information to Cpl.
Federico:
[Antonio] had recently returned from vacation and, the night prior, had gone to plow the snow outside the residence of his parents, Dario and Arline Giambro ("Arline"), in Hebron ("the residence"). However, he was unable to make contact with either of them despite knocking on the front door of the residence and calling throughout the evening. It was not until the following morning, January 26, that Dario answered the phone. Because Dario sounded "off" during that phone conversation, Antonio again traveled to his parents' residence. Once there, Antonio did not see his mother (and Dario's wife), Arline, but spoke with Dario. Dario commented that Arline had died while Antonio had been away on vacation. When Antonio attempted to inquire as to what specifically had happened to Arline, Dario would offer only cryptic or evasive answers to the effect of "she didn't wake up" and "these sorts of things happen." Antonio asked whether any ambulance or police had been by the house, and Dario responded that they had not. He also asked where Arline's body was, and Dario responded that she was not in the house and that they lived "on a homestead." Antonio told his father that he would take him to lunch but instead brought him to Hospital.
United States v. Giambro, No. 2:22-CR-00044, 2023 WL 3123001, at
*2 (D. Me. Apr. 27, 2023) (summarizing testimony of Cpl. Federico).
- 5 - After speaking with Antonio for about five minutes, Cpl.
Federico reached back out to Dispatch. At 11:26 a.m., Cpl.
Federico informed Dispatch that the residence at issue was in
Hebron and that "the father is telling the son that the mother
died but she's not in the house and he won't say where she is."
He suggested that Oxford County, which had jurisdiction over
Hebron, "may wish to have a deputy come here to talk to him."
Thus, Cpl. Federico requested that an Oxford County deputy come to
the Hospital to speak to Giambro (or Antonio). Dispatch responded
that they would "let the . . . deputy know and have somebody go
there and meet with him."
Several minutes later, Cpl. Federico called Dispatch
again and stated: "Oxford just may want to let the deputy know
that the subject has multiple comments in his [names] file, they
might want to review that." A "names file" is a computerized
record that allows local law enforcement to enter and view comments
about an individual. On the morning of January 26, Giambro's names
file contained two "miscellaneous comments" that were both more
than a decade old: (1) that "GIAMBRO has shot a subject, created
a police standoff, is VERY anti-law enforcement and in the past
has possessed more than 100 firearms," dated May 29, 2010, and (2)
that "[s]ubject [is] on [f]ederal [p]robation with Mat Brown.
Brown thinks subject could be a problem with [law enforcement
officers]. Brown also thinks subject is armed. Mat does not have
- 6 - search conditions on subject but is going to try and get that
changed," dated November 18, 2008.
Cpl. Federico contacted Dispatch for a third time to
request that the deputy "give[] me a call [so] I can explain
better, I just don't want to put it out over the air." Cpl.
Federico then spoke via his personal cell phone to Deputy Brandon
Tiner of the Oxford County Police Department. Cpl. Federico and
Deputy Tiner discussed "everything [Cpl. Federico] had learned up
to that point as far as what Antonio had told [him]," the comments
in Giambro's names file, and their concerns that Arline may still
be alive.
Deputy Tiner did not go to the Hospital as Cpl. Federico
had requested through Dispatch; instead, he proceeded directly to
the Giambro property, located in Hebron, Maine. Two other officers
from the Oxford County Police Department met him there, as well as
one additional officer from the Maine State Police Department.
All four arrived at Giambro's home in Hebron between 11:46 a.m.
and 11:54 a.m.
Located on the Giambro property were "[a] beige brown
trailer domicile which [could] not be seen from the road" and
"[o]utbuildings [including] a large metal two bay garage." Two
officers walked around the back of the trailer to look for any
tracks in the snow but did not see any. The officers attempted to
look through the trailer's windows, but blinds and plastic obscured
- 7 - their view. One officer looked through the garage windows but did
not see anybody inside. He also knocked on the trailer's door,
yelled "Sheriff's Office," and repeatedly instructed anyone inside
to answer the door.3
At this point, the only information the officers had
received about Arline was that she had died. The officers also
knew "that [Antonio] had been at the house that morning," that "he
had not made any emergency calls to law enforcement or ambulance
[services]," and that "instead of doing those things, [Antonio]
decided to take his dad to the hospital." Nevertheless, the
officers remained concerned that Arline was "unaccounted for." To
attempt to verify Arline's condition, they reached back out to
Dispatch, which confirmed that no medical calls or requests for
assistance had been made on Arline's behalf. The officers made no
efforts, however, to discuss their concerns that Arline may still
be alive with her family members, even though Antonio and Giambro
remained at the Hospital with Cpl. Federico and were readily
available to the officers via Cpl. Federico's cell phone
immediately before and during the search.
3 The dissenting opinion suggests that the officers conducted a thorough search of the property before forcibly entering the home. But the record indicates only that the officers looked in through the windows of the garage and briefly checked around the trailer for footprints in the snow. After they broke into the trailer and did not find Arline, the officers continued their search, including by inspecting the "exterior perimeter of the garage." See infra Section B.
- 8 - At around 11:57 a.m., two officers decided to force open
the door of the trailer. Once inside, the officers walked through
the kitchen/living area, the hallway, and a bedroom off the
hallway. They also forced open an interior locked door. The
officers did not locate Arline but did observe many firearms in
plain view throughout the trailer, as well as behind the locked
door. The officers exited the trailer at around 12:05 p.m. The
search concluded without any officer at the site ever speaking to
Antonio or Giambro.
B. Discovery of Arline's Body
Soon after, one officer departed and the others
continued to search the area surrounding the trailer. As one of
the remaining officers was attempting to open the garage door,
another officer stepped over a snowbank at the edge of the driveway
and observed old tracks in the snow on the other side. He followed
the tracks and found an unhinged door lying on top of the snow.
Underneath the door was a body-sized object wrapped in cloth and
plastic, which was later determined to be Arline's body. An
autopsy revealed she had died of natural causes.4
4 The suppression record indicates that, while at the Hospital, Antonio had spoken to Cpl. Federico about whether local law would permit individuals to bury deceased family members on family property, in a homestead burial.
- 9 - C. Search Warrant and Indictment
That same evening, the Maine State Police applied for a
search warrant for the Giambro property, including the trailer and
garage. The officers' earlier search of the property, including
the firearms and ammunition they observed after entering the
trailer, was the only basis for their warrant request. In
executing the warrant, the government seized firearms and
ammunition. Ultimately, Giambro was indicted on one count of
possession of a firearm in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1) and
924(a).5
D. Motion to Suppress
Giambro timely moved to suppress the firearms seized
from his trailer as the fruits of an illegal search. The district
court conducted an evidentiary hearing on the motion, and Cpl.
Federico and two of the officers who conducted the warrantless
entry testified for the government.6 The government did not call
Deputy Tiner as a witness, even though he was the only officer
5 Giambro had previously been convicted of possession of an unregistered firearm in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 5861(d), a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year, see id. § 5871. 6 The government presented one additional witness, Oxford County Police Officer Adam Fillebrown. Officer Fillebrown had reported to the Hospital and later accompanied Antonio and Giambro to the Oxford Police Department for an interview, but he did not communicate with any of the four officers who entered Giambro's home.
- 10 - conducting the search who had spoken directly to Cpl. Federico
that morning.
During the hearing, the officers recounted what they
knew about Arline's condition at the time of their warrantless
entry into Giambro's home. One of the officers, Lt. Chancey Libby,
admitted that he had not been told anybody was alive or in need of
medical attention at the home, and that he knew that Antonio had
been inside the trailer earlier that morning and had placed no
calls requesting emergency assistance.
The second officer, Sgt. Daniel Hanson, explained that
he had been briefed on the situation by an officer from the Maine
State Police Department. That officer
advised [Hanson] that a subject had gone to check on his parents, had found his father at the residence, found his father ill, could not find his mother, and brought his father to the hospital. His father had relayed to him that his mother was deceased but did not give any indication of where she was and didn't advise him of where she was.
When asked by counsel why none of the officers had contacted
Giambro before entering the trailer, Sgt. Hanson responded that
although it "would be assumed that [Giambro] would know" where
Arline was located, asking Giambro "wasn't something that I had
thought of at that point in time."
Sgt. Hanson also testified that he had received
information about a possible homicide. But he quickly explained
- 11 - that this information was shared in an earlier conversation, before
all the facts were communicated, and he denied any basis for
believing a crime had occurred before he entered the trailer that
morning.
For his part, Lt. Libby testified that he knew "nothing"
about reports of a homicide.
E. District Court's Order
The district court denied Giambro's motion to suppress.
It concluded that the officers properly relied on the emergency
aid exception in entering Giambro's home without a warrant so that
they could confirm that Arline was no longer alive. Giambro, 2023
WL 3123001, at *5. The court explained:
[L]aw enforcement received information from Defendant's own son, Antonio, that his mother (Defendant's wife) was missing and that Defendant was acting strangely. Antonio also reported that Defendant offered only evasive and cryptic answers in response to inquiries about his mother's whereabouts but also indicated she had died without providing the location of her body. Viewing these facts objectively, the Court finds that a reasonable officer could have understood Defendant's evasiveness and shifting statements about his elderly wife's whereabouts -- coupled with her unexplained absence -- as an indication that she was potentially in danger and in need of immediate aid.
Additionally, because the officers knew that Defendant and Arline resided together at the residence, the officers had a reasonable basis to believe that they would locate her there.
Id. at *4 & n.20.
- 12 - Giambro timely appealed the district court's rulings
denying his motion to suppress and his motion to dismiss the
indictment.
