State of New Jersey v. Daniel Mordente , 444 N.J. Super. 393 ( 2016 )

NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE
APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION
SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY
APPELLATE DIVISION
DOCKET NO. A-5838-13T1
STATE OF NEW JERSEY, APPROVED FOR PUBLICATION
Plaintiff-Respondent, March 2, 2016
APPELLATE DIVISION
v.
DANIEL MORDENTE, a/k/a KEIS EVAN
HAMWAY, DANIEL MORDENT,
Defendant-Appellant.
_____________________________________
Submitted December 2, 2015 – Decided March 2, 2016
Before Judges Fuentes, Koblitz and Gilson.
On appeal from Superior Court of New Jersey,
Law Division, Union County, Indictment No. 12-
06-0509.
Triarsi, Betancourt, Wukovits & Dugan, LLC,
attorneys for appellant (Steven F. Wukovits,
on the brief).
Grace H. Park, Acting Union County Prosecutor,
attorney for respondent (Stephen K. Kaiser,
Special Deputy Attorney General/Acting
Assistant Prosecutor, on the brief).
The opinion of the court was delivered by
KOBLITZ, J.A.D.
After losing a motion to suppress evidence of numerous
marijuana plants growing in his basement, defendant Daniel
Mordente 1 pled guilty to third-degree possession of marijuana
plants with the intent to distribute within 1000 feet of a school,
N.J.S.A. 2C:35-7. The first-degree charge of operating a marijuana
production facility, N.J.S.A. 2C:35-4, and three other related
lesser drug charges were dismissed. Defendant was sentenced to
probation for five years with six hundred hours of community
service. He now appeals from the denial of his motion to suppress.
We affirm based on the State's right, as part of its community-
caretaking function, to search a home for a missing person in an
emergency.
The testimony at the suppression hearing reveals the
following facts. A Plainfield police officer went to defendant's
home at approximately 8:25 a.m. on February 8, 2012, in response
to defendant's report that his sixty-five year old mother, who
suffers from dementia, was missing since 11:30 p.m. the night
before. Six months earlier this officer had received a similar
report and on that occasion defendant's mother was later found
approximately eight miles away. When the officer arrived one of
the mother's caretakers was present at the home. Defendant was
out searching for his mother with a different caretaker. He was
called to the home, arriving ten minutes later. Defendant allowed
1
The co-defendant did not participate in this appeal and we were
provided no information regarding the result of charges against
him.
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the officers to enter, and signed a police missing person report.
Defendant was "distraught and frantic." He reported to the police
officer that he had already searched the home, and then left to
continue looking for his mother.
Approximately one hour later, after entering the missing
person report in the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) data
base2 at headquarters, the officer returned to the home where he
met the Union County Sheriff's Department K-9 unit. They asked
the caretaker for a piece of clothing belonging to the missing
woman to acquire her scent and also received permission from the
caretaker to enter the house to search it pursuant to the Sheriff's
Department missing person protocol.
Sheriff's Officer Ryan Wilson testified that he had served
as a K-9 handler with the Union County Sheriff's Office for five
years. He had participated in more than fifty searches for missing
persons. He testified: "Part of my initial investigation for all
missing persons cases is to actually - - I check the home myself,
areas where people could hide, areas that may have been overlooked
2
The NCIC maintains "a computerized database of criminal justice
information available to law enforcement agencies nationwide."
State v. Sloane, 193 N.J. 423, 433 (2008). According to the
Federal Bureau of Investigation website, "NCIC helps criminal
justice professionals apprehend fugitives, locate missing persons,
recover stolen property, and identify terrorists." National Crime
Information Center, FBI.gov, https://www.fbi.gov/about-
us/cjis/ncic/ncic (last visited Dec. 8, 2015). The NCIC apparently
assisted in locating defendant's mother.
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by a family member because they're distraught or upset at the
time." He also testified to three specific instances where he
located a missing person inside the home after family members had
indicated that the house was clear. He specifically described an
incident where an elderly woman in a nursing home was found behind
a locked door.
