Prior to her Louisiana state court trial, petitioner, who was
charged with the second-degree murder of her husband, moved to
suppress certain evidence discovered during the search of her home,
including a pistol found inside a chest of drawers and a suicide
note found inside an envelope containing a Christmas card on the
top of a chest of drawers. The search was conducted by several
officers responding to a homicide report made by petitioner's
daughter. According to petitioner's daughter, petitioner had shot
her husband, taken pills in a suicide attempt, and then, changing
her mind, had called her daughter, informed her of the situation,
and requested help. When officers arrived at petitioner's home, the
daughter admitted them and directed them to the rooms containing
the petitioner and the victim. The officers transported the
petitioner to the hospital and secured the scene. Thirty-five
minutes later, officers from the Sheriff's Office homicide unit
arrived at the house and, without first obtaining a warrant,
conducted a 2-hour "general exploratory" search of the entire
house, during which the items in question were found. The trial
court held that the pistol and suicide note were obtained in
violation of the Fourth Amendment and therefore must be suppressed.
The Louisiana Court of Appeal denied the State's application for
review, but the Louisiana Supreme Court subsequently held that all
of the evidence seized was admissible.
Held: Although the homicide investigators may have had
probable cause to search the premises, for the search to be valid,
it must fall within one of the narrow and specifically delineated
exceptions to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment.
Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U. S. 385,
rejected the contention that one of the exceptions to the Warrant
Clause is a "murder scene exception." The 2-hour general search was
a significant intrusion on petitioner's privacy and therefore could
only be conducted subject to the constraints -- including the
warrant requirement -- of the Fourth Amendment. Nor did
petitioner's attempt to get medical assistance evidence a
diminished expectation of privacy in her home so as to legitimate
the warrantless search. Moreover, the evidence at issue was not
discovered in plain view while the police were assisting petitioner
to the hospital, nor was it discovered during the
Page 469 U. S. 18
"victim-or-suspect" search that had been completed by the time
the investigators arrived.
Certiorari granted;
448 So. 2d
666, reversed and remanded.
PER CURIAM.
In this case, the Louisiana Supreme Court upheld the validity of
a warrantless "murder scene" search of petitioner's home. Because
this holding is in direct conflict with our opinion in
Mincey
v. Arizona, 437 U. S. 385
(1978), we reverse.
I
The Louisiana Supreme Court states the facts as follows:
"On May 18, 1982, several deputies from the Jefferson Parish
Sheriff's Department arrived at [petitioner's] home in response to
a report by the [petitioner's] daughter of a homicide. The deputies
entered the house, made a cursory search and discovered
[petitioner's] husband dead of a gunshot wound in a bedroom and the
[petitioner] lying unconscious in another bedroom due to an
apparent drug overdose. According to the [petitioner's] daughter,
the [petitioner] had shot her husband, then ingested a quantity of
pills in a suicide attempt, and then, changing her mind, called her
daughter, informed her of the situation and requested help. The
daughter then contacted the police. Upon their arrival, the
daughter admitted them into the house and directed them to the
rooms containing the [petitioner] and the victim. The deputies
immediately transported the then unconscious [petitioner] to a
hospital and secured the scene. Thirty-five minutes later two
members of the homicide unit of the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's
Office arrived and conducted a follow-up investigation of the
homicide and attempted suicide."
"The homicide investigators entered the residence and commenced
what they described at the motion to suppress hearing as a 'general
exploratory search for evidence of a crime.' During their search,
which lasted
Page 469 U. S. 19
approximately two hours, the detectives examined each room of
the house."
448 So. 2d
666, 668 (1984).
Petitioner was subsequently indicted for the second-degree
murder of her husband. She moved to suppress three items of
evidence discovered during the search, including a pistol found
inside a chest of drawers in the same room as the deceased's body,
a torn up note found in a wastepaper basket in an adjoining
bathroom, and another letter (alleged to be a suicide note) found
folded up inside an envelope containing a Christmas card on the top
of a chest of drawers. All of this evidence was found in the
"general exploratory search for evidence" conducted by two homicide
investigators who arrived at the scene approximately 35 minutes
after petitioner was sent to the hospital.
