Caleb Aaron Campbell , 2014 Wyo. LEXIS 179 ( 2014 )


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  •                IN THE SUPREME COURT, STATE OF WYOMING
    
    2014 WY 156
    OCTOBER TERM, A.D. 2014
    December 8, 2014
    CALEB AARON CAMPBELL,
    Appellant
    (Defendant),
    v.                                                   S-14-0049
    THE STATE OF WYOMING,
    Appellee
    (Plaintiff).
    Appeal from the District Court of Albany County
    The Honorable Jeffrey A. Donnell, Judge
    Representing Appellant:
    Linda E. Devine, Devine Law, Laramie, Wyoming
    Representing Appellee:
    Peter K. Michael, Wyoming Attorney General; David L. Delicath, Deputy
    Attorney General; Jenny L. Craig, Senior Assistant Attorney General; Abigail C.
    Boudewyns, Assistant Attorney General. Argument by Ms. Boudewyns.
    Before BURKE, C.J., and HILL, KITE, DAVIS, and FOX, JJ.
    NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in Pacific Reporter Third.
    Readers are requested to notify the Clerk of the Supreme Court, Supreme Court Building,
    Cheyenne, Wyoming 82002, of any typographical or other formal errors so that correction may be
    made before final publication in the permanent volume.
    DAVIS, Justice.
    [¶1] Appellant Caleb Campbell entered a conditional guilty plea to felony possession
    of marijuana, reserving his right to appeal the district court’s denial of his motion to
    suppress evidence under Wyoming Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(a)(2). We remand to
    the district court for further consideration of that motion in accordance with this opinion.
    ISSUES
    [¶2] Campbell raises three questions relating to his underlying claim that police
    officers obtained evidence against him in violation of his rights under the Fourth
    Amendment to the United States Constitution.1 We restate and reorder those questions as
    follows:
    1. Did the initial entry into Appellant’s home fall within the “emergency
    assistance” exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement?
    2. Did Appellant voluntarily consent to the search of the bedrooms and bathrooms
    in his home?
    3. If the initial entry into Appellant’s home violated the Fourth Amendment, did
    that illegality impermissibly taint any consent to a later search?
    FACTS
    [¶3] On February 24, 2013, the Laramie Police Department received a telephone call
    from Shannon Homolka, who asked that an officer check on her son, Sean. She had not
    heard from him for several weeks. 2 Sergeant Austin and a patrol officer were dispatched
    to the apartment building that was the young man’s last known residence. They observed
    interior coverings on the windows of the apartment and saw footprints in the snow at the
    entrance. Lights were on inside, and when the officers stepped to the door, they could
    hear a television and the barking of what they perceived to be an excited dog. No one
    responded when Sergeant Austin knocked and rang the doorbell.
    [¶4] Austin tried the door and found that it was unlocked, opened it approximately two
    to three feet, called out for Sean Homolka, and identified himself as a police officer. He
    1
    Campbell also asserts that the challenged police conduct violated the parallel provisions of the
    Wyoming Constitution. However, because he has failed to provide any independent analysis of his
    claims under the state constitution, this Court will consider only claims under the Fourth Amendment.
    Rideout v. State, 
    2005 WY 141
    , ¶ 15, 
    122 P.3d 201
    , 205 (Wyo. 2005).
    2
    Although the record does not say as much, we infer that none of Sean’s family lived in the Laramie area.
    1
    saw a blue glass bong3 on a counter top that separated the apartment’s living room and
    kitchen. When no one answered or appeared, he closed the door, knocked on it, rang the
    bell a few more times, and then decided to phone Ms. Homolka to obtain more
    information.
    [¶5] She informed him that she had not spoken to her son since mid-November of
    2012, and that a gift sent to him by his grandparents had been returned because he failed
    to pick it up from the post office. She had phoned Campbell, who shared the apartment
    with her son, but he refused to give her any information about Sean or his whereabouts.
    She suggested that the sergeant might find Campbell at the local Pizza Hut where he and
    her son had worked together.
    [¶6] The officers proceeded to the restaurant, where they encountered a young man
    who told them he had been snowboarding with Sean Homolka earlier that day, and that
    Campbell was expected to return shortly from a pizza delivery. When Campbell arrived,
    he told the officers that Homolka had moved to Casper, but that he was visiting Laramie
    and staying at Campbell’s apartment at the time. Sergeant Austin mentioned that he had
    seen bongs in the apartment and cautioned Campbell to “clean up his act” and get rid of
    them, but he also advised him that they intended to overlook that violation and that they
    only wanted to speak to Homolka about his mother’s concerns. Campbell agreed to get
    in touch with Homolka, and the officers asked Campbell to meet them with Homolka at
    the apartment.