During his search of the home, which was done without a dog,
Wilson began on the top floor. Wilson found the basement door
locked. The caretaker did not have a key, but the Plainfield
police officer was able to "pop open" the door using his "pen
light." Both officers testified that after the door was opened
they smelled the strong odor of marijuana. They descended the
stairs and looked around the basement, finding several marijuana
plants, but not the missing woman. A warrant was obtained and the
plants were seized. The missing woman was located at Pennsylvania
Station in Newark sometime after 10:00 a.m. that morning, after
the officers entered the basement.
The motion judge found that the police had "an objectively
reasonable basis to believe that immediate police action was
necessary based on [] defendant's emergency call to police." The
judge also found it relevant that defendant had left the initial
officer in the home in the company of the caretaker, and determined
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that the officers were not restricted to a search outside of the
home because defendant thought his mother was not in the home.
On appeal defendant raises the following issues:
POINT I: THE TRIAL COURT ABUSED ITS DISCRETION
WHEN IT DENIED THE DEFENDANT'S MOTION TO
SUPPRESS.
A. REASONABLENESS STANDARD.
B. COMMUNITY CARETAKING FUNCTION.
C. EXIGENCY STANDARD.
POINT II: THE FRUIT OF THE POISONOUS TREE
DOCTRINE SHOLD BAR ALL EVIDENCE SEIZED AS A
DIRECT CONSEQUENCE OF THE UNLAWFUL POLICE
ACTIVITY.
"We consider the factual findings of the trial court, premised
upon detailed testimony elicited in a lengthy suppression hearing,
in accordance with a deferential standard of review." State v.
Rockford, 213 N.J. 424, 440 (2013). It is well established that
we "should defer to trial courts' credibility findings that are
often influenced by matters such as observations of the character
and demeanor of witnesses and common human experience that are not
transmitted by the record." State v. Locurto, 157 N.J. 463, 474
(1999). Moreover, in reviewing a trial court's determination, we
are careful not to substitute our decision merely because we might
have concluded differently. State v. Elders, 192 N.J. 224, 244
(2007).
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Our Supreme Court recently held that "the community-
caretaking doctrine is not a justification for the warrantless
entry and search of a home in the absence of some form of an
objectively reasonable emergency." State v. Vargas, 213 N.J. 301,
305 (2013). In Vargas, a landlord called the police after a tenant
failed to pay rent, his mail piled up, and his car was left unmoved
and unattended in the driveway for two weeks. The police conducted
a "welfare check" during which illicit drugs were discovered. Id.
at 307-08. The Court determined explicitly that "[w]ithout the
presence of consent or some species of exigent circumstances, the
community-caretaking doctrine is not a basis for the warrantless
entry into and search of a home." Id. at 321.
Nevertheless, in Vargas, Justice Albin also explained:
In that regard, this is unlike the case of a
close family member whose housebound elderly
relative is not responding to telephone calls
and knocks on the door. Nor is this like the
case of a diabetic or infirm neighbor who is
not seen carrying out routine daily activities
and who is not answering the door or the
telephone. We need not describe the myriad
circumstances that might give rise to an
objectively reasonable basis to believe that
an emergency requires immediate action for the
safety or welfare of another.
[Id. at 327.]
Here, the motion judge found there was an emergency; a woman
suffering from dementia was missing. The motion judge also
credited the testimony of Sheriff Officer Wilson that it was
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established protocol to search the home in every missing person's
case to ensure that the individual had not been overlooked by a
distraught relative. Importantly, there was no evidence that any
officer had an ulterior motive to search the home for illegal
activity. The sole reason the officers were at the home was at
defendant's urgent request to help find his mother. Defendant had
also given no indication that he did not want his home searched.
To the contrary, defendant had previously invited an officer into
the home and his actions reflected a paramount desire to find his
mother as soon as possible. Thus, all the facts establish that
the sanctity and privacy of this home was not being invaded;
rather, the sole object of the search of the home was to find a
missing person as part of law enforcement's community-caretaking
function.
