The community caretaking exception does not apply to homes, citing conflicting authorities. Here, defendant was believed by the police to have an excessive amount of mercury in his house, something not contraband. A firefighter trained in hazardous materials entered the house to look for it and found a small quantity of marijuana, and defendant was charged with that. The entry was unlawful. State v. Wilson, 2015 Ariz. LEXIS 188 (June 3, 2015), lower court op. 235 Ariz. 447, 333 P.3d 774 (App. 2014):
P19 The community caretaking exception recognized in Cady and Opperman thus is grounded in the reduced expectation of privacy in automobiles as distinct from homes. Recognizing this distinction, several federal courts of appeal have limited the community caretaking exception to automobiles. See, e.g., Ray v. Township of Warren, 626 F.3d 170, 177 (3d Cir. 2010); United States v. Bute, 43 F.3d 531, 535 (10th Cir. 1994); United States v. Erickson, 991 F.2d 529, 532 (9th Cir. 1993); United States v. Pichany, 687 F.2d 204, 208-09 (7th Cir. 1982).
P20 We agree with the Seventh Circuit that Cady “intended to confine the holding to the automobile exception and to foreclose an expansive construction of the decision allowing warrantless searches of private homes or businesses.” Pichany, 687 F.2d at 209; cf. Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 590, 100 S. Ct. 1371, 63 L. Ed. 2d 639 (1980) (“[T]he Fourth Amendment has drawn a firm line at the entrance to the house. Absent exigent circumstances, that threshold may not reasonably be crossed without a warrant.”). Courts in other states have reached a similar conclusion. See, e.g., State v. Vargas, 213 N.J. 301, 63 A.3d 175, 187 (N.J. 2013) (holding that, absent consent or exigent circumstances, the community caretaking doctrine does not authorize warrantless entry into home); State v. Gill, 2008 ND 152, ¶ 18, 755 N.W.2d 454, 459-60 (N.D. 2008) (declining to extend the community caretaking exception to police entry into homes); State v. Christenson, 181 Ore. App. 345, 45 P.3d 511, 514 (Or. App. 2002) (reaching same conclusion, noting that warrantless entry might be authorized under “analogous exceptions, such as the ’emergency doctrine'”).
P21 Some other courts have seemingly applied the community caretaking exception in approving warrantless searches of homes. But many of these opinions use the phrase “community caretaking” broadly to encompass situations involving exigent circumstances or emergency aid. See, e.g., United States v. Quezada, 448 F.3d 1005, 1007 (8th Cir. 2006) (“A police officer may enter a residence without a warrant as a community caretaker where the officer has a reasonable belief that an emergency exists requiring his or her attention.”); State v. White, 141 Wn. App. 128, 168 P.3d 459, 466-67 ¶ 36 (Wash. App. 2007); State v. Alexander, 124 Md. App. 258, 721 A.2d 275, 285 (Md. App. 1998). A few states have explicitly combined the emergency aid and community caretaking exceptions. See, e.g., Kyer v. Commonwealth, 43 Va. App. 603, 601 S.E.2d 6, 12 (Va. App. 2004) (“[W]e find that any distinction between the two exceptions has been effectively eradicated in [Virginia]”). And in other cases relying on the community caretaking exception, either the exigent circumstances or emergency aid exception might have allowed the warrantless search. See, e.g., People v. Ray, 21 Cal. 4th 464, 88 Cal. Rptr. 2d 1, 981 P.2d 928, 933-35 (Cal. 1999) (relying on community caretaking exception to approve warrantless entry into home that police believed might have been burglarized).
P22 The State is not persuasive in arguing that we should extend the community caretaking exception to homes to ensure public safety. In situations involving criminal activity, fires or analogous dangers, or the need to render immediate aid, the exigent circumstances and emergency aid exceptions appropriately allow warrantless entry by law enforcement officers, whether or not they are engaged in community caretaking functions. Arizona law also authorizes county environmental or health authorities to seek a warrant authorizing entry into a building in order to “destroy, remove or prevent” a “nuisance, source of filth or cause of sickness.” A.R.S. § 36-603; see also id. § 36-602 (requiring property owner or occupant to remove “nuisance, source of filth or cause of sickness” within twenty-four hours’ notice). Extending the community caretaker exception to homes would substantially reduce the protection of privacy afforded by the warrant requirement without significantly increasing the ability of law enforcement to make searches to protect the public.
P23 Our conclusion, although based on the Fourth Amendment, also comports with the Arizona Constitution, which more explicitly protects homes than does its federal counterpart. Ariz. Const. art. 2, § 8 (“No person shall be disturbed in his private affairs, or his home invaded, without authority of law.”). We have read our constitution’s more specific language as affording greater protection to privacy in the home in some circumstances, Bolt, 142 Ariz. at 264-65, 689 P.2d at 523-24, and for that additional reason we are disinclined to extend the scope of the community caretaking exception beyond the automobile context.