II. STANDARD OF REVIEW
"When reviewing a challenge to the district court's
denial of a motion to suppress, [w]e view the facts in the light
most favorable to the district court's ruling . . . , and we review
the district court's findings of fact and credibility
determinations for clear error." United States v. Camacho, 661
F.3d 718, 723 (1st Cir. 2011) (quotation marks and citation
omitted). We review de novo the district court's ultimate legal
conclusion that the emergency aid exception justified the
officers' warrantless entry into Giambro's home based on the record
facts. See United States v. Almonte-Báez, 857 F.3d 27, 31 (1st
Cir. 2017).
III. DISCUSSION
Giambro argues that the district court legally erred in
concluding that the emergency aid exception was met here. And
because the officers invoked the exception to justify the
warrantless entry that led to their discovery of the firearms,
Giambro contends the evidence seized by the officers in their
subsequent search must be suppressed.
A. Emergency Aid Exception
To explain why we agree with Giambro, we lay out the
- 13 - legal standard governing the emergency aid exception. The Fourth
Amendment protects individuals against "unreasonable searches and
seizures." U.S. Const. amend. IV. "'At the very core' of the
Fourth Amendment 'stands the right of a man to retreat into his
own home and there be free from unreasonable government
intrusion.'" Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27, 31 (2001)
(quoting Silverman v. United States, 365 U.S. 505, 511 (1961)).
It follows that "searches and seizures inside a home without a
warrant are presumptively unreasonable." Brigham City v. Stuart,
547 U.S. 398, 403 (2006) (quoting Groh v. Ramirez, 540 U.S. 551,
559 (2004)).
"Nevertheless, because the ultimate touchstone of the
Fourth Amendment is 'reasonableness,' the warrant requirement is
subject to certain exceptions." Id. The United States Supreme
Court has identified the need to render emergency aid as one such
exception, explaining that "the need to protect or preserve life
or avoid serious injury is justification for what would be
otherwise illegal." Id. (quoting Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385,
392 (1978)). "Thus, 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.'"
Michigan v. Fisher, 558 U.S. 45, 47 (2009) (quoting Brigham City,
547 U.S. at 403).
- 14 - To justify warrantless entry under the emergency aid
exception, it is the government's burden to establish an
"'objectively reasonable basis for believing' that 'a person
within [the house] is in need of immediate aid.'" Id. (first
quoting Brigham City, 547 U.S. at 406; and then quoting Mincey,
437 U.S. at 392).7 The government must justify its belief as to
(1) the existence of an emergency and (2) the reason "for linking
the perceived emergency with the area or place into which [the
officers] propose to intrude." United States v. Martins, 413 F.3d
7 Thedissenting opinion mistakenly suggests that the critical question under this legal standard is whether officers can wait the several hours it would take to obtain a warrant before entering a home to conduct a search. But that analysis applies only in an ordinary exigent circumstances case, where the police have probable cause to believe a crime has been committed -- a belief expressly disclaimed by the testifying officers here -- but not enough time to obtain a warrant because, for example, they are in "hot pursuit of a felon" or faced with the "imminent destruction or removal of evidence." Bilida v. McCleod, 211 F.3d 166, 171 (1st Cir. 2000). It is not the correct analysis in this case. Indeed, although the dissent points to Justice Alito's concurrence in Caniglia v. Strom, 593 U.S. 194, 200 (2021) for support, the concurrence says the opposite. It notes that in many situations where police seek to invoke the emergency aid exception, a warrant could never be obtained because the police are not investigating a crime, "and warrants are not typically granted for the purpose of checking on a person's medical condition." See id. at 203 (Alito, J., concurring). Thus, to rely on the emergency aid exception, the government must show that the officers who forcibly entered the trailer had a reasonable basis to believe that a person inside the home needed emergency aid at that time. See Fisher, 558 U.S. at 47; Brigham City, 547 U.S. at 403.
- 15 - 139, 147 (1st Cir. 2005), abrogated in part by Hill v. Walsh, 884
F.3d 16, 23 (1st Cir. 2018).8
B. Analysis
Accepting the facts as found by the district court, we
conclude as a matter of law that the government failed to carry
its burden to establish that the emergency aid exception justified
the officers' warrantless entry into the Hebron trailer.9 We part
ways with the district court's analysis because the key facts the
officers had before entering the trailer indicated that (i) Arline
had died and (ii) she was not inside the trailer. Thus, although
we well understand the officers' subjective concerns, on these
facts, it was not objectively reasonable for them to enter the
home without a warrant, at least not without first speaking to
Arline's available family members. That is especially so given
that Antonio had been inside the home that very morning.
8 Martins, which was decided before Brigham City and Fisher, held the officers to a standard of proof approximating probable cause. See 413 F.3d at 147. Hill later rejected that standard of proof. See 884 F.3d at 23 (holding that "objectively reasonable basis" "need not approximate probable cause" (quotation marks omitted)). 9 The dissenting opinion suggests that we have failed to credit the district court's factual findings, but that is not correct. To the contrary, we rely on those findings and credit them fully. We disagree only on the legal question of whether those facts are sufficient to demonstrate that the emergency aid exception applies.
- 16 - We evaluate each prong of the emergency aid exception in
turn.
1. There Was No Evidence of an Ongoing Emergency
For a search to qualify for the emergency aid exception,
there must be an emergency. Framing the critical legal question
in terms of the facts of this case, a forced, warrantless entry
into Giambro's home would have been justified only if the police
officers had a reasonable basis to believe that Arline was alive
and in need of assistance. See Fisher, 558 U.S. at 47. We conclude
there was no such reasonable basis here because the facts
communicated to the police were exactly the opposite: that Arline
had died at least one day earlier.
To be sure, the officers knew that when Giambro told his
son that Arline had died, Giambro seemed confused and said only
that Arline "didn't wake up" one morning and that her body was not
in the house. But the report of a death, standing alone, does not
support a reasonable belief in an urgent, ongoing emergency. See
United States v. Richardson, 208 F.3d 626, 631 (7th Cir. 2000).10
10In Richardson, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit explained that, generally, "[f]aced with a report that there is a corpse in a house, it is hard to see why it is objectively reasonable to search in the hopes of finding a person who is still alive." 208 F.3d at 631. That said, after noting that "[w]e find this a very close case," the court held that it was objectively reasonable for officers to conclude there were "exigent circumstances on the[] particular facts" there. Id. at 631. Those facts included that the police had received a 911 call
- 17 - Again, although we understand the officers' concerns,
there simply were no facts suggesting that Arline might still be
alive. Most importantly, as the officers knew, Arline's adult son
Antonio had been in his parents' home just hours earlier, and,
upon learning his mother had died while he was on vacation, did
not demonstrate any anxiety that his mother could still be alive
and in need of aid.11 Instead, Antonio showed concern about his
father's mental health and drove his father to a hospital 15
minutes away.
On top of Antonio's actions that morning, the officers
knew that neither law enforcement nor medical personnel had been
summoned to the Giambro property in the days leading up to the
warrantless entry: There had been no calls for emergency aid from
Giambro or Arline, and nobody had requested a welfare check. Cf.
Caniglia v. Strom, 593 U.S. 194, 207-08 (2021) (Kavanaugh, J.,
concurring) (reasoning that a scenario in which a "concerned
from someone who identified himself by name, id. at 630; the caller reported a "rape[] and murder[]" and specified that the alleged victim could be found in the basement of the address he gave the officers, id. at 627-28; and "[t]his [was] not a case where the report indicated the body had been languishing in the house for several days," id. at 631. None of those facts are present here. 11Indeed, when officers finally asked Antonio and his father further questions after they broke into the trailer, Antonio told them that his mother had been ill for a long time, that his father had been caring for her, and that Antonio had no doubt Arline was deceased. Given that the officers did not know these facts before the search, however, we rely only on Antonio's actions on the morning of January 26.
- 18 - relative calls the police and asks the officers to perform a
wellness check" could give rise to emergency aid exception);
Gaetjens v. City of Loves Park, 4 F.4th 487, 490 (7th Cir. 2021)
(holding that warrantless search was lawful where neighbor called
police because she was concerned that missing woman was
experiencing medical emergency). Finally, there were no signs of
recent violence or disturbance at the Giambro residence when the
officers arrived at the property. Cf., e.g., Brigham City, 547
U.S. at 400-01; Fisher, 558 U.S. at 48 (upon arrival to the scene,
officers "encountered a tumultuous situation" and "signs of a
recent injury"); United States v. Maxwell, 85 F.4th 1243, 1245
(7th Cir. 2023) (officers responded to reports of gunshots and saw
"bullet holes in [the apartment's] front door," prompting them to
fear for a potentially injured occupant).
Instead, Deputy Tiner proceeded to Hebron, rather than
to the Hospital as Cpl. Federico had suggested, only after
reviewing the information in Giambro's names file. But the
comments that Cpl. Federico had flagged for Deputy Tiner in the
names file were over twelve years old, and they did not discuss
Arline or Giambro's relationship with Arline. The comments did
describe Giambro's past interaction with law enforcement,
including his prior use of force against another man who came
uninvited to his property, and the potential that he still owned
firearms. But no officer even implied at the suppression hearing
- 19 - that those facts were relevant to their concerns about Arline on
January 26; to the contrary, both Sgt. Hanson and Lt. Libby denied
any basis to believe a crime had occurred. As Sgt. Hanson summed
it up, "we had no crime."
Finally, we view one last fact as critical here. To the
extent that the officers had questions about Arline's well-being,
her adult son and husband were with a police officer, Cpl.
Federico, immediately before the warrantless entry and available
for questioning. See Hopkins v. Bonvicino, 573 F.3d 752, 765 (9th
Cir. 2009) ("[I]f [police officers] otherwise lack reasonable
grounds to believe there is an emergency, they must take additional
steps to determine whether there [i]s an emergency that justifie[s]
entry in the first place.") (quotation marks and citation omitted).
And there is no indication in the record that Antonio was
uncooperative or evasive with Cpl. Federico.
