Today’s question comes from an officer in Utah, and the officer basically asked, \u201cDo we need a warrant for a death investigation?\u201d\u00a0 Let’s go through this.<\/p>\n
The officer says, \u201cLook, we we get into the house because we have exigency<\/a>. You know that there’s somebody deceased in the home.\u201d\u00a0 Let’s say that the cleaning person comes, and they call and the homeowner is dead.\u00a0 Alright.\u00a0 So they said that they cannot get a hold of anybody with standing<\/a> in order to continue the death investigation.<\/p>\n The cleaning person is a good example.\u00a0 The cleaning person, generally speaking, cannot let you just search around the home, because they don’t have enough of a privacy interest in the home to allow you to have free rein of the house.<\/p>\n The police want to look to see if the death is suspicious.\u00a0 If they suspect it\u2019s from natural causes, they will want to locate prescription bottles, or a doctor’s information to try to see how their health was, and if the person has been to a doctor within the last 30 days, and so forth.<\/p>\n So the question is, \u201cDoes this require a warrant?\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0 And the general answer is, \u201cNo.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Regarding death investigations, if there’s no foul play and you’re trying to determine the cause of death, and you are in the home lawfully, you’re basically playing coroner.\u00a0 Generally speaking, these are not criminal investigations.\u00a0 You’re basically playing coroner.\u00a0 You’re trying to find out medical issues, prescriptions, and so on.\u00a0 You’re trying to help find the cause of death.<\/p>\n Because that is not a criminal investigation, the US Supreme Court case in Mincy, versus Arizona doesn\u2019t apply.\u00a0 Mincy is a standard for the proposition that if you are in a murder scene, right inside of a home, the murder itself, obviously a very serious crime, in and of itself is not going to allow you to search the residence for evidence of the murder without either consent, or a warrant.\u00a0 There is no murder scene exception to the search warrant requirement.<\/p>\n But we don’t have that here.\u00a0 Officers are in the home, and they’re just trying to find the cause of death.\u00a0 There is no murder.\u00a0 Now, obviously, if you find evidence of foul play, well, then you, you need to get a warrant.\u00a0 But also realize that there may not be any standing by the person\u00a0 who ends up being the suspect.\u00a0 You may have a murderer saying, \u201cGo get a warrant.\u201d<\/p>\n But another thing that happens with these unattended deaths is that the people live alone. Well, let’s say that there’s some foul play involved by the neighbor, or somebody else, a friend and so forth, who visits and ends up, poisoning the victim.<\/p>\n Well, does the friend or the neighbor have standing in order to challenge the search that did occur without a warrant?\u00a0 And the answer is, \u201cmost likely not,<\/strong>\u201d unless they keep a bunch of stuff there, they have free rein of the house, they’ve been given a key by the homeowner, and they can come and go as they please.\u00a0 They stay the night, frequently.\u00a0 But if that’s not the case, which it is mostly, then they don’t have any standing.\u00a0 So that’s kind of where we’re at here.<\/p>\n So, as a former law enforcement officer, I’ve been on plenty of unattended deaths.\u00a0 I’ve been on both, where they live alone, there’s no warrant, we’re going to get there because normally there’s no foul play.\u00a0 We’re just trying to confirm that there’s no foul play.<\/p>\n And also, you know, you have cases where even if they don’t live alone, the other person that lives there is usually the one that called the police.\u00a0 So if they live there, and they’re calling the police, don’t forget that they likely gave you expressed or implied consent to come into the home.\u00a0 Let’s say it’s the wife and her husband died.\u00a0\u00a0 That’s why she’s calling the police.\u00a0 If she’s standing there, or sitting in the living room, and talking to the investigators and so forth, and not telling everybody get the hell out of their house, that is also consent.\u00a0 It’s part of the consent.\u00a0 She allowed you in.\u00a0 She’s allowing you stay in there.\u00a0 So there’s consent.\u00a0 And again, you wouldn’t need a warrant if you had valid consent<\/a> from somebody who could give it.<\/p>\n There’s your role.\u00a0 So the takeaway here is that for unintended deaths, normally no warrant is needed as long as you’re lawfully in the residence.\u00a0 And once you have evidence that there’s foul play involved, timeout; go get a warrant.\u00a0 That’s what I would say. All right, there’s your answer.\u00a0 It\u2019s a good question and hopefully, this answer helps.<\/p>\nCan a cleaning person consent to a search of the home?<\/h2>\n
Is there a murder scene exception to the search warrant requirement?<\/h2>\n
Does a friend or neighbor have standing to challenge the search?<\/h2>\n
Does the spouse who called the police give you consent to be there?<\/h2>\n
Related from Blue to Gold<\/h2>\n