    [¶7] When the officers reached the apartment, Campbell met them on the sidewalk and
    told them Homolka would arrive shortly. Sergeant Austin asked him if he had gotten rid
    of the drug paraphernalia. Campbell said that he had, retrieved a white trash bag, and
    broke its contents in front of the officers. However, when Austin examined the contents,
    he saw no trace of the blue glass bong that had been in the apartment and asked Campbell
    about it. Campbell became nervous, told the sergeant he had not been completely honest,
    brought that bong outside and broke it. Sergeant Austin then asked if he had anything
    else, and when Campbell said he had a little marijuana, Austin asked, “Want to get rid of
    it?” Campbell responded affirmatively and, from Sergeant Austin’s vantage point just
    outside the open apartment door, appeared to take the drug to the bathroom and flush it
    down the toilet.
    [¶8] The sergeant asked if he could enter the apartment to confirm that Campbell had
    gotten rid of everything, assuring him that this was his only concern and that he did not
    want to charge Campbell with anything. Campbell consented to the entry and to an
    examination of an unused bedroom and its attached bathroom. This occurred
    3
    A bong is a pipe-like device often used to smoke marijuana. As the user inhales through an opening in
    the device, smoke is drawn from its bowl through a water-filled chamber, thereby filtering and cooling the
    smoke.
    2
    approximately thirty minutes after the sergeant had first opened the front door and
    observed the blue bong. Austin found nothing in either room, but he saw still more bongs
    in another adjoining bedroom through an open door. Campbell consented to a search of
    that room, but despite the sergeant’s reassurances that he did not intend to charge him
    with anything, continued to display what Austin viewed as undue nervousness.
    [¶9] When Sergeant Austin then inquired about looking into two bedrooms and a
    bathroom on the opposite end of the apartment, Campbell at first denied him permission
    to do so. Austin grew frustrated by Campbell’s repeated deceit in the face of his
    expressed lack of interest in prosecuting him, and he indicated that he should perhaps just
    go and get his ticket book after all. Campbell then said something to the effect that,
    “You’ll find it anyway,” and told Austin he could search the remaining rooms.
    [¶10] The officers discovered a psilocybin mushroom-growing and dehydration
    operation inside of one of the bedrooms. A subsequent search of the kitchen, to which
    Campbell agreed, found over three ounces of marijuana. Campbell admitted that he had
    been extracting THC from marijuana and that he had been selling psilocybin mushrooms.
    The officers obviously could not overlook criminal conduct of this magnitude.
    [¶11] On March 8, 2013, the State charged Campbell with four felonies: manufacturing
    psilocybin, possessing psilocybin with the intent to distribute it, possessing marijuana
    with the intent to distribute it, and felony possession of marijuana.4 Following his
    arraignment on May 21, the district court set trial for September 19, 2013. On June 17
    and June 20, 2013, Campbell filed a motion and an amended motion to suppress evidence
    and dismiss the case.
    [¶12] Campbell argued that when Sergeant Austin first opened the front door to his
    apartment and peered inside, he conducted an impermissible warrantless search of the
    constitutionally protected area of his residence. Anticipating that the State would attempt
    to justify that conduct under the “community caretaking” exception to the Fourth
    Amendment’s warrant requirement, he also argued that exception did not apply, and that
    all evidence gathered should be excluded as the tainted fruit of the initial unlawful search.
    Finally, Campbell argued that his consent to Sergeant Austin’s second entry into his
    apartment and his search of various rooms in the apartment was involuntary.
    [¶13] The State responded that the sergeant’s initial intrusion into Campbell’s home was
    justified by either of two related exceptions to the warrant requirement—the “community
    caretaking” and the “emergency assistance” exceptions. The State also argued that
    Campbell voluntarily consented to Sergeant Austin’s later entry into and search of the
    apartment, and that this consent removed any taint attributable to the initial entry,
    4
    Possession of more than three ounces of marijuana is a felony carrying a penalty of not more than five
    years imprisonment. Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 35-7-1031(c)(i)(A) and (iii) (LexisNexis 2013).
