Iowa Supreme Court Retains the Emergency Aid Doctrine as an Exception to the Warrant Requirement

The Iowa Supreme Court has recognized a community-caretaking exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement for decades.[1] Among other things, that exception allowed police officers to enter residences without a warrant to provide emergency aid.[2] But two years ago, the United States Supreme Court clarified in Caniglia v. Strom that there is not a “standalone doctrine that justifies warrantless searches and seizures in the home” whenever police officers are performing “‘caretaking’ duties.”[3] In State v. Abu Youm, the Iowa Supreme Court addressed whether warrantless entries to provide emergency assistance are still permissible after Caniglia.[4] It said yes and concluded, over a dissent, that the particular warrantless search at issue was lawful.[5] Abu Youm will be a staple in suppression hearings in coming years as the opinion demonstrates the continued viability of the emergency aid doctrine.

In Abu Youm, police responded to calls that gunshots were fired at an apartment complex.[6] Once police arrived at the scene, a witness identified a specific apartment as the location of the gunfire and said he saw “a man lying on its balcony after the shooting.”[7] Police saw broken glass on the ground that was consistent with a recent shooting.[8] They then asked a man who was standing on the identified balcony, Sam Abu Youm, whether he had heard gunshots.[9] He denied hearing gunshots, and the police went up to his apartment.[10] After the police knocked on his door, another man opened the door and stepped outside so the officers could not see the inside of the apartment.[11] That man objected to the officers entering the apartment without a warrant, but the officers claimed they could enter the apartment “to make sure no one had been shot” under a “public safety exception.”[12] During a search for an injured occupant, officers saw a shell casing and a rifle.[13] They then obtained a search warrant and found drugs, a scale, pistols, and money in boxes.[14] Abu Youm sought to suppress the evidence at his subsequent prosecution, arguing the warrantless entry violated the federal and state constitutions and that evidence recovered after the search warrant—which was obtained as a result of the warrantless search—should be excluded.[15] The district court denied the suppression motion, and the intermediate appellate court affirmed that decision.[16] On appeal, the Iowa Supreme Court did too.[17] It was a 4-3 decision written by Justice Thomas Waterman and joined by Chief Justice Susan Christensen, Justice Edward Mansfield, and Justice David May.

First, the Iowa Supreme Court concluded that “one branch” of its community-caretaking exception—the “emergency aid doctrine”—survived Caniglia.[18] The court explained that the emergency aid doctrine requires an exigency to apply, which is “[w]hat was missing in Caniglia,” because the warrantless search in that case occurred “after the suicidal occupant had left by ambulance.”[19] The court also highlighted language from Caniglia that reaffirmed “that law enforcement officers may enter private property without a warrant when certain exigent circumstances exist, including the need to ‘render emergency assistance to an injured occupant or to protect an occupant from imminent injury.’”[20] And it flagged that “[t]hree separate concurrences emphasized that point.”[21]

Second, the court held the warrantless entry and initial search of Abu Youm’s apartment were justified by the emergency aid doctrine.[22] Citing both its own and U.S. Supreme Court precedent, the court explained that it is a well-established rule that police can “enter a home without a warrant” in “exigent circumstances” and that “[o]ne such exigency is the ‘need to assist persons who are seriously injured.’”[23] It concluded it was objectively and subjectively reasonable to think emergency assistance was necessary based on the facts.[24] Specifically, the court pointed to the reports of gunshots, testimony that a body was seen lying on the balcony, and physical evidence that was consistent with a recent shooting as a reasonable basis for the officers to conclude that it was necessary to enter “the apartment to render aid to a potentially wounded individual, or at the very least to verify that no one had been shot.”[25] Although the officers exhibited some “lack of haste” at the scene, the court reasoned that “the officers’ caution was understandable” as they faced “an unknown number of armed men inside the apartment.”[26] The court concluded that such caution did not belie the officers’ claims that they were dealing with an emergency, noting that concluding otherwise could incentivize police to act too hastily and without measured judgment.[27]

Justices Matthew McDermott, Christopher McDonald, and Dana Oxley disagreed.[28] In the dissenting opinion, Justice McDermott, writing for the three, criticized the majority’s factual recitation as “contortive” and highlighted factual details that he believed revealed “an investigatory, not caretaking, purpose” behind the warrantless entry and search.[29] For example, he found it significant that the officers did not “alert[] dispatch that medical assistance might be needed,” and that they walked, rather than ran, to the apartment.[30] Justice McDermott also emphasized that, to justify a warrantless entry, the Iowa Constitution requires police to have both an objective basis to think community-caretaking activity is necessary and a subjective intent to engage in caretaking.[31] Although he acknowledged that the majority mentioned the objective and subjective components, he concluded the court failed to “meaningfully apply” them and that it improperly analogized to federal cases that apply an objective test.[32] In sum, the dissent believed “the ‘emergency aid’ exception should apply only in cases of true emergency” and thought the facts of the case did not fit the bill.[33]

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