Opinion
Court of Appeals No. A-9720 Trial Court No. 3AN-02-6007 CR No. 5870
08-22-2012
ROBERT D. GIBSON III, Appellant, v. STATE OF ALASKA, Appellee.
Appearances: Sharon Barr, Assistant Public Defender, and Quinlan Steiner, Public Defender, Anchorage, for the Appellant. W.H. Hawley, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Special Prosecutions and Appeals, Anchorage, and Talis J. Colberg, Attorney General, Juneau, for the Appellee.
NOTICE
Memorandum decisions of this court do not create legal precedent. See Alaska Appellate Rule 214(d) and Paragraph 7 of the Guidelines for Publication of Court of Appeals Decisions (Court of Appeals Order No. 3). Accordingly, this memorandum decision may not be cited as binding precedent for any proposition of law.
MEMORANDUM OPINION
AND JUDGMENT
Appeal from the Superior Court, Third Judicial District, Anchorage, Michael L. Wolverton, Judge.
Appearances: Sharon Barr, Assistant Public Defender, and Quinlan Steiner, Public Defender, Anchorage, for the Appellant. W.H. Hawley, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Special Prosecutions and Appeals, Anchorage, and Talis J. Colberg, Attorney General, Juneau, for the Appellee.
Before: Coats, Chief Judge, and Mannheimer and Bolger, Judges.
COATS, Chief Judge.
In Gibson v. State,we concluded that the first of three warrantless police entries into the home of Robert D. Gibson III was unlawful, reversing the decision of the superior court that the entry was justified under the emergency aid exception to the warrant requirement. On review, the Alaska Supreme Court reversed the decision of this court. The Supreme Court concluded that the entry by the police was justified under the emergency aid exception. The Supreme Court's decision did not, however, fully resolve Gibson's appeal.
205 P.3d 352 (Alaska App. 2009).
State v. Gibson, 267 P.3d 645 (Alaska 2012).
In his appeal, Gibson argued that, even if the initial entry of his home was justified under the emergency aid exception to the warrant requirement, two subsequent entries by the police were illegal and required suppression of evidence.
We conclude that the superior court did not err in finding that exigent circumstances justified the second entry by the police into Gibson's residence, because during the first entry the police observed a methamphetamine laboratory within the residence. These officers reported their observations to an officer who had more experience in evaluating methamphetamine laboratories, Officer Asselin. They told him that the meth lab could be dangerous and required immediate action. Testimony presented at the evidentiary hearing established that methamphetamine laboratories can be extremely dangerous and can explode. Officer Asselin entered the trailer to alleviate this danger.
We conclude that it is unnecessary to decide whether another subsequent entry by Detective Bryant was lawful. It is clear that any additional information which he obtained from this entry was unnecessary to support the search warrant which led to the seizure of the methamphetamine laboratory.
Factual background
The following facts are from the Supreme Court's decision:
In July 2002 Lisa Bevin and Robert Gibson lived together in Gibson's trailer. Bevin became angry when she awoke to Gibson preparing to cook methamphetamine; Gibson reacted by threatening to "stab [her] in the head." Bevin then called 911. The 911 operator logged the call as: "Female stated male was threatening to stab her in the head," and noted she could hear a disturbance in the background. Anchorage Police Officers Justin Doll and Francis Stanfield were dispatched to the scene, arriving in separate patrol cars.
When the officers arrived they heard a distressed "female voice crying, upset, screaming, yelling" from inside the trailer. As the officers approached the trailer, Bevin tumbled out the door wearing only a tank top and crying "help me." Bevin had visible swelling in one eye and a bleeding cut on the back of her head. The officers drew their weapons and called for backup. Against the officers' urgings, Bevin returned inside for more clothing.
As Bevin started back into the trailer, Gibson became visible through the doorway. The officers ordered Gibson out of the trailer, handcuffed him, and put him in a patrol car. Bevin emerged from the trailer fully clothed, but was agitated, argumentative, and uncooperative when questioned by the officers. Worried "she might start to fight" with them or Gibson, the officers put Bevin in a patrol car. The officers then informed the backup officer that he no longer needed to respond at the emergency level "because of the increased danger involved" in such a response.
The officers were not certain at that time who had called 911, whether anyone else lived in the trailer, or who the assailant had been. After Bevin and Gibson were detained, Officer Stanfield did not "hear any evidence of any kind that another party, a third person was in [the] trailer."
Officer Doll similarly did not see or hear anyone inside the trailer, and "saw nothing else that would indicate that there was another person inside." Bevin, when asked, told the officers nobody else was in the trailer. Neither officer took Bevin's statement "at face value"; in Officer Stanfield's experience people "[r]egularly" lie "in domestic violence situations," and in Officer Doll's experience "people [had] lied to [him] in the past."
When Officer Gerard Asselin arrived approximately 25 minutes after Gibson and Bevin were secured, Officers Stanfield and Doll entered the trailer. Officer Doll testified that because the dispatch indicated "a disturbance possibly involving a knife," the officers wanted "to make sure that nobody [was] ... lying wounded inside the trailer." Officer Doll further confirmed that entering the premises in domestic violence situations "that may have involved a weapon," where "the risk is a little higher," is "standard operating procedure" even when an officer has "no reason to believe somebody is inside" because, as he noted, police "have a duty to provide aid to anybody inside." While they were "clearing" the trailer, the officers noticed evidence suggesting methamphetamine manufacturing.