We do not mean to suggest that law enforcement must
conduct additional investigation if the facts on hand already
indicate an objectively reasonable basis to invoke the emergency
aid exception. Cf. Deaton v. Town of Barrington, 100 F.4th 348
(1st Cir. 2024) ("[O]nce police officers are presented with
probable cause . . . , no further investigation is required at
that point." (quoting Forest v. Pawtucket Police Dep't, 377 F.3d
52, 57 (1st Cir. 2004))). We merely emphasize that officers may
not ignore obvious and available options for gathering facts to
- 20 - determine if an emergency actually exists. See Hopkins, 573 F.3d
at 765.
The government nevertheless argues that a report of a
dead body can justify warrantless entry into a residence. We
appreciate the variety of factual circumstances law enforcement
may face, but the government's argument cannot be squared with
Supreme Court precedent regarding the emergency aid exception,
which focuses on providing aid to an individual who is "seriously
injured or threatened with such injury." Fisher, 558 U.S. at 47.
The Supreme Court has been cautious about expanding the scope of
exceptions to the warrant requirement, most recently by holding
that law enforcement's general community caretaking functions do
not merit such an exception. See Caniglia, 593 U.S. at 199
(quoting Collins v. Virginia, 584 U.S. 586, 596 (2018)); see also
Mincey, 437 U.S. at 394-95 (rejecting a "murder scene exception").
Instead, we reiterate that the emergency aid exception
justifies warrantless entry only in the narrow set of circumstances
when law enforcement must "render emergency assistance to an
injured occupant or . . . protect an occupant from imminent
injury." Fisher, 558 U.S. at 47. And a report that someone has
died cannot always satisfy this standard because the report of a
death generally indicates that emergency assistance is no longer
needed. See Richardson, 208 F.3d at 631.
- 21 - The cases the government cites are not to the contrary
because in each case law enforcement either entered a home for
other reasons or had information that reasonably led them to
believe an individual could still be alive and in need of immediate
aid. For example, in United States v. Beaudoin, a 911 caller
described "a drug deal gone bad at the Kozy 7 Motel, Room 10" and
reported that "there [wa]s a dead body in there." 362 F.3d 60, 62
(1st Cir. 2004), cert. granted, judgment vacated on other grounds
sub nom. Champagne v. United States, 543 U.S. 1102 (2005). But by
the time the officers entered the motel room without a warrant,
they did so based on a far more developed set of facts: the
defendant voluntarily opened the door to his motel room to speak
with the officers; the officers questioned the defendant and
discovered he was carrying weapons and drug paraphernalia; and the
officers observed a second man through the open door who may have
been "searching for a weapon or trying to hide evidence." Id. at
63-64. Ultimately, we concluded that the officers' warrantless
entry was justified due to the officers' fears for their own safety
and did not rely on the report of the 911 caller as critical to
our Fourth Amendment analysis. Id. at 71 (declining to "adopt[]
a broad emergency aid doctrine").
Next, in United States v. Stafford, a fire alarm
technician entered an apartment covered in blood, feces, and
hundreds of hypodermic needles; he contacted maintenance because
- 22 - he became concerned "there might be a dead body" inside the unit;
and the maintenance person in turn told the property manager, who
called the police. 416 F.3d 1068, 1071-72 (9th Cir. 2005)
(emphasis added). The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
held that on these facts, the report of a "possible dead body" was
sufficient to justify warrantless entry. Id. at 1071.
Finally, in Wayne v. United States, police received an
emergency call reporting an "unconscious woman" at an apartment.
318 F.2d 205, 211 (D.C. Cir. 1963). The call was placed at the
request of the woman's sister. Id. at 207. On this information,
the officers "could not assume the woman was dead" rather than
critically injured and so were justified in entering the apartment
to attempt to render aid. Id. at 212-13.
To be sure, "[e]ven the apparently dead often are saved
by swift police response," and officers should not be forced to
choose between saving a life and violating the Constitution. Id.
at 212. But there were simply no facts in this case indicating
that Arline might still be alive, and thus no objectively
reasonable basis for believing that she was. Thus, the government
failed to carry its burden to meet the first prong of the emergency
aid exception.
The dissenting opinion's conclusion to the contrary
rests on three critical errors. First, the opinion misstates the
record. The dissent's suggestion that the officers conducted the
- 23 - warrantless search because they had reason to believe that Arline
was a victim of domestic violence is incorrect. There is no
evidence in the suppression record to support this claim. In fact,
the record conclusively refutes it. None of the officers said a
word about domestic violence at the suppression hearing, and
instead they testified consistently that they had no basis to
believe that a crime had been committed before they entered
Giambro's home.
To be clear, it is not just that the suppression record
does not mention domestic violence "in so many words," as the
dissent suggests; it is that the record contains nothing at all
indicating that suspicions of domestic violence motivated the
search. If concerns about domestic violence had played any role
that day, one would have expected the issue to dominate the
suppression hearing from beginning to end, but there was no mention
of it. The dissenting opinion also points to Giambro's two-page
names file, but the names file says nothing about domestic violence
or Arline. It does list a welfare check at the Giambros' home in
2021, but neither the names file itself nor any other part of the
record indicates that the welfare check had anything to do with
- 24 - domestic violence.12 And the district court certainly made no such
finding.
Critically, the government has disavowed the dissenting
opinion's domestic violence theory to justify the search. It has
never suggested, either to the district court or to us, that
domestic violence concerns prompted the search of the Giambro home.
To the contrary, the first and only time the domestic violence
theory was raised in this case was when the panel asked the
government about it at oral argument, and the government
forthrightly rejected it, stating that there was nothing in the
suppression record about "domestic violence or anything like
that."13
12The dissent's suggestion that Sgt. Hanson and Deputy Tiner had reason to believe that Arline was a victim of domestic violence rests on speculation. Neither officer voiced such a concern. Sgt. Hanson testified at the suppression hearing and said nothing about domestic violence. Deputy Tiner did not even testify, and there is no affidavit or other statement from him in the suppression record. And the brief testimony by Cpl. Federico and Sgt. Hanson about their conversations with Deputy Tiner that morning, on which the dissent seems to rely, does not mention any domestic violence concerns. See supra p. 7. 13 In footnote 28, the dissent also refers to Arline's statements from the 1980s, which were mentioned in Giambro's Presentence Investigation Report (PSR) -- a document that did not exist at the time of the search or the suppression hearing and was created nearly two years after the search. (The PSR also contains Antonio's statement that although his parents argued and pushed each other when he was little, he had not seen "anything like this in years.") As the dissenting opinion acknowledges, the officers conducting the search did not know the contents of the PSR. Thus, the PSR cannot possibly support the "reasonableness" of any actions by Deputy Tiner leading up to the search. It is black-letter law
- 25 - Second, the dissenting opinion relies on cases that
undermine its conclusion or rest on facts that are just not present
here. For example, the dissent relies repeatedly on concurring
opinions in Caniglia. But Caniglia reversed a decision by our
court upholding a warrantless search and held that the general
community caretaking functions of law enforcement do not justify
warrantless entries into the home. 593 U.S. at 198-99. The
dissent also contends that Brigham City approved the analysis of
a concurring opinion in Wayne. But Brigham City's only reference
to Wayne is to cite it indirectly for the basic rule that the need
to preserve life or avoid serious injury can justify a warrantless
search. See Brigham City, 547 U.S. at 403 (citing Mincey, 437
U.S. at 392; and then citing Wayne, 318 F.2d at 212).
Similarly, the dissenting opinion cites cases in which
officers did have an objectively reasonable basis for concluding
there was an emergency. But the facts that were critical to the
outcomes of those cases are not present in this case.14 For
that a court cannot rely on "post-entry information . . . to 'cinch' or 'strengthen' [a] finding that the officers reasonably believed" they had a basis for a warrantless search. United States v. Young, 835 F.3d 13, 20 (1st Cir. 2016) (citing Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 590 (1980); and then citing United States v. Graham, 553 F.3d 6, 14 (1st Cir. 2009)). 14 Because the facts of these cases are so different, and given the fact-dependent nature of the emergency aid exception analysis, our holding in no way creates a circuit split, contrary to the suggestion in the dissenting opinion.
- 26 - example, when officers arrived at the Giambro residence, there
were no signs of violence or disturbance. Nobody called the police
and nobody reported hearing screams or threats. Contra United
States v. Guillen, 755 F. App'x 643, 645 (9th Cir. 2018); Harrison
v. Davidson Hotel Co., 806 F. App'x 684, 686 (11th Cir. 2020).
And although the dissenting opinion asserts that our holding is
irreconcilable with Hill and the reasoning of Justice Kavanaugh's
concurrence in Caniglia,15 we disagree. In Hill and the
hypothetical situations discussed by Justice Kavanaugh (as well as
in Wayne), a relative or neighbor asked officers for assistance,
expressing concern for a person who was unaccounted for and whose
health status was either unknown or unstable. See also Gaetjens,
4 F.4th at 490. The exact opposite is true here: No relative or
neighbor asked for police assistance or expressed concern that
Arline might need emergency aid. Thus, the critical facts that
could justify invoking the emergency aid exception in those
situations are precisely the facts that are missing here.
Third, although the dissenting opinion admits that the
legal standard requires courts to evaluate what the officers knew
at the time of the search, it fails to apply that standard.
According to the dissent, the facts at the time of the search were
"ambiguous at best." But pointing to ambiguity is not enough to
15We put to the side that Justice Kavanaugh was writing only for himself in his concurring opinion.
- 27 - meet the government's burden to demonstrate an objectively
reasonable basis for believing a person inside Giambro's home
needed immediate aid. And that is precisely why the officers
should not have proceeded with a forced, warrantless entry that
morning, especially when they had an obvious and available option
for gathering additional information: speaking to Antonio, who had
been inside the home just hours earlier.