    3
    because it served as a lawful and independent source of the evidence eventually
    discovered.
    [¶14] The district court held a hearing on the suppression motion on July 31, 2013, and
    it issued a decision letter denying the motion six days later. Relying on Moulton v. State,
    
    2006 WY 152
    , 
    148 P.3d 38
    (Wyo. 2006), the district court concluded that the emergency
    assistance exception permitted the initial intrusion into Campbell’s home. After
    reviewing the DVD recording of Sergeant Austin’s later interaction with Campbell, the
    court also concluded that there was no coercion, and that consequently Campbell’s
    consent to enter and search the apartment was voluntary. Because of its ruling on the
    emergency assistance exception, the district court did not consider whether the initial
    entry may have tainted any evidence thereafter discovered even if Campbell’s consent
    was voluntary.
    [¶15] After the motion to suppress was denied, Campbell entered into a plea agreement
    with the State. It required him to plead guilty to the charge of possessing a felony
    quantity of marijuana, in exchange for which the State agreed to dismiss the three
    remaining charges, recommend probation at sentencing, and allow the guilty plea to be
    entered conditionally so that Campbell could appeal the denial of his motion to suppress.
    The district court accepted the agreement and Campbell’s conditional guilty plea, and it
    sentenced him to a term of two to five years of incarceration, which it suspended in favor
    of three years of supervised probation. Campbell timely perfected this appeal.
    DISCUSSION
    The Initial Entry and the Emergency Assistance Exception
    [¶16] The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution protects “the right of the
    people to be secure in their . . . houses . . . against unreasonable searches and seizures.”
    U.S. Const. amend. IV. As the United States Supreme Court has observed, “physical
    entry of the home is the chief evil against which the wording of the Fourth Amendment is
    directed.” United States v. U.S. Dist. Court for East. Dist. of Mich. So. Div., 
    407 U.S. 297
    , 313, 
    92 S. Ct. 2125
    , 2134, 
    32 L. Ed. 2d 752
    (1972).
    [¶17] Warrantless searches and seizures are per se unreasonable unless justified by
    probable cause or established exceptions. Moulton, ¶ 
    16, 148 P.3d at 43
    . The parties
    have mentioned both the community caretaking exception and the emergency assistance
    exceptions to the warrant requirement at various times in this case. Both find their roots
    in the United States Supreme Court decision in Cady v. Dombrowski, 
    413 U.S. 433
    , 441-
    42, 
    93 S. Ct. 2523
    , 2528, 
    37 L. Ed. 2d 706
    (1973), which actually involved an inventory
    search. State v. Vargas, 
    63 A.3d 175
    , 182-83, 187-88 (N.J. 2013).
    4
    [¶18] We will touch on the community caretaking exception briefly, although it does not
    apply here. It pertains to police encounters with citizens in public places and in their
    vehicles under circumstances giving rise to concerns about their welfare or safety, even
    though the circumstances do not present an emergency. 
    Id. In such
    cases, law
    enforcement may to a limited extent intrude on a citizen’s privacy if there is an
    articulable threat to public safety that the officer believes he must address.
    [¶19] We have applied the community caretaker exception in cases which did not
    involve entry into homes. Wilson v. State, 
    874 P.2d 215
    , 221 (Wyo. 1994) (officer
    justified in pulling his patrol car over to the curb and contacting defendant, who was
    limping and might be in need of assistance); Bloomquist v. State, 
    914 P.2d 812
    , 821-22
    (Wyo. 1996) (continued questioning of defendant justified under the exception to try to
    determine whether there was an additional injured passenger); Morris v. State, 
    908 P.2d 931
    , 935-36 (Wyo. 1995) (deputies were justified by the exception in escorting an
    unsteady and disoriented citizen to the sheriff’s office so that he could call for a ride, but
    not in examining his wallet, which had been misplaced in a patrol car).
    [¶20] On the other hand, the emergency assistance exception5 allows entry into homes.
    However, due to the much greater expectation of privacy traditionally accorded the home,
    a higher standard must be met to permit use of evidence discovered by the entry without a
    warrant. 
    Vargas, 63 A.3d at 188
    . Evidence found after warrantless entry into a residence
    is admissible only if the officer who enters has a reasonable belief that there exists an
    emergency requiring immediate action to assist citizens or to prevent harm to persons or
    property in the residence. As the Supreme Court of New Jersey has explained:
    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 . . . the Fourth Amendment . . . [does
    not] 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, as
    5
    In some cases, the emergency assistance exception is referred to as part of the community caretaker
    exception. See, e.g., 
    Vargas, 63 A.3d at 186
    .
