State v. McClain, Minn.Ct.App., 5/4/2015. Duluth police went to the local detox center on a report of a stabbing. It was immediately clear that the stabbing had happened elsewhere. The guy who’d been stabbed had an address on file on Third Street in Duluth. Officers went to that address and saw drops of blood from a nearby intersection which the officers followed to the sidewalk in front of this address. Officers kicked in the door and found three males inside the residence, and more blood. Mr. McClain was one of the three males. The officers gave Mr. McClain a Miranda warning down at the station and Mr. McCain made a statement Meantime, the guy who’d been stabbed said that “Kyle” had stabbed him; Kyle is Mr. McClain’s first name. Police got a search warrant for the address on Third Street that was based on information obtained both before and after they had forcibly broke in the door.
Before trial the trial court suppressed the evidence from the forced entry, which included Mr. McClain’s statement to police. After Mr. McClain testified at trial, the trial court changed its mind and ruled that Mr. McClain’s statement to police was admissible both for purposes of impeachment and as substantive evidence because the statement would have been inevitably discovered.
On appeal from his assault conviction Mr. McClain said that unlike physical evidence his statement to the police was not subject to the inevitable discovery exception. That meant that the trial court was wrong to have admitted it for substantive purposes. The state said that the statement should not have been suppressed in the first place because the warrantless entry was justified by the emergency aid exception. Alternatively the state said that the trial court properly applied the inevitable discovery exception.
Under the emergency-aid exception, law enforcement officers may enter a home without a warrant to render emergency assistance to an injured occupant or to protect one from imminent injury. State v. Lemieux, 726 N.W.2d 783, 787-88 (Minn. 2007). The officers must have had reasonable grounds to believe that there was an emergency at hand and an immediate need for police assistance for the protection of life or property. Essentially, the court has to decide whether the officers were motivated to enter the residence as criminal investigators or in their role as community caretakers. The court decides that the officers were not justified in entering the residence under this exception. Neither the victim’s association with the address nor the blood on the sidewalk provided such justification. There were no lights on inside the residence, there was no blood on the steps leading to the house, in the foyer or in the house itself. And, one of the officers said that the blood trial looked like it belonged to one person, which the court thought undermined his expressed concern about another injured person. Finally, officers first at the residence waited for more officers to arrive before going inside, action again inconsistent with a belief in a true medical emergency.
The state’s next argument was that Mr. McClain’s statement would have been inevitably discovered. This is because eventually the victim identified “Kyle” as his attacker, gave an approximate address of the assault as well as other details of the assault. The court rejects application of this doctrine to statements because no Minnesota court has yet to apply it that way, and because most other jurisdictions that have faced the question have also declined to apply inevitable discovery to statements. Unlike a physical thing, the discovery of a statement is speculative. Just because Mr. McClain gave a statement after the forced entry into the residence doesn’t mean that he’d do so again under a different set of facts. When the police broke into the residence Mr. McClain was asleep, having consumed both sleep medication and a good amount of whiskey. Had the cops shown up some hours later (and lawfully) after executing the search warrant one or both of those substances may have dissipated and could, be we don’t know for sure, have resulted in a different statement or no statement at all.
Finally, the court concludes that the erroneous admission of Mr. McClain’s statement was not harmless, so he gets a new trial.
Judge Ross concurred in the result. He would not have reached the constitutional question whether inevitable discovery applies to statements. He would have left it at saying that there was nothing “inevitable” about discovery of Mr. McClain’s statement and so applying that doctrine had been improper.
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