State v. Tran

545 P.3d 248

2024 UT 7

STATE of Utah, Respondent,

v.Alexander Hung TRAN, Petitioner.

No. 20220560

Supreme Court of Utah.

Heard September 8, 2023

Filed February 29, 2024

Third District, Salt Lake, The Honorable Elizabeth A. Hruby-Mills, No. 151910799

Sean D. Reyes, Att’y Gen., Jonathan S. Bauer, Asst. Solic. Gen., Salt Lake City, for respondent

Sarah J. Carlquist, Salt Lake City, for petitioner

Justice Pohlman authored the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice Durrant, Associate Chief Justice Pearce, Justice Petersen, and Justice Hagen joined.

Justice Pohlman, opinion of the Court:

INTRODUCTION

¶1 Alexander Hung Tran appeals the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress evidence that police officers obtained during a warrantless entry and search of his home. The court concluded that suppression was unwarranted because an objectively reasonable basis existed for the officers to believe that they needed to enter the home to render emergency aid.

¶2 Tran raises two arguments on appeal. First, he contends that the entry and search of his home do not fall within the emergency aid exception to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. And second, Tran asks us to interpret article I, section 14 of the Utah Constitution to provide greater protection to Utah residents than that provided by the Fourth Amendment. Specifically, Tran asserts that section 14 does not allow for exceptions to the warrant requirement and that, even if it does, we should adopt a more protective standard than that applied under the Fourth Amendment. In line with this heightened protection, Tran argues that the police officers violated his section 14 rights in entering and searching his home without a warrant.

¶3 We conclude that the entry and search of Tran’s home were reasonable and justified under the emergency aid exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement. And we decline at this time to recognize broader protection under the Utah Constitution in the emergency aid context. Accordingly, we affirm.

BACKGROUND

¶4 One September afternoon, a grandmother (Grandmother) was supposed to pick up her eight-year-old grandson (Child) from elementary school. Grandmother was Child’s caretaker and was always punctual in picking him up from school. But this day, she did not arrive as usual. Several hours after the normal pick-up time had passed, the school principal contacted the police. Officer Peck responded to the call and met the principal at the school. The principal told Officer Peck that Grandmother’s tardiness was "unlike her" as "she was always on time." Officer Peck then tried several times to reach Grandmother on her phone, but she did not answer.

¶5 While Officer Peck met with the school principal, a second officer, Officer Crockett, made her way to Grandmother’s last known address. When Officer Crockett arrived, she noticed "a vehicle in the driveway parked at an odd angle with extensive front-end damage and an open trunk."

¶6 This was not the first time the police had responded to a call at this home. Of note, Officer Crockett had, about three months earlier, responded to a call about "a male who seemed to be having psychiatric issues" and "was waving some knives around." Officer Crockett had that individual, who turned out to be Tran, admitted for a psychiatric evaluation. Officer Crockett was also aware that the police had been called to the home "numerous" times and had responded to an occupancy dispute just a few days prior.

¶7 Officer Crockett knocked on the front door and rang the doorbell. After receiving no response, she joined Officer Peck at the school. While there, Child’s other grandmother (Relative) arrived. Relative expressed concern over Grandmother’s whereabouts because it was unlike Grandmother to be late and because she was also caring for a two-month-old infant (Infant). Like the officers, Relative had called Grandmother’s phone but had been unable to reach her.

¶8 Relative then told the officers that she had a key to Grandmother’s residence and "permission to enter." The three left the school and traveled to the home. Upon arriving there, Relative informed the officers that the damaged vehicle in the driveway did not belong to Grandmother. The officers also learned that the damage was from a prior incident.

¶9 Once at the front door, the officers knocked but received no response. They could hear a television inside but otherwise did not notice signs of anyone being present. Relative then looked through the beveled window of the front door and was alarmed to see a "tarp on the floor with a large object underneath it," which "wasn’t typical." The officers looked through the window and saw the same scene, believing that the tarp may have been covering a body.