    5
    explained by Judge (later Chief Justice) Burger in Wayne v.
    United States [
    318 F.2d 205
    , 212 (D.C. Cir. 1963)]:
    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.
    
    Vargas, 63 A.3d at 188
    (internal citations and quotation marks omitted); see also United
    States v. Bute, 
    43 F.3d 531
    , 539 (10th Cir. 1994). Courts generally limit the emergency
    assistance exception to cases in which the officer acts to preserve life or prevent serious
    injury believing that there is a genuine emergency. Therefore, to justify use of the
    exception, the government must show that the officer had a reasonable and articulable
    belief that immediate aid or assistance was required to prevent serious harm to persons or
    property. Id.; see also State v. Ryon, 
    108 P.3d 1032
    , 1042-44 (N.M. 2005).
    [¶21] The New Mexico Supreme Court clearly and cogently explained the relationship
    between the community caretaking and the emergency assistance doctrines as they apply
    to searches of a home:
    The emergency doctrine applies to, but is not limited to,
    warrantless intrusions into personal residences. The Cady
    community caretaker or public servant doctrine deals
    primarily with warrantless searches and seizures of
    automobiles, and the officer might or might not believe there
    is a difficulty requiring his general assistance. Since there is a
    lesser privacy expectation in a vehicle on a public highway,
    an involuntary search or seizure there is judged by a lower
    standard of reasonableness: a specific and articulable concern
    for public safety requiring the officer’s general assistance.
    The emergency assistance doctrine, which may justify more
    intrusive searches of the home or person, must be assessed
    separately by a distinct test. Since the privacy expectation is
    strongest in the home only a genuine emergency will justify
    entering and searching a home without a warrant and without
    consent or knowledge.
    
    Ryon, 108 P.3d at 1043
    (internal citations and quotation marks omitted).
    [¶22] The only exception potentially applicable to Sergeant Austin’s entry into
    Appellant’s home is therefore the emergency assistance or aid exception. The district
    6
    court correctly analyzed this case only under that exception. However, a review of the
    record leaves us with the conviction that it nonetheless applied an improper legal
    standard when it determined that the emergency assistance exception alone permitted the
    use of evidence obtained after Sergeant Austin’s initial entry into Campbell’s apartment.
    To be fair, the district court appears to have based its decision on a not-altogether
    unreasonable reading of our opinion in Moulton. However, as with any other question of
    law pertaining to constitutional search and seizure issues, we review the propriety of the
    test applied by the district court de novo. Moulton, ¶ 
    13, 148 P.3d at 42
    .
    [¶23] In Moulton, officers entered the defendant’s home in Glendo because his wife, an
    emergency medical technician, contacted a law enforcement dispatcher at 4:30 a.m. on a
    hand-held radio. She identified herself by using her medic’s call sign, and her recorded
    voice conveyed a sense of urgency. The rest of the transmission was garbled. Officers
    were concerned that she had encountered an emergency situation requiring police
    assistance, and they tried to contact her by phone. When they could not, they went to her
    home. Knocking on the door and ringing the doorbell failed to rouse anyone, and so they
    entered the home to see if anyone was inside. That brief search yielded two pieces of
    information. First, a daughter roused from sleep indicated that her mother and father
    might be at the “lake.” Second, when officers peered into a bedroom they saw psilocybin
    mushrooms grown by the defendant. The officers then left and searched for Mrs.
    Moulton at the lake for several hours. 
    Id., ¶¶ 3-6,
    148 P.3d at 40.
    [¶24] In concluding that the search of the Moulton home fell within the emergency
    assistance exception, we said that the exception applies when an officer has a reasonable
    belief that another’s life or safety might be in peril. 
    Id., ¶ 18,
    148 P.3d at 43. This was
    the test applied by the district court in this case.
    [¶25] It is evident that this expression of the test is incomplete and does not satisfy the
    standard set out above, because it does not include the requirement that an officer must
    reasonably believe that he faces a genuine emergency to which he must respond.
    Elsewhere in Moulton, we repeatedly stressed that, at 4:30 a.m., an emergency medical
    technician using the means usually employed when operating in her professional capacity
    made an urgent-sounding but garbled call for assistance to a police dispatcher, and that
    she could not thereafter be contacted. 