2. There Was No Evidence that Arline Was Inside the Trailer
The second requirement of the emergency aid exception is
that officers have an objectively reasonable basis to believe that
an individual who needs emergency aid is in the place that they
decide to search. See Martins, 413 F.3d at 147. Here, all the
available facts indicated that Arline was not in the trailer.
As the district court found, Antonio had been inside the
trailer that very morning and had not seen his mother, even though
the trailer was not a large home. Giambro, 2023 WL 3123001, at
*1. And Giambro told Antonio that Arline's body "was not in the
house." Id. The officers knew these facts before entering the
trailer, and they had no information to the contrary.
The government points to several facts in the record
that it contends support the officers' decision to search the
trailer. It notes that Giambro was confused and would not directly
answer Antonio's questions regarding Arline's death, and Arline
lived in the trailer and reportedly had died in her sleep. It
- 28 - also emphasizes, understandably, that Arline's body was
unaccounted for according to Antonio. But the difficulty with the
government's argument is that Arline was unaccounted for precisely
because Antonio had not seen her inside the trailer that morning
and because Giambro would say only that she was not in the house.16
So, again, the actual facts before the officers indicated that of
all the places Arline could be on the Giambro property, she was
not in the trailer. See United States v. Timmann, 741 F.3d 1170,
1181 (11th Cir. 2013) (concluding that "it was not reasonable for
the officers to believe that someone inside Timmann's apartment
was in danger and in need of immediate aid" when officers had no
evidence of any ongoing emergency or disturbance inside the
apartment).
The government relies on Hill v. Walsh to argue that
when officers are trying to locate a missing person, it is
reasonable for them to begin the search at any potential location
where that person might be, and their decisions must be evaluated
based on what the officers knew at the time, not based on
hindsight. We agree. But Hill does not help the government here.
The dissenting opinion's suggestion that Antonio had not 16
looked around the trailer and thus did not really know if his mother was inside is not supported by the record. As the district court found and one of the officers testified, Antonio "could not find his mother" that morning and was concerned about the location of her body. Given Antonio's concern, there is no basis for speculating that he would have failed to look around the trailer, which comprised just a few rooms, to try and find his mother.
- 29 - To begin, we decided Hill based on qualified immunity
grounds and so did not resolve the ultimate merits question of
whether the facts of that case satisfied the emergency aid
exception. See 884 F.3d at 23 ("[W]here there is reasonable debate
about the constitutionality of the officers' actions, there is
qualified immunity."). In any event, the facts in Hill are
critically different. There, the officers had information that
the subject of the search -- Matthew Hill -- could be found at two
possible locations, either the Hill residence or Morton Hospital,
both of which were listed on the face of the civil warrant the
officers were attempting to execute.17 Id. at 19. Officers were
dispatched to the Hill residence; upon arrival, they saw movement
inside the home, but nobody responded to their knocking. Id. at
20. Officers then tried to verify their suspicion that Hill was
inside, first by walking around the property calling his name, and
then by calling dispatch "to see if the dispatchers had any
17Pursuant to Massachusetts law, a person may petition a state court for an order of civil commitment of a person who has an alcohol or substance use disorder; in this case, Matthew Hill's sister filed such a petition on behalf of Matthew. Hill, 884 F.3d at 19. If "there are reasonable grounds to believe that such person will not appear" at their hearing, and that "any further delay in the proceedings would present an immediate danger to the physical well-being of the respondent," then the state court may issue a section 35 warrant "for the apprehension and appearance" of the person. Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 123, § 35. Our court in Hill expressly declined to decide whether the "section 35 warrant [wa]s sufficient per se to justify warrantless entry into the home" and treated the warrant only as evidence regarding Hill's location. 884 F.3d at 22 n.2.
- 30 - additional information about Matthew." Id. at 20. When they could
not obtain any additional information about Hill's location one
way or the other, they entered the home. Id. at 20-21.
By contrast, here, Antonio and Giambro had both stated
just that morning that Arline was not inside the trailer, and the
officers could not observe anybody inside the home when they
arrived. Further, unlike in Hill, the officers did not attempt to
gather more information about Arline's location, and they easily
could have done so. A police officer was at the Hospital with
Antonio and Giambro during the hour preceding the search, and by
all accounts Antonio was reliable, cooperative, and willing to
speak to the police. In sum, the officers had no reason to believe
Arline was inside the trailer and, to the extent they remained
concerned that she nevertheless might be, they easily and quickly
could have elicited additional information about her location.
Those facts taken together undermine the objective reasonableness
of their decision to forcibly enter the trailer without a warrant.
Considering the facts in the record, which indicated
that Arline was not in the Hebron trailer and had died at least
one day earlier, there was no objectively reasonable basis for the
officers to believe that they needed to enter the trailer to
"render emergency assistance to an injured occupant or to protect
an occupant from imminent injury." Caniglia, 593 U.S. at 198.
Their warrantless entry into the trailer therefore violated
- 31 - Giambro's Fourth Amendment rights. And because Giambro was
convicted solely on the basis of evidence obtained from that entry,
his conviction also cannot stand. See Wong Sun v. United States,
371 U.S. 471, 487-88 (1963).18
IV. CONCLUSION
For all these reasons, we reverse the district court's
order denying Giambro's suppression motion, vacate Giambro's
conviction and sentence, and remand to the district court for
proceedings consistent with this opinion.
-Dissenting Opinion Follows-
18 The government made no argument that the fruits of the search could be saved by the independent source doctrine, which permits the introduction of evidence "obtained independently of any impermissible police conduct." United States v. Rose, 802 F.3d 114, 123 (1st Cir. 2015). Even if it had, such an argument would fail, because "the agents' decision to seek the warrant was prompted by what they had seen during their initial [illegal] entry" -- the numerous firearms located inside the trailer. United States v. Dessesaure, 429 F.3d 359, 367 (1st Cir. 2005) (quoting Murray v. United States, 487 U.S. 533, 542 (1988)).
- 32 - LYNCH, Circuit Judge, dissenting. With the greatest
respect for my colleagues, their holding of a Fourth Amendment
violation in this case departs from binding caselaw as to the
emergency aid doctrine. I fear that their result will discourage
officers from going to the aid of persons in need of such aid.
Each of the four officers who entered Giambro's residence had an
objectively reasonable belief that Giambro's wife, Arline, may
have been in the trailer and in need of immediate medical
attention.
The majority view conflicts with Supreme Court caselaw.
The Supreme Court's first opinion on the emergency aid exception,
Brigham City v. Stuart, 547 U.S. 398, 403 (2006), approvingly cited
Chief Justice (then Judge) Burger's opinion in Wayne v. United
States, in which he stated:
[A] warrant is not required to break down a door to enter a burning home to rescue occupants or extinguish a fire, to prevent a shooting or to bring emergency aid to an injured person. The need to protect or preserve life or avoid serious injury is justification for what would be otherwise illegal absent an exigency or emergency. Fires or dead bodies are reported to police by cranks where no fires or bodies are to be found. Acting in response to reports of "dead bodies," the police may find the "bodies" to be common drunks, diabetics in shock, or distressed cardiac patients. But the business of policemen and firemen is to act, not to speculate or meditate on whether the report is correct. People could well die in emergencies if police tried to act with the calm deliberation associated with the judicial
- 33 - process. Even the apparently dead are often saved by swift police response.
318 F.2d 205, 212 (D.C. Cir. 1963) (emphasis added).
The Supreme Court's Stuart decision, and its approval of
Wayne, are still good law.19 The Court followed Stuart in Michigan
v. Fisher. 558 U.S. 45, 46 (2009). Importantly, in Fisher, the
Supreme Court reversed a lower court which had held that the
emergency aid exception did not apply because that lower court
erred by "replac[ing] [an] objective inquiry into appearances with
its hindsight determination that there was in fact no emergency."
Id. at 46-47, 49. The majority makes the same mistake here. The
emergency aid exception "must be applied by reference to the
circumstances then confronting the officer, including the need for
a prompt assessment of sometimes ambiguous information concerning
potentially serious consequences." 3 Wayne R. LaFave, Search and
Seizure: A Treatise on the Fourth Amendment § 6.6(a) (6th ed.
2024). "This means, of course, that it 'is of no moment' that it
turns out there was in fact no emergency." Id. (quoting State v.
19 The majority opinion states its view that Wayne is no longer good law because "the report of a death, standing alone, does not support a reasonable belief in an urgent, ongoing emergency," citing United States v. Richardson, 208 F.3d 626, 631 (7th Cir. 2000). A circuit court decision cannot overrule the Supreme Court. And as I discuss in greater detail in Part II, this case involves many relevant facts other than just a report of a dead body. Further, this circuit and others have continued to recognize that officers may rely on the emergency aid doctrine when investigating reports of a potentially dead body.
- 34 - DeMarco, 88 A.3d 491, 509 (Conn. 2014)). See also State v. Karna,
887 N.W.2d 549 (N.D. 2016) (deputies had a reasonable belief that
defendant's father was in immediate need of assistance where
dispatcher received a call from defendant's brother that defendant
had shot their father and had denied doing so, reasoning the
deputies could not ascertain whether the father had been shot
before they entered the home).
The Supreme Court again made it clear in Caniglia v.
Strom, 593 U.S. 194 (2021) that exigent circumstances justifying
warrantless entries include providing emergency aid, though
community caretaking concerns do not. As Justice Kavanaugh,
concurring, stated, a report of an elderly person who "is
uncharacteristically absent" and does not respond to phone calls
or knocks on their door remains a paradigmatic example of a
circumstance in which officers would be justified in conducting a
warrantless search. Id. at 207-08 (Kavanaugh, J. concurring).
