Issue: When police are in an apartment on the basis of exigent circumstances, can they search closed containers?

 

Answer:  No, at least in this circumstance (says the unanimous Court).

 

Facts: Police hear gunshots and see muzzle flashes from the roof of an apartment building and then hear another gunshot as the go up the stairs.  On the eighth floor, the police see defendant with a gun.  Defendant and other guy flee into an apartment.  The police batter the door down.  The two women in the apartment, including a woman in a wheelchair, deny that anyone had come into the apartment, but a search of the apartment reveals defendant and the other guy hiding under beds.  The police cannot find the gun, until they open a silver box in the adjourning bedroom.

 

Finding:  The exigency that warranted entry into the apartment had abated by the time the defendant was handcuffed and the women were under observation in the livingroom.  Given the burden on the prosecution to justify the warrantless search and that “the scope of the conduct thus sanctioned [by the exigency] is strictly limited by the necessities of the circumstances in which it arises,” the Court suppressed the gun.  Interestingly, the Court did so despite the Appellate Division’s upholding of the search (a mixed question?) finding “[t]here [was] no record support for the Appellate Division’s conclusion that exigent circumstances justified the search of the closed box.”

 

CAL Observes:  The case stands for the very important proposition that the exigency can terminate once the police control the situation.  However, it’s not hard to imagine that this case might have turned out differently if the two people in the apartment were perceived by the Court to be more threatening.  Thus, the case highlights the importance of crafting compelling and detailed narratives when presenting such claims.