D.N.M.: Open line 911 call was not per se exigency; there are innocent explanations

An open line 911 call with static on the line is not per se an exigent circumstance. More is required than a 911 call. United States v. Martinez, 686 F. Supp. 2d 1161 (D. N.M. 2009)Motion granted by 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 21585 (D.N.M., Feb. 25, 2010):

The range of 911 calls lie on a spectrum. At one end of the spectrum are those frantic calls from a person inside a home who is able to say someone is attacking him or her, or a member of the family. Such a call alone might be enough to provide a basis for the exigent-circumstances exception. See West v. Keef, 479 F.3d at 759 (“The 911 call from Plaintiff’s twelve-year-old son, which included his belief that his mother was ‘going crazy,’ that she was c[t]rying to kill herself,’ that she was ‘trying to cut her[self] with a knife’ and other statements to the same effect, are, standing alone and in context, sufficient to justify the warrantless entry.”). At the other end of the spectrum is a 911 call where there is no identifiable caller nor specified emergency. The Court believes that this latter category of calls, in which there is no identifiable caller nor specified emergency, is the least likely to justify a warrantless entry.

At probably the very limit of this spectrum is the static-only open-line call, where no one speaks and there is only static. A static-only call is unlike a hang-up call or a call where the individual is unable to give a complete explanation of his emergency. In the latter situation, the dispatcher and the dispatched police have a firmer basis for concluding someone at the residence called 911. In a static-only call, however, there are other, equally plausible explanations for the call. Bad weather or bad telephone lines are as likely to place such calls as is a person in immediate need of aid to protect his or her life. See Tr. at 165:17-23 (Court, Lind). The evidence is in equipoise. The burden is thus on the United States — and ultimately on the police at the scene — to show that there is something more than an open-line 911 call to establish exigent circumstances. The Court believes that static open-line 911 calls — as opposed to hang-up calls or incomplete-information calls — fall into the category of calls to which the Tenth Circuit alluded in United States v. Najar that do not, standing alone, justify a warrantless entry. Thus, regardless whether other 911 calls may, in other cases, alone establish exigent circumstances, the Court does not believe the open-line 911 call in this case, without more, provides a sufficient basis for the exigent-circumstances exception.