Our dissenting colleague views the search of the home as a
mechanical adherence to protocol rather than a response to exigent
circumstances. The facts demonstrate a true emergency where time
was of the essence. Defendant's mother suffered from dementia,
she had been missing overnight in the wintertime, and defendant
himself was clearly extremely worried about her welfare. The
possibility that the basement door had been locked by her after
she entered the basement, and that she had then fallen down the
steps was posited by the motion judge and accepted by counsel as
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a distinct possibility. The fact that Officer Wilson was following
established protocol in searching the home top to bottom does not
undercut the conclusion that he was responding to an emergency.
Indeed, it is often the case that standard police protocols are
designed specifically to respond to emergency situations. See id.
at 315.
This factual scenario fulfills the "objectively reasonable
basis to believe that an emergency requires immediate action for
the safety or welfare of another." Ibid. The fact that more
than an hour had elapsed from the time of the initial report to
the actual search reflects the practical realities of calling in
a specially-trained missing persons unit, not a reduction in the
emergent nature of the situation. While the dissent's affirmation
of the unique and powerful protections afforded to the home by the
Fourth Amendment, State v. Wright, 221 N.J. 456, 467 (2015), is
unassailable, in this instance the situation presented the type
of crisis requiring immediate action of emergency responders who
specialize in finding missing persons. The community-caretaking
function of the police was not used as a pretext to search the
home. The officers did not detect the odor of marijuana emanating
from the basement until they opened the basement door. To
defendant's credit, his concern for his mother overcame his fear
of law enforcement involvement, and he called the police to assist
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in finding his mother. The police did their best to locate his
mother as they were trained to do, but also inadvertently happened
upon defendant's illegal drug activity. Defendant's mother was
found, as were his marijuana plants.
Affirmed.
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FUENTES, P.J.A.D., dissenting
Applying the community-caretaking doctrine, my colleagues
in the majority found the warrantless search of defendant's home
was constitutionally permissible. I respectfully disagree.
The majority's legal conclusion is grounded on the finding
by the motion judge that the search conducted by Sheriff's
Officer Ryan Wilson, following a missing person protocol adopted
by the Union County Sheriff's Department, was lawful. The
record shows, however, that the search Wilson conducted pursuant
to this alleged protocol was not rationally related to the facts
known to the police at the time. Rather, Wilson robotically
carried out a room-by-room search of defendant's entire
residence, including the first floor and kitchen area where
Plainfield Police Officer Kevin Egbert and the caretaker were
present. Wilson conducted this search without the assistance of
his K-9 partner whom, by Wilson's own description, was
especially trained to detect the scent of missing persons.
Indeed, the dog never entered defendant's home nor was it given
an article of clothing previously worn by defendant's mother to
acquire her scent.
In my view, the highly intrusive, wide ranging search
conducted by Sheriff's Officer Wilson long after defendant had
called the police to report his mother was missing from the
home, is the antithesis of the narrowly tailored, fact-
sensitive, exigent-circumstances-driven scenarios our Supreme
Court envisioned in State v. Vargas, 213 N.J. 301 (2013). Under
the controlling facts of this case, the missing person protocol
adopted by the Union County Sheriff's Department would license
the type of "roving commission to conduct a nonconsensual search
of a home" the Court rejected in State v. Edmonds, 211 N.J. 117,
143 (2012). I reach this conclusion based on the testimony of
the two law enforcement officers the State called as witnesses
in the suppression hearing.
City of Plainfield Police Officer (now Detective) Kevin
Egbert testified that, at approximately 8:25 a.m., on February
8, 2012, he responded to defendant's home on Woodland Avenue to
investigate a report of a "missing elderly female." On his
arrival, he was greeted on the front porch of the residence by a
woman who identified herself as the missing woman's caretaker.
Officer Egbert asked the caretaker for the location of the
missing woman's son (defendant) "because [he] was the one [who]
placed the call, according to [the] dispatcher." The caretaker
told Officer Egbert defendant "was out looking for his mother."