After exiting the trailer Officer Doll told Officer Asselin that there "could be a meth lab" inside. As Officer Asselin was more familiar than Officers Stanfield and Doll with methamphetamine labs, and because he "[knew] them to be dangerous in nature," he entered the trailer to determine whether "it need[ed] to be dealt with right at that moment." Observing chemicals, glassware, and other evidence of methamphetamine production, Officer Asselin concluded that "production of methamphetamine was occurring."
Based on Officer Asselin's conclusion, Detective Bruce Bryant and another detective from the Anchorage Police Department's Metro Drug Unit were dispatched to the scene. Following a brief walk-through of the trailer,
Detective Bryant applied for and obtained a search warrant. The police executed the warrant that night, seizing methamphetamine production evidence from the trailer.
The Supreme Court upheld Superior Court Judge Michael L. Wolverton's finding that the State established the first prong of the emergency aid doctrine: that the police had reasonable grounds to believe that there was an emergency which required immediate assistance. There are two other prongs to the emergency aid exception: that the search must not be primarily motivated by an intent to arrest a person or seize evidence, and that there must be a "reasonable basis, approximating probable cause, to associate the emergency with the area or place to be searched."
Id. at 664, 667.
Id. at 659 (footnote omitted).
Judge Wolverton found that there was no evidence that the police were searching for evidence and that "the officers' subjective motivation for entering the trailer was to determine whether there was anyone inside in need of emergency aid." Judge Wolverton also found the search was "restricted in time and scope to the nature and the duration of the particular emergency." These findings are not clearly erroneous and support Judge Wolverton's conclusion that the initial entry into Gibson's trailer was authorized under the emergency aid exception to the warrant requirement.
See id. at 649.
Id.
Officer Asselin's entry into Gibson's trailer was lawful
Both from the facts as set out in the Supreme Court's opinion and from the testimony of the police officers who testified at the evidentiary hearing, it is clear that Officer Asselin could lawfully enter Gibson's trailer.
Officer Doll testified that he had received training about methamphetamine laboratories. When Doll entered Gibson's trailer, he observed various equipment and smelled a distinctive odor which convinced him that there was a methamphetamine lab in Gibson's trailer. He stated that he was aware that methamphetamine labs were dangerous and toxic. (Officer Stanfield testified to making similar observations.)
Doll told Asselin, who had more training in dealing with methamphetamine labs, what he had seen and smelled. Doll told Asselin that he believed that there was a methamphetamine lab in the trailer and that it looked like it was still cooking. He expressed concern that it was a hazard and could explode. Officer Asselin entered into the trailer because he believed there was a dangerous situation which needed to be dealt with immediately.
Id.
It is clear from this testimony, which Judge Wolverton found credible, that Officer Asselin's entry into Gibson's trailer was necessary to address the concern that there was a methamphetamine laboratory present in the trailer and that this laboratory constituted a significant danger.
We do not need to decide whether Detective Bryant's entry into Gibson's trailer was lawful
Gibson argues that the subsequent entry by Detective Bruce Bryant was illegal. Detective Bryant arrived at Gibson's residence a short time after Officer Asselin had entered Gibson's trailer and observed the meth lab. According to Judge Wolverton's findings, Detective Bryant "is highly trained in meth labs and in disassembling them. He is also familiar with the dangerous nature of active meth labs." Judge Wolverton found that Bryant entered the trailer to take a "second glance" at the items in the trailer. Gibson argues that Detective Bryant could not legally enter the residence because Officer Asselin had previously entered the residence and had determined that the methamphetamine lab did not present an immediate danger.
Id.
Reading the warrant literally, it appears that Detective Bryant might have learned all of the information set forth in the warrant from his fellow officers before he ever entered Gibson's residence. But, from the evidence at the hearing on the motion to suppress, it appears that Detective Bryant also relied on his own observations in preparing the warrant. As we have previously set out, Officers Doll and Stanfield testified to having observed the meth lab present in Gibson's trailer. Officer Asselin also testified to seeing the meth lab when he entered the trailer. Detective Bryant testified to making similar observations. Detective Bryant talked with Officers Asselin and Stanfield about the fact that they had seen items in Gibson's trailer which were consistent with manufacturing methamphetamine. Detective Bryant then prepared the search warrant.
All four officers testified to making similar observations establishing the presence of a meth lab in Gibson's residence. Judge Wolverton found that "The officers later used all four of their observations to obtain a search warrant." Judge Wolverton's findings are supported by the evidence presented at the evidentiary hearing and support his conclusion. Detective Bryant used the similar observations of all four officers to obtain the search warrant.
Therefore, even if we assume that Detective Bryant's entry into Gibson's residence was illegal, his observations were not necessary to obtain the warrant. Even if we excise Detective Bryant's observations from the warrant, the warrant still rested on identical information which Bryant obtained from his fellow officers whose entries into Gibson's residence were legal. Therefore, even if Detective Bryant's entry into Gibson's residence was unlawful, the warrant would still be valid.
See Cruse v. State, 584 P.2d 1141, 1145-46 (Alaska 1978) (even if the police obtain some evidence unlawfully, a search warrant is valid if it does not rely on the illegally obtained evidence).
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We accordingly conclude that Judge Wolverton did not err in denying Gibson's motion to suppress.
The judgment of the superior court is AFFIRMED.