¶10 Relative explained to the officers that the reason Grandmother was caring for Infant and Child was that their mother (Grandmother’s daughter) was in jail on human trafficking charges. Relative alluded to "possible retaliation for the daughter testifying against other players" in the human trafficking case. The officers ultimately told Relative to leave the scene given the potential danger.

¶11 At this point, the officers debated what to do next. Officer Peck told Officer Crockett, "My only thing is … we go in and that is a murder, and we didn’t have permission to go in and we just screw everything up." Officer Crockett responded, discussing the potential for the tarp to be covering a body, "Right. And, no, I’m not going to go in there because it’s obvious that it’s not—but that’s what it looks like to me. Doesn’t it look like [a covered body] to you?" Officer Peck agreed, saying, "That is odd. It looks—that could be a body in there."

¶12 Officer Crockett called her supervisor, Sergeant Manzanares, for backup while Officer Peck walked across the ungated backyard and found the back door to the home "wide open." Officer Peck decided to monitor the back door "until [they could] get another officer" at the scene. In all, Officers Peck and Crockett waited outside the home for about twenty minutes before Sergeant Manzanares arrived. During this time, they contemplated entering the home. Officer Peck reminded Officer Crockett that Relative had a key, and "she’s giving us permission … that’s enough for us" to enter. Officer Crockett responded, "Well, we don’t even need it … [b]ecause of the two-month-old."

¶13 Once Sergeant Manzanares arrived, the officers made the decision to enter the home to check on the wellbeing of Grandmother and Infant. After entering through the back door, the officers found a dead male lying on the couch in the living room, as well as Grandmother, deceased, under the tarp. Officer Crockett then saw Tran holding a gun at the bottom of the stairs leading to the basement. Tran set the gun down and the officers took him into custody. As the officers continued their search for Infant, they ob- served spent shell casings at the bottom of the stairs and eventually discovered Infant, deceased, next to Grandmother under the tarp. After securing the house, the officers exited and contacted the homicide division, which obtained a search warrant to investigate the apparent crimes.

¶14 The State charged Tran with three counts of aggravated murder. But when the district court determined that Tran was not competent to stand trial, he was committed to the Utah State Hospital where he received treatment for several years. Later, after the court found Tran competent to stand trial, Tran moved to suppress the evidence obtained in the warrantless entry and search of his home. He argued that both the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and article I, section 14 of the Utah Constitution prohibited the entry and search.

¶15 The district court held an evidentiary hearing where Officer Peck, Officer Crockett, and Sergeant Manzanares testified and where the court viewed the officers’ body camera footage. After considering the evidence, the court denied Tran’s motion to suppress. The court ruled that under the emergency aid exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement, the officers had "an objectively reasonable basis for believing that both [Grandmother] and [Infant] were in danger," justifying the entry and search. The court also addressed Tran’s argument under article I, section 14 of the Utah Constitution. While the court noted that the Utah Constitution may require some "heightened threshold" of exigency to permit the warrantless entry and search of a home, it ruled that such a heightened threshold was met in this case.

¶16 Tran petitioned for interlocutory appeal of the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress, and we granted his petition.

ISSUE AND STANDARD OF REVIEW

[1, 2] ¶17 Tran asserts that the district court erred in denying his motion to suppress the evidence obtained during the search of his home. We review a "district court’s ruling on a motion to suppress … for correctness, including its application of the law to the facts." State v. Price, 2012 UT 7, ¶ 5, 270 P.3d 527 (cleaned up). In making this assertion, Tran argues that we should interpret article I, section 14 of the Utah Constitution to provide greater protection for Utah residents than that provided by the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. "Matters of constitutional interpretation are questions of law that we review for correctness, … provid[ing] no deference to the district court’s legal conclusions." State v. Poole, 2010 UT 25, ¶ 8, 232 P.3d 519.

ANALYSIS

¶18 In asking us to reverse the district court’s denial of his motion to suppress, Tran argues that the warrantless entry and search of his home violated both the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and article I, section 14 of the Utah Constitution. As for his state constitutional claim, Tran urges us to interpret section 14 either as not providing an emergency aid exception to the warrant requirement or, in the...