Both of these circumstances were present here. Chief Justice
Roberts, also in concurrence, likewise stressed that "[a] warrant
to enter a home is not required . . . when there is a 'need to
assist persons who are seriously injured or threatened with such
injury." Id. at 199-200 (Roberts, C.J., concurring) (quoting
Stuart, 547 U.S. at 403). "[R]easonableness . . . must be judged
from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather
than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight." Graham v. Connor, 490
- 35 - U.S. 386, 396 (1989). "An appeals court should [also] give due
weight to a trial court's finding that [an] officer was credible
and [their] inference[s were] reasonable." Ornelas v. United
States, 517 U.S. 690, 700 (1996). The trial judge who heard the
testimony and the evidence and found the officers credible held
that the officers' decision to enter was based on each officer's
objectively reasonable belief. See United States v. Giambro, No.
2:22-CR-00044, 2023 WL 3123001, at *1 n.2, *4 (D. Me. Apr. 27,
2023). The majority's decision second-guesses both the responding
officers and the trial court, marking a substantial and unfortunate
curtailment of the emergency aid exception.20
Applying those standards to the facts of this case, it
is clear that the officers made entirely reasonable decisions based
on the information available to them. The officers were directed
to the scene after receiving reports from other officers that the
son reported his mother had been ill; he could not find her; that
his father had once stated that she was dead, but then was evasive;
his father's confused mental state and erratic statements caused
the son to take him quickly from the home to the hospital; and
20 Because the Government has not advanced any argument that the fruits of their search were admissible as evidence under United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897 (1984) and the "good faith" exception to the exclusionary rule, I do not address those issues. But see United States v. Moore-Bush, 36 F.4th 320, 359 n.33 (1st Cir. 2022) (good faith issue not waived when officers' actions comported with the law of the circuit at the time of the search).
- 36 - they did not know where the mother was. A security officer,
hearing the son and the father at the hospital, initially contacted
the police and asked for their intervention. Four officers from
different law enforcement agencies, with more than thirty years of
combined law-enforcement experience, first tried to find Arline
outside the trailer to determine whether she was in need of aid.
Only then did the officers conduct a warrantless entry into the
trailer and then into the locked bedroom. Each officer stated he
and the group acted out of concern that there "could have [been]
a victim inside that needed medical attention."
The officers had information that was ambiguous at best
as to whether there was, in fact, a dead body inside the trailer.
They had, from the information they were given, no reason to
believe that the father's statement established that his wife was,
in fact, beyond any need of help. See Wayne, 318 F.2d at 212
("Even the apparently dead often are saved by swift police
response."). The officers also had information that the son had
said Arline, who had been ill, was unaccounted for, and that her
last known location was the trailer. When officers choose to
search for a missing person in a particular location, "it is not
necessary that the officer be in possession of facts that would
warrant the belief that what is sought will be found;" rather,
"[i]t is only necessary that the facts would warrant the belief
that it is appropriate to look to see if there is evidence that
- 37 - would lead to the missing person." State v. Beede, 406 A.2d 125,
130 (N.H. 1979).
The officers were well-trained in Fourth Amendment law
and reasonably decided these steps were needed. That two members
of this Court second guess the decision by these four law
enforcement officers, a decision upheld by an experienced district
court judge, does not make the officers' judgment calls on the
scene objectively unreasonable.
I.
The majority errs when it looks only to the facts
explicitly stated by the district court. In Fourth Amendment
suppression cases, our rule is that the appellate court must
consider "facts and inferences . . . taken from the bench decision
. . . as well as testimony at [the suppression] hearing."21 United
States v. Murdock, 669 F.3d 665, 667 (1st Cir. 2012); see also
United States v. Arnott, 758 F.3d 40, 44 (1st Cir. 2014) (affirming
21 Indeed, the rule applies more broadly. In reviewing denials of qualified immunity, as the Supreme Court established in Johnson v. Jones, 515 U.S. 304 (1995), when the district court fails to articulate a relevant finding of fact, a court of appeals reviews the record "to determine what facts the district court, in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, likely assumed." Id. at 319; see also Begin v. Drouin, 908 F.3d 829, 832 (1st Cir. 2018) (observing that, on interlocutory review of the denial of a motion for summary judgment on qualified immunity grounds, when the district court fails to articulate a relevant finding of fact, "we review the record 'to determine what facts the district court, in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, likely assumed'" (quoting Johnson, 515 U.S. at 319)).
- 38 - district court's suppression hearing decision based not
exclusively on the findings of fact but on other facts in the
record).
The evidence of record establishes that the officers had
an objectively reasonable basis for thinking they needed to search
for Arline. That alone should lead to an affirmance in this case.
Even beyond that, at least two of the officers also had
reason to believe that Arline, who had been the subject of a
welfare check by one of them the prior year, may well have been
the victim of domestic violence. That the Government's appellate
counsel at oral argument before us may have erroneously said the
welfare check was not in the record at the suppression hearing
does not support the majority's position. When the record
contradicts a government concession, we are not bound by it.
United States v. Borrero-Acevedo, 533 F.3d 11, 15 n.3 (1st Cir.
2008) ("This court is not bound by a party's concessions.").
I recite the facts of record. Each of the responding
officers had been given somewhat different information when they
made the decision to enter Giambro's home. The two most
experienced law enforcement officers on the scene, State Police
Sgt. Hanson and MDEA Agent Lt. Libby, testified at Giambro's
suppression hearing. Deputies Tiner and Pelton were not called to
testify, but other evidence establishes what they knew before
entering the trailer. Nothing in the record contradicts the
- 39 - officers' testimony as to their concern for Arline's wellbeing and
their motivation for conducting a warrantless search.
The police intervention which ultimately led to the
search at issue was initially sought by a security guard at
Stephens Memorial Hospital in Norway Maine, who was present when
Giambro and his son Antonio arrived and who apparently spoke with
Antonio about the situation. The security officer communicated to
police dispatch for Oxford County, which included the town of
Norway, that Antonio "brought in his father to the hospital because
he is confused but he said that his mother is at the house deceased
. . . he is here with the father and they don't know what happened
to the mother." Because of the security guard's call, Norway
Police Department Corporal Robert Federico was dispatched to
Stephens Memorial Hospital. Upon arriving at the hospital, Cpl.
Federico spoke with Antonio in the lobby of the ER.
During his conversation with Antonio, Norway Police Cpl.
Federico learned that Giambro had been brought to Stephens Memorial
Hospital from his trailer in the nearby Oxford County town of
Hebron. Norway Police Cpl. Federico then had several conversations
with Oxford County dispatch or the Oxford County Sheriff's Office,
the county with jurisdiction over the trailer. Although Cpl.
Federico initially asked that an officer from Hebron come to the
hospital, that changed when he contacted Oxford County Deputy Tiner
by phone.
- 40 - During that conversation, Norway Cpl. Federico told
Oxford County Deputy Tiner that Antonio had gone to plow his
father's driveway the night before "and when he went to knock on
the door he didn't get any answer." That "concerned [Antonio]
enough that he attempted to call several times and didn't get any
answer to the phone calls until the following morning." Deputy
Tiner was informed that, when Antonio did speak with his father,
"his father sounded off," which "was concerning for him enough
that he drove [to his parents' home] to meet with him in person."
Deputy Tiner was told that Giambro had told Antonio "that the
mother had died while [Antonio] was on vacation" and that Giambro
would not elaborate other than to say that "she just didn't wake
up." And Antonio had stated he felt his father "was being evasive
toward him." Deputy Tiner was also aware of notes in Giambro's
electronic file that Giambro had previously "shot a subject." Cpl.
Federico testified that "at that point really nobody knew exactly
what was going on, and there w[ere] some concerns for the wife, if
she was dead or not or maybe unconscious and just nobody knew."
Even Cpl. Federico, on whom the majority so strongly relies,
reinforces that the officers shared concerns that Arline might not
be dead but unconscious and, so, in need.
The most experienced officer who made the warrantless
entry was Sgt. Daniel Hanson with the Maine State Police, who had
more than 21 years of experience in the State Police and prior
- 41 - experience with the Paris Maine Police Department. Sgt. Hanson
had undergone extensive training at police academies and completed
on-going in-service training. He had been called by Lt. Tilsley,
who had in turn been called by the Oxford County Sheriff's
Department asking for assistance at the Giambro property, located
at 692 Paris Road. The information he received from Lt. Tilsley
prior to arriving at the scene is described as follows:
[Antonio had] gone to check on his parents, had found his father at the residence, found his father ill, could not find his mother, and brought his father to the hospital. [Antonio's] father had relayed to him that his mother was deceased but did not give any indication of where she was and didn't advise him of where she was.
Sgt. Hanson testified repeatedly and without challenge
that he and Deputies Tiner and Pelton, and the newly arrived MDEA
Agent Lt. Libby, "were trying to find Arline" because "she was
unaccounted for" so they could "verify[] her welfare." When asked
what that meant, he answered: "Well, the information we had
received was she was supposedly deceased, but we don't know that
to be fact. We have to try and verify that she's okay and the
possibility that she may need medical assistance." When asked
next "what concern[s], if any, do you have in terms of identifying
the need for medical treatment . . . at that point in time," he
replied: "There's no response from the residence. If she had been
in there and she was okay, we would most likely expect that there
- 42 - would be some kind of a response, a voice, something, anything,
and there was an absence of that."
State Police Sgt. Hanson then was asked "[w]hy was the
decision made not to get a warrant but to enter the residence?"
He answered: "There was potential that we could have a victim
inside that needed medical attention."
After cross examination as to why he had not waited and
instead relayed a request to Cpl. Federico to ask Giambro for
permission to enter, he explained:
Because, I mean, this is a concerning situation. We don't take entering into a residence lightly, and you have to know what -- you know, where those lines are. And that was evaluated in this situation, just like it is in any other, that we have to exhaust those means to try and verify. That's what -- we were checking into rescue calls, looking to see if there had been anything further, what do we have for information. And we got to that point and we're like, you know, we really don't have any other option but to go in and verify if she's in there and if she -- what her status is.22
Sgt. Hanson's report following the search corroborates the
testimony he provided at the motion hearing. Sgt. Hanson's report
memorialized that he and the officers "knew Arline Giambro was
unaccounted for and Antonio was concerned for her welfare as she
22 Sgt. Hanson was an officer with many experiences serving warrants. In his experience, obtaining a warrant takes "a couple hours" and a couple of hours' wait, in light of the circumstances, was just too long.