In response to his questions, the caretaker told Officer
Egbert that she had arrived at "around 8 o'clock [a.m.],"
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chatted briefly with defendant, and "then they went upstairs to
look for the mother and she was missing." Officer Egbert's
testimony does not make clear how much time transpired during
his conversation with the caretaker. Sometime thereafter
Officer Egbert called defendant using the caretaker's cellphone
and spoke to him to gather the information necessary and obtain
his authorization "to file a Missing Person's Report."
Defendant eventually returned to the house while Officer Egbert
was still there. Based on the following testimony from Officer
Egbert, I infer Officer Egbert did not enter defendant's home
until defendant arrived accompanied by a woman who appeared to
be the senior caretaker.
Q. Okay. At . . . some point, did you speak
to Mordente?
OFFICER EGBERT: Yes. Due to the fact that
we had to file a Missing Persons' Report, our
protocol is to contact the person that's
calling us or the responsible party and sign
off on what's called an NCIC1 Missing Persons
Report.
Q. And could you explain how that . . . took
place?
1
The National Crime Information Center [NCIC] "helps criminal
justice professionals apprehend fugitives, locate missing persons,
recover stolen property, and identify terrorists. It also assists
law enforcement officers in performing their official duties more
safely and provides them with information necessary to aid in
protecting the general public." National Crime Information
Center, Federal Bureau of Investigation,
https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ncic (last visited February 4,
2016.)
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OFFICER EGBERT: I contact - - I asked [the
caretaker] if she could call him on the cell
phone, which she did, and I spoke to
[defendant] utilizing her cell phone and
advised him that he needed to come back so we
can get this re - - investigation started.
. . . .
OFFICER EGBERT: After Mr. Mordente entered -
- got to the house, we went inside, went to
the kitchen area, and we began talking. I
advised him that we needed to get a signature
because the report can't be filed and we can't
do our job to look for further for her unless
we have him signed off on. He gave me a brief
examp - - brief description of what she was
wearing last night - - or the night before,
signed off on the form. He advised me around
11 o'clock he put her to bed and that was the
last time that he actually saw her.
. . . .
Q. Okay. And when Mr. Mordente returns to the
house . . . did he have - - was anyone with
him?
OFFICER EGBERT: Yes. Ann Roselle.
Apparently she might be a senior caretaker or
in charge of [the daytime caretaker].
Q. And at some point, did you inquire as to
whether Mr. Mordente had looked for his mother
in the house?
OFFICER EGBERT: Yes. During the time talking
to him I stated, have you searched the house?
He said, yes, I had. And that was it. That's
all I remember about that.
Q. Okay. So, after you spoke to Mr. Mordente
and you - - and you got him to sign the form,
what did you do at that point?
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OFFICER EGBERT: Well, after I had Mr.
Mordente sign it, he was very distraught and
frantic and he just said, I'm going back out
looking for her. . . . At that point, I
finished writing up my notes on my report and
I left the house.
Q. Where did you go?
OFFICER EGBERT: I went to headquarters to get
that report into the system.
. . . .
After I got back to headquarters and finished
that paperwork - - you know, sign off on it,
make sure all the blocks were filled in that
I had information to, I give it to the service
person, they enter it into the computer
system. At that time, I started writing my
report.
Sergeant Richards, my immediate supervisor,
advised me that the K-9 Unit was located and
they're in route back to [defendant's
residence] to start the search for [his
mother]. At that time, I packed up my stuff
and responded back to the house.
Q. And Detective, approximately how far would
you say headquarters is from [defendant's
residence]?
OFFICER EGBERT: About five minutes.
Q. Okay. And could you describe the situation
when you returned to [the residence]?
OFFICER EGBERT: I responded there and I
waited for the Union County Sheriff's Officers
to show up. Once they arrived, we went back
to the door, knocked on it, [the caretaker]
was still there. We advised her that we needed
a piece of clothing from [defendant's mother]
so the dog can take a sniff and start
searching. And the Sheriff's Officers asked
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if they can search the house for her because
that's their protocol.