    Id., ¶¶ 20-21,
    148 P.3d at 44. Our intent to confine
    the application of this exception to cases reasonably said to involve “genuine
    emergencies requiring immediate assistance” has been more plainly stated in decisions
    issued both before and after Moulton. Owens v. State, 
    2012 WY 14
    , ¶ 11, 
    269 P.3d 1093
    ,
    1096 (Wyo. 2012); Ortega v. State, 
    669 P.2d 935
    , 941 (Wyo. 1983), overruled on other
    grounds by Jones v. State, 
    902 P.2d 686
    (Wyo. 1995).
    [¶26] There was no evidence of such an emergency in this case. The officers went to the
    last known address of a young man who had not spoken to his mother in several weeks.
    As distressing as that lack of communication might be to a parent, it falls far short of an
    7
    emergency or a basis to believe that he required immediate aid. Given the likelihood that
    some people leave their televisions turned on as a deterrent to would-be intruders, and
    that they may also leave their dogs in the house when they depart for brief periods, those
    facts likewise do not suggest an immediate emergency. Simply stated, Sergeant Austin
    testified to no articulable facts supporting a claim that he reasonably and objectively
    believed that he and his fellow officer were dealing with a serious emergency that
    required their immediate entry into Campbell’s apartment. Consequently, the emergency
    assistance exception does not apply. To hold otherwise on the facts of this case would
    require us to adopt a rule which would render Fourth Amendment protection of the home
    meaningless.
    [¶27] Because there was no emergency when Sergeant Austin opened the door to
    Campbell’s apartment, that entry was an unlawful search in violation of the Fourth
    Amendment.
    The Voluntariness of Campbell’s Consent to Later Searches
    [¶28] However, the fruits of the search would still have been admissible at trial if the
    later search was voluntarily consented to and sufficiently separated from the unlawful
    entry to be untainted by it. To determine whether it was or not, we first determine if the
    district court’s decision that Appellant voluntarily consented to the search was error.
    Whether consent is voluntary is a question of fact, and the State bore the burden of
    proving voluntariness by a preponderance of the evidence. O’Boyle v. State, 
    2005 WY 83
    , ¶ 60, 
    117 P.3d 401
    , 417-18 (Wyo. 2005). We will not disturb a district court’s
    resolution of that factual issue unless, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to
    the district court’s decision, we conclude that it is clearly erroneous. 
    Id., ¶ 18,
    117 P.3d
    at 407. A consent to search is voluntary to the extent that it was not obtained by police
    coercion as determined by viewing the totality of the circumstances.                  Those
    circumstances may include the way in which an officer phrased his request to search, his
    demeanor, whether the defendant was informed that he could refuse the request, and the
    presence or absence of threatening behavior or other coercive factors. Burgos-Seberos v.
    State, 
    969 P.2d 1131
    , 1134 (Wyo. 1998).
    [¶29] The only record we have of Campbell’s interaction with Sergeant Austin is the
    sergeant’s testimony at the suppression hearing. A DVD recording of that interaction
    captured by a personal camera on Sergeant Austin’s person was submitted to and
    reviewed by the district court, but Campbell did not designate that recording as part of the
    appellate record. Where evidence considered by a trial court is not designated, we
    assume that it supported a decision rendered in reliance upon it. See Waggoner v.
    General Motors Corp., 
    771 P.2d 1195
    , 1198 (Wyo. 1989).
    [¶30] After reviewing Sergeant Austin’s testimony and assuming that the contents of the
    DVD provided additional support for the court’s ruling, we conclude that the district
    8
    court’s finding that Campbell’s consent was not the result of police coercion was not
    clearly erroneous.
    Taint from the Initial Unlawful Search of the Apartment
    [¶31] Although Campbell’s consent may have been voluntary, that alone does not mean
    that evidence recovered in reliance upon it should not be suppressed as the tainted fruit of
    Sergeant Austin’s initial intrusion into his apartment. When a consensual search follows
    a Fourth Amendment violation, the government must prove not only that the defendant’s
    consent was voluntary in the sense that his will was not overborne by police coercion, but
    also that pressures resulting from the initial constitutional violation had diminished and
    were no longer so great as to prevent him from acting with a degree of free will sufficient
    to purge his consent of the taint of that violation. 4 Wayne R. LaFave, Search and
    Seizure § 8.2(d) (5th ed. 2012, updated 2014);6 United States v. Melendez-Garcia, 
    28 F.3d 1046
    , 1053-54 (10th Cir. 1994).