- 43 - should have been at the residence and his father told him she was
deceased." At "1157hrs Agent Libby forced the front door and we
entered to check the welfare of Arline." The officers "exited the
residence at 1205 hrs after not locating Arline inside."
MDEA Special Agent Lt. Libby also testified. When he
arrived, Deputies Tiner and Pelton and Maine State Police Sgt.
Hanson were in the driveway outside Giambro's trailer.23 Lt. Libby
began working in law enforcement in 1997, including roughly 15
years with the MDEA. He attended the police academy and the MDEA
academy, and completed supplemental training annually.
Like Sgt. Hanson, Lt. Libby testified repeatedly and
without contradiction that he and the other officers were there to
"confirm whether [Arline] needed medical attention or not." Before
entering the trailer, Lt. Libby and Sgt. Hanson walked "around the
back side of the trailer to see if [they] could see tracks in the
snow." The two were "trying to see if there [were] tracks leading
off in the snow, a place where we could go check, look for somebody,
look for Arline" to "confirm whether she needed medical attention
or not." Lt. Libby and Sgt. Hanson saw no tracks behind the
trailer. Lt. Libby then looked in the windows of the trailer, but
23 Lt. Libby was informed by Deputy Tiner that Antonio had been at the house earlier that morning and that he and Giambro went to the hospital, where Giambro said that his wife "had gone to greener pastures or something along [those] lines" but was "being cryptic about it."
- 44 - "could not see in any windows" because "[t]here was plastic over
the windows and/or there was like curtains or something on the
inside." Lt. Libby next "went down" to "a garage to the left of
the house" and "looked around there, too" to "try to see if [he]
could find Arline" including by looking in the windows of the
garage, but he "didn't see anybody."
Only then did Lt. Libby return to the trailer, where he
"banged on the door very loud, very hard" while "yelling
[']sheriff's office.[']" When asked why he was "knocking on [the]
door and announcing [him]self," Lt. Libby testified that he "was
under the impression that Arline might need medical attention" and
he "needed to confirm whether she did or not."
Lt. Libby testified that Sgt. Hanson then made the
decision to enter the trailer "[t]o go in and confirm whether
Arline was deceased or not or needing medical attention." When
asked "why a warrant wouldn't be appropriate or why you didn't
seek a warrant at that point," Lt. Libby testified that it was
because of "exigent circumstances to see if somebody needed medical
attention or not" because "if she was injured or hurt and she
needed help, [the officers] needed to get help to her as fast as
[they] could." Lt. Libby testified that "what [he] had learned
from [Deputy] Tiner was that Antonio had brought his father to the
hospital and made some vague statements, something to like the
effect of like mom has gone on to greener pastures . . . . And we
- 45 - needed to confirm whether Arline did or did not need medical
attention." Lt. Libby "didn't want to base" any conclusion as to
Arline's status on "[Giambro's] opinion of whether somebody was
dead or not . . . [Lt. Libby] wanted to confirm that with [his]
own eyes."
Lt. Libby "shouldered the door open" at 11:57 A.M., and
testified that at this time he "knew nothing about firearms" inside
the residence. Once inside, Lt. Libby found "a secured door off
the kitchen" and "stayed there at that door until the rest of the
trailer was cleared." After the trailer was cleared, Sgt. Hanson
"tried opening . . . that door" at which point Lt. Libby went
toward the back of the trailer "because [he] thought [he] heard
one of the deputies still clearing the room at the far end of the
trailer." While walking through the trailer, Lt. Libby passed a
middle bedroom in which he "observed a pillow sitting on the bed
with what appeared to be dried brown stains." Lt. Libby testified
that he "ma[de] a mental note of what [he] saw" because he was
"there because Arline might be possibly dead" and he thought the
stains "might be blood."
Lt. Libby left the residence at 12:05 P.M., "spoke for
a few minutes" with the other officers in the driveway, then
"departed and headed to the sheriff's office" where he did his
report. After he had left, he received a call from someone on the
Giambro property notifying him that they had located Arline's body.
- 46 - The undisputed facts show the responding officers first
conducted a search for Arline outside the trailer and did not find
her before they decided they had to search the trailer. The
officers "bang[ed] on the [trailer] door" repeatedly, "hollered
. . . banged on walls, windows," and got no response. The officers
"walk[ed] around the back side of the trailer to see if [they]
could see tracks in the snow." The officers observed "[n]othing
behind the trailer" or around the nearby garage. The officers
attempted to look in the trailer's windows, but "[t]here was
plastic over the windows and/or there was like curtains or
something on the inside" which meant they could not see inside.24
"The only recent activity was right there by the house, and none
of it in the snow."
Before the officers entered the trailer, they also
"checked with dispatch to see if there had been any rescue calls"
and "verified that there was no recent medical calls or requests
24 The majority concludes the officers were unreasonable because they did not first break into the garage and because they failed to find her body in the woods behind the garage. None of this renders the officers' actions objectively unreasonable. The footprints that led the officers to Arline's body were obscured behind sizeable snowbanks and had been covered by "recent storms." The officers discovered those prints while searching for something they could use to dig out snow blocking the garage's side door. As to the garage itself, the officers almost certainly needed a warrant or an applicable exception to enter the garage just the same as to enter the trailer. See United States v. Dunn, 480 U.S. 294, 300-01 (1987) (laying out test for determining whether an outbuilding is within a home's curtilage and therefore "should be treated as the home itself").
- 47 - for assistance at the residence." Officers also knew Giambro had
not called either emergency services or a funeral home following
Arline's purported death, as would normally be the case. The
majority points to these facts as evidence that Antonio was not
"worried that his mother was still alive and in need of aid." The
majority then posits that this should have told the officers there
was not an "urgent, ongoing emergency." But these facts led the
officers to the even more reasonable interpretation that if Arline
were truly dead, any husband would have called a funeral home (or
emergency services). And the lack of any such call only added to
the uncertainty as to whether Arline was in need of assistance.
See United States v. Camacho, 661 F.3d 718, 723 (1st Cir. 2011)
("When reviewing a challenge to the district court's denial of a
motion to suppress, '[w]e view the facts in the light most
favorable to the district court's ruling.'" (quoting United States
v. Soares, 521 F.3d 117, 118 (1st Cir. 2008) (alteration in
original)).
The officers were not objectively unreasonable in
concluding that the information they had that Giambro had said
Arline was dead did not establish that she was indisputably dead.
Further, the officers had no information that Antonio had searched
the entire trailer for Arline before taking his father to the
hospital. And the record does not establish that Antonio did, in
fact, conduct such a search. On the contrary, Cpl. Federico, who
- 48 - spoke with Antonio at the hospital and relayed those initial
interactions to Deputy Tiner, did not recall "ask[ing] Tony any
questions about whether he'd looked around the house." The trailer
was large and comprised of several rooms, including a bathroom and
multiple bedrooms separated by a hallway. Indeed, when the
officers did enter, they found "a room to the north side that was
locked" and, thinking Arline might be there, entered the room
looking for her.
Beyond that, there is no evidence that the four
responding officers received any further information from officers
at the hospital in the approximately "six or seven minutes" that
elapsed between their arrival on the scene and their decision to
enter the residence.
II.
"[L]aw enforcement officers may enter private property
without a warrant . . . to 'render emergency assistance to an
injured occupant." Caniglia, 593 U.S. at 198 (quoting Kentucky v.
King, 563 U.S. 452, 460 (2011)). This emergency aid doctrine is
a subcategory of the exigent circumstances exception to the warrant
requirement. Missouri v. McNeely, 569 U.S. 141, 149 (2013) ("A
variety of circumstances may give rise to an exigency sufficient
to justify a warrantless search, including law enforcement's need
to provide emergency assistance to an occupant of a home . . . .")
Under the emergency aid doctrine, a warrantless entry is
- 49 - permissible when "there [is] 'an objectively reasonable basis for
believing' that medical assistance [is] needed."25 Fisher, 558
U.S. at 49 (quoting Stuart, 547 U.S. at 406).
Entry for the purpose of rendering aid is reasonable "to
seek an occupant reliably reported as missing." 3 Wayne R. LaFave,
Search & Seizure: A Treatise on the Fourth Amendment § 6.6(a) (6th
ed. 2024). See also Hunsberger v. Wood, 570 F.3d 546, 555 (4th
Cir. 2009) (entry lawful when there was evidence a minor was in
the home, it was the middle of the night, her stepfather said she
was not supposed to be there, and the fact that she was not
answering her cell phone suggested she might be hurt or otherwise
in need of aid); People v. Rogers, 209 P.3d 977, 995-96 (Cal. 2009)
(search of 3 storage rooms under defendant's apartment lawful given
defendant's lack of concern over the whereabouts of his child's
25 The majority asserts that any consideration by the officers of the delay it would take to apply for and obtain a search warrant is completely irrelevant to the emergency aid doctrine. Not so. Exigent circumstances and emergency aid are at least overlapping doctrines. As the Supreme Court said in Stuart, the need to render emergency aid is "[o]ne exigency obviating the requirement of a warrant." 547 U.S. at 403. But "caselaw has not been entirely clear regarding the distinctions." William E. Ringel, Searches and Seizures, Arrests and Confessions § 10:8.10 (2d ed. 2024). Justice Alito, concurring in Caniglia, stated "[w]e have held that the police may enter a home without a warrant when there are 'exigent circumstances.' But circumstances are exigent only where there is not enough time to get a warrant, and warrants are not typically granted for the purpose of checking on a person's medical condition." 593 U.S. at 203 (Alito, J., concurring) (internal citations omitted). I see no basis in Justice Alito's concurrence for the majority's characterization of it.