See ibid. By
the time those investigators arrived, the officers who originally
arrived at the scene had already searched the premises for other
victims or suspects.
See Mincey, supra, at
437 U. S. 392.
The investigators testified that they had time to secure a warrant
before commencing the search,
see 448 So. 2d at 668, and
that no one had given consent to the search,
see App. C to
Pet. for Cert. 7-8, 16, 19-20 (transcript of testimony of
Detectives Zinna and Masson at suppression hearing).
The trial court originally denied petitioner's motion to
suppress. However, the trial court then granted petitioner's motion
for reconsideration and partially reversed its former decision,
holding that the gun and the suicide letter found in the Christmas
card were obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment and
therefore must be suppressed. The Louisiana Court of Appeal denied
the State's application for a writ of review. A sharply divided
Louisiana Supreme Court subsequently held all of the evidence
seized to be admissible.
II
As we stated in
United States v. Chadwick, 433 U. S.
1,
433 U. S. 9
(1977), "in this area we do not write on a clean slate." In a long
line of cases, this Court has stressed that
"searches
Page 469 U. S. 20
conducted outside the judicial process, without prior approval
by judge or magistrate, are
per se unreasonable under the
Fourth Amendment -- subject only to a few specifically established
and well delineated exceptions."
Katz v. United States, 389 U.
S. 347,
389 U. S. 357
(1967) (footnotes omitted). This was not a principle freshly coined
for the occasion in
Katz, but rather represented this
Court's longstanding understanding of the relationship between the
two Clauses of the Fourth Amendment. [
Footnote 1]
See Katz, supra, at
389 U. S. 357,
nn. 18 and 19. Since the time of
Katz, this Court has
recognized the existence of additional exceptions.
See, e.g.,
Donovan v. Dewey, 452 U. S. 594
(1981);
United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U.
S. 543 (1976);
South Dakota v. Opperman,
428 U. S. 364
(1976). However, we have consistently reaffirmed our understanding
that in all cases outside the exceptions to the warrant requirement
the Fourth Amendment requires the interposition of a neutral and
detached magistrate between the police and the "persons, houses,
papers, and effects" of citizens.
See, e.g., Welsh v.
Wisconsin, 466 U. S. 740,
466 U. S.
748-750 (1984);
United States v. Place,
462 U. S. 696,
462 U. S.
701-702 (1983);
United States v. Ross,
456 U. S. 798,
456 U. S.
824-825 (1982);
Steagald v. United States,
451 U. S. 204,
451 U. S.
211-212 (1981);
Mincey, supra, at
437 U. S. 390;
Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.
S. 443,
403 U. S.
474-475 (1971) (plurality opinion);
Vale v.
Louisiana, 399 U. S. 30,
399 U. S. 34
(1970);
Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1,
392 U. S. 20
(1968).
A
Although the homicide investigators in this case may well have
had probable cause to search the premises, it is undisputed
Page 469 U. S. 21
that they did not obtain a warrant. [
Footnote 2] Therefore, for the search to be valid, it must
fall within one of the narrow and specifically delineated
exceptions to the warrant requirement. In
Mincey v.
Arizona, 437 U. S. 385
(1978), we unanimously rejected the contention that one of the
exceptions to the Warrant Clause is a "murder scene exception."
Although we noted that police may make warrantless entries on
premises where "they reasonably believe that a person within is in
need of immediate aid,"
id. at
437 U. S. 392,
and that "they may make a prompt warrantless search of the area to
see if there are other victims or if a killer is still on the
premises,"
ibid., we held that
"the 'murder scene exception' . . . is inconsistent with the
Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments -- that the warrantless search of
Mincey's apartment was not constitutionally permissible simply
because a homicide had recently occurred there."
