W.D.N.Y.: Govt failed in burden of showing exigency in domestic call that officers took time to respond to because of caller being notoriously unreliable

The warrantless entry into defendant’s house could not be justified as a domestic violence call. When the vague call came to police, it was only that a person was “upsetting things,” and the officer en route stopped to investigate a hitchhiker first. Clearly, the officers did not consider this an emergency before getting there, and the facts there were no better for the government. “In this case, however, where the totality of the circumstances confronting Burns included only a vague report made by a known caller with a history of unreliable reports about a disruption inside her son’s residence, uncorroborated by observations or other evidence at the scene consistent with an altercation, I conclude that the government has failed to establish that Burns’s entry was justified by the emergency aid doctrine.” United States v. Race, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 17209 (W.D.N.Y. February 11, 2015).

Defendant’s appeal on alleged lack of consent is summarily affirmed: no showing trial court erred. State v. Cooley, 2015 N.H. LEXIS 17 (January 26, 2015).*

There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in trash put out for collection. The record is unclear as to whether the officers entered the property, but the trial court found that the officers waited for Minot city sanitation to come before getting the trash, and that means the officers didn’t enter the property unlawfully. State v. Apland, 2015 ND 29, 2015 N.D. LEXIS 27 (February 12, 2015).*