- 50 - mother, his threat to lock her in the basement, and his physical
reaction when police mentioned that threat); State v. Horn, 91
P.3d 517, 520-26 (Kan. 2004) (entry lawful when police possessed
information that 90-year-old woman had broken her routine and had
not been seen in several days and her son, against whom she once
had a protection order but with whom she now lived, had refused to
allow a neighbor to see his grandmother), overruled on other
grounds by State v. Neighbors, 328 P.3d 1081 (Kan. 2014).
"[T]he Fourth Amendment's reasonableness requirement
gives officers facing exigent circumstances ample 'breathing space
to do the best they could with the information they had.'" United
States v. Cooks, 920 F.3d 735, 743 (11th Cir. 2019) (quoting
Montanez v. Carvajal, 8889 F..3d 1202, 1210 (11th Cir. 2018)).
"[I]n reviewing a challenge to a warrantless search under the
emergency aid exception to the warrant requirement, the court
examines the conduct of the officers in light of what was
reasonable under the fast-breaking and potentially life-
threatening circumstances that were faced at the time, and will
avoid viewing the events through the distorted prism of hindsight."
79 C.J.S. Searches § 79 (2024). "[I]t's not our role to armchair
quarterback the officers' decision." Cooks, 920 F.3d at 743.
Prior decisions in this Circuit and elsewhere have recognized that
"breathing space," and the majority departs from clear precedent.
- 51 - To give one example, this court held that officers had
an objectively reasonable basis for entering plaintiff Matthew
Hill's home to seize him after a warrant was issued for his civil
commitment following a report from his sister that Hill had been
"behind his building . . . on the verge of an overdose" and "was
going to kill himself if he didn't get help." Hill v. Walsh, 884
F.3d 16, 19 (1st Cir. 2018). When officers arrived at Hill's
parents' house, one "thought he had seen a shadow of a person
inside," and entered the residence only to find that Hill was not
at home. Id. at 20. We rejected Hill's argument that since "the
face of the . . . warrant clearly indicated that Matthew was
'CURRENTLY AT MORTON HOSPITAL'" the officers lacked an objectively
reasonable basis for their belief that Hill needed aid because
"Matthew's history of overdosing and resisting the police, the
subject line of the warrant [which listed Hill's address], and the
appearance of a person inside the home" could lead a reasonable
officer to "reasonably conclude[] that her entry was lawful." Id.
at 23. And in United States v. Beaudoin, we observed that "society
expects police to investigate reports of dead bodies, and to do so
promptly" because "the reportedly 'dead' body might yet be alive
and prompt action could save the person." 362 F.3d 60, 70 (1st
Cir. 2004), vacated on other grounds sub nom. Champagne v. United
States, 543 U.S. 1102 (2005).
- 52 - The majority opinion further departs from this Court's
own precedent by cherry-picking from the record. This Court's
precedent establishes that "[t]he requisite inquiry must be
undertaken in light of the totality of the circumstances
confronting the [official], including, in many cases, a need for
an on-the-spot judgment based on incomplete information and
sometimes ambiguous facts bearing upon the potential for serious
consequences." United States v. Infante, 701 F.3d 386, 392 (1st
Cir. 2012) (alteration in original) (emphasis added) (quoting
United States v. Martins, 413 F.3d 139, 146 (1st Cir. 2005)
abrogated on other grounds by Hill, 884 F.3d at 19. For all of
these reasons, the majority is simply wrong.
But the record shows even more undercutting the
majority's position. Before entering, Deputy Tiner knew, and
shared with at least Sgt. Hanson, that "about a year before" he
had "done a welfare check on [Arline]" during which "he could not
get actual contact with her, that she was only able to talk to him
through a window and that . . . he was not allowed to have any []
face-to-face contact with her." Giambro's electronic file
includes information about that welfare check and lists Giambro as
"[i]nvolved." These crucial pieces of evidence from the
suppression hearing were not incorporated into the majority's
analysis and demonstrate that at least two of the entering officers
had reason to think that Arline might well be a victim of domestic
- 53 - violence.26 Deputy Tiner knew that: (1) a welfare check on Arline
at the Giambro residence had been requested for an incident
involving Giambro; (2) when Deputy Tiner went to the property to
conduct that check, Arline was prevented from coming to the door
and from allowing Deputy Tiner to enter; (3) Giambro's electronic
file contained a note from 2010 documenting that he had previously
shot someone; (4) Arline was unaccounted for; and (5) Giambro was
now behaving evasively toward his son. Deputy Tiner related at
least some of this information to at least one other officer.
These facts provided an objectively reasonable basis for
concluding that Arline may have been the victim of domestic
violence.27
26 Deputy Tiner's prior experience at the Giambro residence also helps to explain why he "did not go to the Hospital as Cpl. Federico had requested through Dispatch" and instead "proceeded directly to the Giambro property." 27 Courts have repeatedly recognized that "[d]omestic violence situations require police to make particularly delicate and difficult judgments quickly." Commonwealth v. Gordon, 29 N.E.3d 856, 864 (Mass. App. Ct. 2015). "Domestic violence presents unique challenges to law enforcement" in that those situations "can be volatile and quickly escalate into significant injury" and "often, if not usually, occur[] within the privacy of a home." State v. Schultz, 248 P.3d 484, 487 (Wash. 2011) (en banc). Evidence that someone "may have been the victim of domestic violence is a factor that police may consider in determining whether an emergency exists involving a particular individual and whether a warrantless entry is reasonably necessary to render assistance." Gordon, 29 N.E.3d at 865. Because of "the combustible nature of domestic disputes," courts "have accorded great latitude to an officer's belief that warrantless entry was justified by exigent circumstances when the officer had substantial reason to believe that one of the parties to the
- 54 - The events that occurred during Deputy Tiner's prior
welfare check are classic signs of domestic abuse. See Giles v.
California, 554 U.S. 252, 380 (2008) (Souter, J., concurring)
(noting that "in the classic abusive relationship" the abuser
attempts to "isolate the victim from outside help, including the
aid of law enforcement"); United States v. Nwoye, 824 F.3d 1129,
1138 (D.C. Cir. 2016) (observing that "batterers often isolate
their victims"); State v. Rodriguez, 636 N.W.2d 234, 345 (Iowa,
2001) ("[I]t is very common for the abuse to . . . isolate the
victim from others so they do not know what is going on. This
isolation . . . commonly extends to controlling the victim's . . .
access to medical care and treatment."). An officer would
reasonably draw an inference from the circumstances of the welfare
check on Arline that she was a victim of domestic violence. It is
typical for domestic violence victims, especially when they are in
the presence of their abusers, to be too afraid to speak to
officers. It is obvious that Deputy Tiner thought his prior
welfare check was relevant to the events that were unfolding
because he took the time to tell Sgt. Hanson about it. That the
written record of the welfare check does not, in so many words,
dispute was in danger." Tierney v. Davidson, 133 F.3d 189, 197 (2d Cir. 1998); see also Cotten v. Miller, 74 F.4th 932, 934-35 (8th Cir. 2023) ("[I]t was reasonable for the officers to believe that a woman . . . in the . . . apartment was a victim of domestic violence, and was injured or threatened with future injury.").
- 55 - state a conclusion that this was an incident of domestic violence
does not change this fact.28
The majority attempts to justify its conclusion by
saying the officers testified consistently that they had no basis
to believe a crime had been committed before they entered the
residence. That misses the point -- the officers' testimony was
that they acted under the emergency aid exception.29
The majority also omits important facts when it
criticizes Deputy Tiner's decision to go directly to the residence
rather than first going to Stephens Memorial Hospital to talk
directly with Giambro. The record evidence shows that, when he
first called dispatch, Cpl. Federico said they "may wish to have
a deputy come [to the hospital] to talk to [Giambro]," (emphasis
added) but he also testified that he "explained to [dispatch] that
whatever it was that was going on appeared that it was at the
parents' residence." Cpl. Federico then placed a second call to
dispatch, informing them that they "may want to let the deputy
28 We know from further evidence at sentencing, which we do not consider on a motion to dismiss, that Arline was, in fact, previously a victim of domestic violence at Giambro's hands. This evidence was not known to the officers when they entered the residence, but it clearly reinforces the reasonableness of Deputy Tiner's concerns. 29 The majority also overstates the record. Sgt. Hanson testified only that he "thought [he] did not have probable cause to expect any criminal activity" and Lt. Libby said "nobody told [him] it was a crime scene."
- 56 - know that the subject has multiple comments in his [names] file,
they might want to review that." Cpl. Federico then asked dispatch
to have Deputy Tiner call him, which Deputy Tiner did. Cpl.
Federico testified that, during that phone call, the two "did talk
a little bit about the concerns as to whether . . . [Arline] really
was dead or not, if she could be there needing assistance" and
"the information that [Giambro] had in his names file," and that
there was also "talk of him trying to have somebody, whether it be
[Deputy Tiner] or I don't know who, but go to the residence."
Contrary to the majority's characterization, both Deputy Tiner and
Cpl. Federico had concerns as to whether Arline was in need of
aid, and Deputy Tiner discussed with Cpl. Federico the need for a
deputy to go to the residence. It is also clear that Cpl. Federico,
like Deputy Tiner, thought that the content of the names file was
important context for the situation and communicated that to Deputy
Tiner.
Further, there is no evidence that the other three
officers were ever aware that Cpl. Federico ever first suggested
a deputy come to the hospital. Lt. Libby testified that he decided
to go to the house on his own when he learned officers were there.
Sgt. Hanson testified that he was contacted by Lt. Tilsley and
instructed to go to the residence.