Id. at
437 U. S. 395.
Mincey is squarely on point in the instant case.
B
The Louisiana Supreme Court attempted to distinguish
Mincey in several ways. The court noted that
Mincey involved a 4-day search of the premises, while the
search in this case took only two hours and was conducted on the
same day as the murder.
See 448 So. 2d at 671. Although we
agree that the scope of the intrusion was certainly greater in
Mincey than here, nothing in
Mincey turned on the
length of time taken in the search or the date on which it was
conducted. A 2-hour general search remains a significant intrusion
on petitioner's privacy and therefore may only be conducted subject
to the constraints -- including the warrant requirement -- of the
Fourth Amendment.
Page 469 U. S. 22
The Louisiana Supreme Court also believed that petitioner had a
"diminished" expectation of privacy in her home, thus validating a
search that otherwise would have been unconstitutional. 448 So. 2d
at 671. The court noted that petitioner telephoned her daughter to
request assistance. The daughter then called the police and let
them in the residence. These facts, according to the court,
demonstrated a diminished expectation of privacy in petitioner's
dwelling and therefore legitimated the warrantless search.
[
Footnote 3]
Petitioner's attempt to get medical assistance does not evidence
a diminished expectation of privacy on her part. To be sure, this
action would have justified the authorities in seizing evidence
under the plain view doctrine while they were in petitioner's house
to offer her assistance. In addition, the same doctrine may justify
seizure of evidence obtained in the limited "victim-or-suspect"
search discussed in
Mincey. However, the evidence at issue
here was not discovered in plain view while the police were
assisting petitioner to the hospital, nor was it discovered during
the "victim-or-suspect" search that had been completed by the time
the homicide investigators arrived. Petitioner's call for help can
hardly be seen as an invitation to the general public that would
have converted her home into the sort of public place for which no
warrant to search would be necessary. Therefore, the Louisiana
Supreme Court's diminished-expectation-of-privacy argument fails to
distinguish this case from
Mincey. [
Footnote 4]
Page 469 U. S. 23
The State contends that there was a sufficient element of
consent in this case to distinguish it from the facts of
Mincey. The Louisiana Supreme Court's decision does not
attempt to validate the search as consensual, although it attempts
to support its diminished-expectation-of-privacy argument by
reference to the daughter's "apparent authority" over the premises
when she originally permitted the police to enter. 448 So. 2d at
671. Because the issue of consent is ordinarily a factual issue
unsuitable for our consideration in the first instance, we express
no opinion as to whether the search at issue here might be
justified as consensual. However, we note that both homicide
investigators explicitly testified that they had received no
consent to search. Any claim of valid consent in this case would
have to be measured against the standards of
United States v.
Matlock, 415 U. S. 164
(1974), and
Schneckcloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.
S. 218 (1973).
III
For the reasons stated above, petitioner's motion for leave to
proceed
in forma pauperis is granted, the petition for
writ of certiorari is granted, the judgment of the Louisiana
Supreme Court is reversed, and the cause is remanded for further
proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
[
Footnote 1]
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses,
papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,
shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon
probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly
describing the place to be searched, and persons or things to be
seized."
U.S.Const., Amdt. 4.
[
Footnote 2]
Indeed Chief Justice Dixon's dissent in this case in the
Louisiana Supreme Court reads in its entirety as follows: "I
respectfully dissent. All it would take to make this search legal
is a warrant."
448 So. 2d
666, 673 (1984).
[
Footnote 3]
The Louisiana Supreme Court seemed to believe that the fact
that
"both parties with authority over the premises [petitioner and
her husband] were either dead or unconscious and in an apparently
grave condition,"
id. at 671, in some way diminished petitioner's
expectation of privacy in the premises. Yet neither petitioner's
unavailability nor the death of her husband have any bearing on
petitioner's continuing privacy interests .
[
Footnote 4]
The Louisiana court's argument in fact closely resembles an
argument we rejected in
Mincey. See 437 U.S. at
437 U. S.
391-392.