[(emphasis added).]
Officer Egbert's testimony leaves no doubt about the
absence of the indispensable element that must be present to
justify the warrantless entry of a home based on the community-
caretaking doctrine - exigency. As Justice Albin made clear in
Vargas:
Police officers serving in a community-
caretaking role are empowered to make a
warrantless entry into a home under the
emergency-aid exception to the warrant
requirement. Under the emergency-aid
doctrine, a police officer can enter a home
without a warrant if he has "'an objectively
reasonable basis to believe that an emergency
requires that he provide immediate assistance
to protect or preserve life, or to prevent
serious injury'" and there is a "'reasonable
nexus between the emergency and the area or
places to be searched.'" In other words, "if
police officers 'possess an objectively
reasonable basis to believe' that prompt
action is needed to meet an imminent danger,
then neither the Fourth Amendment nor Article
I, Paragraph 7 demand that the officers 'delay
potential lifesaving measures while critical
and precious time is expended obtaining a
warrant.'" Indeed, the rationale of the
emergency-aid exception is informed in large
measure by the community-caretaking
responsibilities of government officials. . . .
[Vargas, supra, 213 N.J. at 323-324 (internal
citations omitted).]
Officer Egbert's testimony described the execution of the
Plainfield Police Department's established protocol for
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responding to a report of a missing person. He was not
dispatched to defendant's mother's residence to provide
emergency aid; he was there to gather information to complete a
written report that is thereafter inputted into the NCIC
database. Officer Egbert candidly testified that he accepted
defendant's representation that he had searched the entire
residence to confirm his mother was not in the house before
calling the police to report her as a missing elderly person
with cognitive impairments.
Officer Egbert also made equally clear that the Sheriff's
Department's K-9 unit was there to obtain an article of
defendant's mother's clothing "so the dog can take a sniff and
start searching." The Sheriff's request to search the home was
a mere formality, a mechanical adherence to the Sheriff's
Department's protocol untethered to any evidence that indicated
the responding officers actually believed defendant's mother was
inside the house. The following testimony from Sheriff's
Officer Wilson unambiguously supports this conclusion.
SHERIFF'S OFFICER WILSON: Upon our arrival,
our . . . standard is to obtain information
regarding the victim. We'll obtain clothing
description, physical description. From there
we'll get a last time seen, whereabouts. If
it's a house, in a case like this and the
other cases of a missing person, we'll usually
ask to gain entry to the residence, again, to
search the residence because of past cases
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I've had where subjects have been still
located within the residence.
Q. Did you become aware . . . the time
[defendant's mother] was last seen?
SHERIFF'S OFFICER WILSON: Yes, I was.
Q. And what was that time?
SHERIFF'S OFFICER WILSON: I believe . . . she
was last seen around 8 a.m. that morning or -
- I'm sorry. She was last seen the night
prior around - - I don't have the last time.
. . . .
[After attorneys' conferred off the record,
the prosecutor apprised the motion judge he
was "going to move on."]
Q. Do you remember how long she had been
missing for at that point, even if you don't
remember the exact time? Approximately how
long it had been.
SHERIFF'S OFFICER WILSON: At the time of our
arrival at approximately 9:30 [a.m.], we were
advised that it was noticed that she was
missing since approximately 8 a.m., 8:20 a.m.
that morning. So . . . roughly an hour and
change by the time we arrived on scene.
. . . .
Q. Okay. And what did you do after you met
with Officer Egbert?
SHERIFF'S OFFICER WILSON: After we met with
Officer Egbert, again, we . . . obtained a
description, last known location, basically
she was last see within the confines of the
residence. And roughly when she went missing.
And that's what we obtained upon initial
arrival.
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Q. Okay. And what . . . did you do after you
had that information from Officer Egbert?
SHERIFF'S OFFICER WILSON: After we had this
information, then . . . we went into our - -
our usual procedure where we would go in,
speak to someone in the house, if anyone was
there, and check the residence.