The majority also departs from our circuit precedent
requiring deference to the trial judge's credibility findings that
- 57 - the officers' stated reasons were their reasons and that these
reasons were objectively reasonable. Where the trial court took
testimony from the officers who entered the residence, and "[t]he
suppression hearing transcript discloses abundant support for the
district court finding" such "[t]rial court credibility
determinations are prime candidates for appellate deference."
United States v. Nunez, 19 F.3d 719, 724 (1st Cir. 1994); see also
United States v. John, 59 F.4th 44, 48 (1st Cir. 2023) (when
reviewing a district court's denial of a motion to suppress,
appellate courts "give appropriate weight to the inferences drawn
by the district court and the on-scene officers, recognizing that
they possess the advantage of immediacy and familiarity with the
witnesses and events." (quoting United States v. Tiru-Plaza, 766
F.3d 111, 115 (1st Cir. 2014))).
The majority's holding also creates a circuit split. As
the Seventh Circuit has noted, the need for emergency aid justified
a warrantless entry where the entering officer knew that a neighbor
and doctor were "unable to get in touch" with a person, leading
the neighbor to report to police that Gaetjens may have been
"experiencing a medical emergency." Gaetjens v. City of Loves
Park, 4 F.4th 487, 493 (7th Cir. 2021). The warrantless entry was
justified when police "could not see anyone inside" Gaetjens's
house and were told by the concerned neighbor that "perhaps
Gaetjens was at her other home." Id. at 490. The Seventh Circuit
- 58 - stressed that "[p]olice knew nobody had heard from Gaetjens, her
neighbor was concerned about a medical emergency, and the mail and
garbage at her house were piling up. It was therefore reasonable
for police to believe she was inside, despite any evidence
suggesting otherwise." United States v. Maxwell, 85 F.4th 1243,
1247 (7th Cir. 2023) (en banc) (discussing Gaetjens, 4 F.4th 487).
Like the officers in Gaetjens, the officers who entered
Giambro's trailer had reliable information that Antonio had been
unable to get in touch with his mother, did not know where she
was, and that she might or might not be alive, and for the reasons
described earlier she might well be in need of aid. The officers
had no reason to believe that the son had exhaustively searched
the large trailer, including its separate bedrooms and the locked
room, nor could they eliminate the possibility that if Arline had
been outside the trailer that she returned to the trailer after
Antonio left. The officers had no reason to believe Giambro,
described as being "evasive," was being truthful, and even if he
were, no reason to believe that his assessment of Arline's
condition was accurate. Indeed, his statement she "just did not
wake up" was far from a circumstance in which "the report indicated
that the body had been languishing in the house for several days"
or "where other evidence might have made it clear that the victim
- 59 - was indeed dead, and not hovering on the verge of death."30
Richardson, 208 F.3d at 631. In light of this uncertainty, Lt.
Libby testified that he did not want to assume Arline was dead
based solely on Giambro's "opinion of whether somebody was dead"
he "wanted to confirm that with [his] own eyes." See id.
(crediting officers' testimony that "in their experience,
laypersons without medical knowledge are not in a position to
determine whether a person is dead or alive. Someone who appeared
to be dead might revive with immediate medical treatment,"
therefore the officers "assume that anyone reported dead might be
alive unless the report comes from qualified personnel").
In Sutterfield v. City of Milwaukee, the Seventh Circuit
held that officers "had objectively reasonable grounds" for
entering Krysta Sutterfield's home after receiving a call from
Sutterfield's physician "express[ing] concern for Sutterfield's
well-being" because of Sutterfield's suicidal thoughts and
"declar[ing] a need for intervention on [Sutterfield's] behalf."
751 F.3d 542, 566 (7th Cir. 2014). This was so notwithstanding
the fact that nine hours had passed since the initial telephone
30 The majority attempts to rely on Richardson but ignores the fact that the Richardson court distinguished between cases where there were uncertain reports of a dead body and cases where it was obvious to a lay person that the victim is dead and acknowledged that the officers' "modus operandi that is designed to save potential fatalities, where it is objectively reasonable to think that this is possible, is permissible." 208 F.3d at 631.
- 60 - call, id. at 562, statements from Sutterfield to the police that
"she was fine and that she did not want anyone to enter her
residence," id. at 547, and a follow-up phone call from
Sutterfield's doctor "advis[ing] [police] that Sutterfield had
called her some minutes earlier stating she was not in need of
assistance and that the doctor should 'call off' the police search
for her," id. at 545. The Seventh Circuit observed that "it [was]
not at all clear . . . that the mere passage of time without
apparent incident was sufficient to alleviate any concern" and
that "it was objectively reasonable for the officers to believe
that their intervention was required in order to prevent
Sutterfield from harming herself, notwithstanding her own
protestations to the contrary." Id. at 566; see also Nowell v.
State, 663 S.W.3d 369, 371 (Ark. 2023) (police had objectively
reasonable basis to enter trailer during welfare check conducted
twenty minutes after mother of defendant's girlfriend called
police to report she had received a suicide note from girlfriend
dated three days earlier). The court stressed that they were "not
in any position . . . to second guess the police." Id.
The Ninth Circuit held officers had an objectively
reasonable basis for believing someone might be in need of
immediate assistance when they received a 911 call about someone
"screaming at the top of his lungs and threatening somebody" inside
a house. United States v. Guillen, 755 Fed. Appx. 643, 645 (9th
- 61 - Cir. 2018) (unpublished opinion). Upon arriving at the house,
police encountered Guillen, who "appeared upset" and "told the
officers he had been 'blowing off steam.'" Id. at 646. When
Guillen "refused to say what those issues were, the officers asked
whether anybody was inside the house. Guillen responded
affirmatively, saying his roommate was inside." Id. The Ninth
Circuit held that "the substance of the 911 call, the nature of
the encounter . . . outside the house, and its corroboration of
the 911 call" gave the officers "an objectively reasonable basis
to conclude somebody inside required their immediate assistance,"
notwithstanding officers' lack of evidence that the roommate was
the individual being threatened and Guillen's assurance that he
was just "blowing off steam." See id.
The Eleventh Circuit held that exigent circumstances
justified entry into Eric Harrison's hotel room because the
officers "reasonably believed [Harrison's] mental state made him
a danger to himself" when the officers knew that Harrison: (1)
"told a family member he spent the day with their long-dead
grandmother"; (2) "told guests and hotel staff that he owned the
hotel"; (3) "was regularly ordering room service and timing how
long it took to arrive"; (4) "was speaking in a garbled manner and
laughing maniacally as the officers approached his room"; (5) "did
not seem to understand that [the responding officers] were police
officers instead of hotel employees"; and (6) where "a guest in a
- 62 - neighboring room reported hearing screaming and glass breaking" in
the room "throughout the day." Harrison v. Davidson Hotel Co.,
LLC, 806 Fed. Appx. 684, 688 (11th Cir. 2020) (unpublished
opinion). The risk posed to Harrison by his mental health issues,
which largely involved confusion rather than overtly dangerous
behavior, was considerably more speculative than the risk that
Arline Giambro was gravely ill or injured.
The Fourth Circuit held that officers had an objectively
reasonable belief that Ralph Cloaninger posed a danger to himself
after officers received a 911 call from a VA doctor requesting
"police assistance for a suicide threat." Cloaninger ex rel.
Estate of Cloaninger v. McDevitt, 555 F.3d 324, 332 (4th Cir.
2009). Police "knew Cloaninger had previously made suicide threats
and believed Cloaninger had firearms in the house." Id. "[T]he
initial VA call, coupled with knowledge of Cloaninger's prior
suicide threats and the belief that he possessed firearms,
established to an objectively reasonable police officer that
Cloaninger was a danger to himself." Id. at 334. The officers
who entered Giambro's residence, like the officers who entered
Cloaninger's, had reports from a reliable source that someone might
be in danger, and had knowledge of past events that tended to
corroborate the report.
The majority attempts to distinguish these cases by
pointing to the fact that, in many, a "relative or neighbor asked
- 63 - officers for assistance, expressing concern about a person who was
unaccounted for and whose health status was either unknown or
unstable." This ignores the fact that the Security Guard at
Stephens Memorial Hospital who asked police for assistance and
reported to police that Antonio and Giambro "d[id]n't know what
happened to the mother." Such a report is not merely an
"[a]nonymous tip[], without more," Beaudoin, 362 F.3d at 70, it is
a report from a reliable source, a hospital security guard, with
expertise in both medical emergencies and interfacing with law-
enforcement. That the Security Guard contacted law enforcement
supports the officers' actions.
The majority opinion likewise creates a circuit split as
to the deference that should be afforded to the trial court's
credibility determination. Any such "credibility determination is
within the trial court's purview, and we 'defer to the [trial
court's] determinations unless [its] understanding of the facts
appears to be unbelievable.'" United States v. Evans, 958 F.3d
1102, 1107 (11th Cir. 2020) (quoting United States v. Ramirez-
Chilel, 289 F.3d 744, 749 (11th Cir. 2002)) (affirming denial of
motion to suppress); see also United States v. Hatfield, 333 F.3d
1189, 1193 (10th Cir. 2003) (noting that, in the context of a
Fourth Amendment challenge, "[i]t is the province of the trial
court to assess the credibility of witnesses at the suppression
hearing and to determine the weight to be given to the evidence
- 64 - presented, and we must give such determinations due deference"
(quoting United States v. Le, 173 F.3d 1258, 1264 (10th Cir.
1999)).
III.
Because the officers' entrance was constitutional, it is
clear, based on uncontradicted evidence from the suppression
hearing, that many of Giambro's guns were then in plain view of
the officers. See Spencer v. Roche, 659 F.3d 142, 149 (1st Cir.
2011) ("[A] police officer's observation of an item in plain view
does not constitute a search so long as the officer makes his
observation from a lawful vantage point."). I respectfully
dissent.
- 65 -
Related
Cite This Page — Counsel Stack
126 F.4th 46, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-giambro-ca1-2025.