    [¶32] This second inquiry focuses on whether there was a sufficient break between the
    initial illegality and any evidence thereafter obtained. It requires a determination of
    whether evidence was obtained by exploiting the primary illegality, or whether it was
    instead obtained by means sufficiently distinguishable to purge the primary taint. Id.;
    United States v. Fox, 
    600 F.3d 1253
    , 1257 (10th Cir. 2010). Three factors are particularly
    relevant to that inquiry: the temporal proximity between the Fourth Amendment violation
    and the consent to search, the presence of intervening circumstances, and the purpose and
    flagrancy of the police conduct that violated the Fourth Amendment. 
    Melendez-Garcia, 28 F.3d at 1054
    ; O’Boyle, ¶ 
    61, 117 P.3d at 418
    ; Campbell v. State, 
    2004 WY 106
    , ¶ 14,
    
    97 P.3d 781
    , 785 (Wyo. 2004).
    [¶33] Only the third factor seems to clearly favor the State. The record strongly
    suggests that Sergeant Austin opened Campbell’s apartment door in a well-intentioned
    effort to better serve the public, and that he minimized his intrusion into the apartment.7
    The weight to be given the thirty-minute time lapse between that initial intrusion and the
    6
    As LaFave observed:
    While there is a sufficient overlap of the voluntariness and fruits tests
    that often a proper result may be reached by using either one
    independently, it is extremely important to understand that (i) the two
    tests are not identical, and (ii) consequently the evidence obtained by the
    purported consent should be held admissible only if it is determined that
    the consent was both voluntary and not an exploitation of the prior
    illegality.
    4 LaFave, supra, § 8.2(d).
    7
    Ironically, the minimal intrusion tends to belie the notion that he may have reasonably believed he was
    responding to an emergency.
    9
    later consensual entry is less clear, as is the question of whether circumstances
    intervening between the initial entry and the consent interrupted the causal link so that the
    former no longer tainted Campbell’s consent. The record suggests that during that thirty-
    minute period, Sergeant Austin may perhaps have exploited the information he obtained
    through the initial intrusion by revealing it to Campbell, and that he could therefore have
    influenced Campbell’s decision to consent through its use. Sergeant Austin’s statements
    to Campbell about the bongs may have led him to agree to meet the officers at the
    apartment, agree to the destruction of his paraphernalia, and consent to the search of his
    the apartment.8 On the other hand, Campbell was evidently sufficiently confident there
    would be no repercussions that he attempted to partially comply with Sergeant Austin’s
    request that he dispose of the drug paraphernalia the officer saw when he opened the
    door.
    [¶34] Whether or not the causal chain was sufficiently broken so that the initial unlawful
    search did or did not taint the evidence later found is a factual question this Court cannot
    answer. The district court found that the consent to search was voluntary, but due to its
    conclusion that there was no Fourth Amendment violation, it did not address this issue.
    Consequently, we will remand to the district court for a ruling on whether Campbell’s
    consent was tainted by the initial unlawful search of his apartment. 
    Melendez-Garcia, 28 F.3d at 1055-56
    (remanding for the district court to determine whether the taint of an
    illegal arrest leading to consent to a dog search of a vehicle was purged).
    CONCLUSION
    [¶35] We agree with the district court’s finding that Campbell’s consent to enter and
    search his apartment was not coerced, but voluntarily given. We find that the district
    court’s conclusion that the initial intrusion into the apartment was lawful and justified by
    the emergency assistance exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement was
    incorrect. We remand the case to the district court to consider and determine whether the
    initial search tainted Campbell’s consent so that the evidence thereafter discovered must
    be suppressed. If the district court finds that the consent was tainted, it should allow
    Campbell to withdraw his conditional guilty plea and suppress the evidence discovered.
    If it finds that it was not tainted, the plea and previous ruling should stand. Remanded for
    further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
    8
    If an unlawful search of a defendant’s home uncovers incriminating evidence and the police convey that
    discovery to the defendant, consent to a request to further search the residence may be deemed tainted by
    the initial illegality, and therefore suppressible because the police exploited or traded on the fruits of the
    initial search. 4 LaFave, supra, § 8.2(d); State v. Guggenmos, 
    253 P.3d 1042
    , 1051-52 (Or. 2011).
    10