Q. Now at that point, were you concerned about
the safety of [defendant's mother]?
SHERIFF'S OFFICER WILSON: Yes, I was.
Q. [H]ow did the search for [defendant's
mother] proceed?
SHERIFF'S OFFICER WILSON: Upon entry into the
home, I start usually at the top down. So
I'll go to the second floor first and I'll
clear the . . . the second floor and then work
my way down. It's . . . not a search . . .
in a sense . . . under every nook and cranny.
It's . . . places a person would hide. Under
beds, in closets, behind shower curtains,
things of that nature.
. . . .
And upon completing all these areas on the
second floor, I then move down to the first.
Q. When you were . . . conducting that search,
were you . . . looking for . . . did you
suspect any criminal activity?
SHERIFF'S OFFICER WILSON: No. I did not.
Q. Now, what happened after you went to the
second floor?
SHERIFF'S OFFICER WILSON: After I went to the
second floor, the second floor was cleared of
all areas a person could possibly hide, an
adult person. After completion of that
search, I moved down to the first floor.
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Q. And what happened?
SHERIFF'S OFFICER WILSON: There was negative
findings on the second floor for [defendant's
mother]. So, upon that . . . I went down the
first floor and then completed the same
routine search there. All common places; the
kitchen, the living room, closets. And also,
that was negative as well. [Defendant's
mother] was not located on the first floor.
Q. Okay. After you cleared the first floor,
then what did you do?
SHERIFF'S OFFICER WILSON: There was one door
on the first floor that was locked. We weren't
sure where that door led, whether it was to a
closet or what. We were able to gain entry
to that door.[2] . . . We learned it was a
basement upon opening the door.
Q. And again . . . at the point before you
opened that door, do you suspect anything
criminal?
SHERIFF'S OFFICER WILSON: Nothing at all.
Q. All right. So, what happens once you open
that - - once Officer Egbert opens that door?
SHERIFF'S OFFICER WILSON: Once we open the
door and we begin to go downstairs, we were
met with a strong odor, to be known - - it was
marijuana.
Q. And did you continue to go downstairs?
SHERIFF'S OFFICER WILSON: Yes, we did.
Q. And what did you do in the basement?
2
The caretaker who was in the house during this entire search
did not have the key to this door. The Sheriff’s Officer gained
entry by forcing the lock open.
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SHERIFF'S OFFICER WILSON: In the basement we
searched all the areas, again, where a person
might hide. There was a lot of debris and
garbage and junk down there, for the most part
. . . scattered about. So, we checked behind
those areas in case she had fallen down there
or gotten hurt. Again, she had been missing
quite some time, that we knew, so we weren't
sure what state she would have been in.
[(emphasis added).]
The room-by-room search described by Sheriff's Officer
Wilson is not part of the protocol of the K-9 unit. Sheriff's
Officer Wilson later testified that after he completed the
search of the house, they went to defendant's mother's bedroom
on the second floor to retrieve an article of her clothing,
"namely pajamas." The dog especially trained for this task did
not enter the house at any time. Before taking any meaningful
action to find this cognitively impaired elderly woman, the
officers received a radio transmission that she had been found
in Newark, approximately fourteen miles from Plainfield.
Under these facts, the motion judge found:
[Defendant's mother] was 65 years old at the
time of this incident. In addition, unlike
Vargas, the police were aware that [she]
suffered from dementia and was, therefore, at
times not fully conscious of her actions and
surroundings. The defendant clearly
acknowledged the urgency of the situation when
he departed from the home in order to search
for his mother, leaving the Officers in the
home with only the caretaker. Witnesses
allege that defendant grew agitated at the
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amount of time it was taking the Officer to
begin searching for [his mother].
Therefore, given the circumstances here, the
police did have an objectively reasonable
basis to believe that immediate police action
was necessary based upon defendant's emergency
call to police. While the police's knowledge
that [defendant's mother] did previously
wander away from home is relevant here, it is
reasonable to check a door to see if it is
unlocked before you break it down. And here,
it was reasonable for the Officers to check
within the home to verify that [defendant's
mother] was not in the immediate area before
continuing their search outward.
[(emphasis added).]
The motion judge's analysis and ultimate conclusion here
are irreconcilable with the Court's explication of the emergency
aid doctrine in Vargas. I quote Justice Albin's emphatic and
unambiguous language in Vargas to highlight the inapplicability
of the community caretaking doctrine to the uncontested salient
facts of this case:
Under the emergency-aid doctrine, a police
officer can enter a home without a warrant if
he has "'an objectively reasonable basis to
believe that an emergency requires that he
provide immediate assistance to protect or
preserve life, or to prevent serious injury'"
and there is a "'reasonable nexus between the
emergency and the area or places to be
searched.'"
[Vargas, supra, 213 N.J. at 323 (quoting
Edmunds, supra, 211 N.J. at 132).]
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Here, the motion judge noted the connection between
defendant's agitation with the slow pace of the police's
response and his decision to take matters into his own hand.
However, instead of fixing fault for this delay where it
belonged, on the lethargic response by the officers at the
scene, the judge uses defendant's sense of urgency to justify
the officers' warrantless search of his home. The room-by-room
search described by Sheriff's Officer Wilson was nothing more
than a perfunctory execution of an inapplicable protocol. The
Sheriff's Department was summoned to this scene because it was
expected it would use the K-9 Unit to aid in the search of
defendant's mother, not to conduct a room-by-room search of the
home that Officer Egbert was clearly capable of conducting if he
thought it was warranted. The fact that Officer Egbert
testified he believed defendant's representation that he had
searched the house before calling the police corroborates this
self-evident observation.
In Vargas, Justice Albin explained the type of emergency
aid situations the Court envisioned would trigger the
application of the community-caretaking doctrine by quoting then
Judge (later Chief Justice) Burger, in Wayne v. United States:
[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
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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.
[Vargas, supra, 213 N.J. at 324 (quoting 318
F. 2d 205, 212 (D.C. Cir.), cert. denied, 375
U.S. 860, 84 S. Ct. 125, 11 L. Ed. 2d 86(1963)).]
Sheriff's Officer Wilson's robotic execution of the Sheriff's
Department "missing person protocol" reflects none of the
exigency or urgency that justifies the highly intrusive, wide
ranging warrantless search of the residence that occurred here.
The record also shows defendant did not consent to the search of
his home. "Without the presence of consent or some species of
exigent circumstances, the community-caretaking doctrine is not
a basis for the warrantless entry into and search of a home."
Vargas, supra, 213 N.J. at 321.
I conclude by quoting Chief Justice Rabner's recent
reaffirmation of the unique status a home has under our Nation's
and our State's constitutional jurisprudence:
As the Court has repeatedly observed, the
physical entry of the home is the chief evil
against which the wording of the Fourth
Amendment is directed.
The unique status of the home has been
recognized for centuries. And throughout our
nation's history, one of our most protected
rights . . . has been the sanctity and privacy
of a person's home. Those interests "are
entitled to the highest degree of respect and
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protection in the framework of our
constitutional system."
The United States Supreme Court recently
reaffirmed the heightened status of the home
under the Constitution. The Court observed
that "when it comes to the Fourth Amendment,
the home is first among equals" and stands "at
the Amendment's very core."
This Court also recently emphasized the
preeminent position of a private residence
when it held that the community-caretaking
doctrine, standing alone, could not justify a
warrantless search of a home.
[State v. Wright, 221 N.J. 456, 467 (2015)
(internal citations omitted).]
Because the search conducted here by the Union County
Sheriff's Department in conjunction with a Plainfield Police
Officer was not justifiable under the community-caretaking or
emergency-aid doctrine, I would reverse the order of the trial
court denying defendant's motion to suppress. Because my
colleagues in the majority have concluded otherwise, I
respectfully dissent.
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