NJ: There is “no broad ‘nuisance abatement’ exception” to community caretaking function

Defendant was having a party in his house, and a bunch of people were in there. The police showed up because of a noise complaint [think of the scenes in “Social Network” or “Super Troopers”] and walked through the premises looking for the responsible persons. In a bedroom upstairs, they saw pills. While the entry into the house was lawful, a broad search of the house was not. “[T]here is no broad ‘nuisance abatement’ exception to the general rule that warrantless entries into private homes are presumptively unreasonable.” State v. Kaltner, 420 N.J. Super. 524, 22 A.3d 77 (2011):

Unlike those cases, here there was no open invitation to the public to enter the premises. Although crowded and noisy, there is no evidence that the party was an “open house.” Merely because some in attendance were mutual friends of invited guests did not mean that total strangers would be freely admitted or welcomed. Under those circumstances and contrary to the State’s contention, we do not view as any lessened or diminished the legitimate expectation of privacy that defendant, who was not even present at the party, continued to enjoy in his residence, and even more so, in his third-floor bedroom. Nor, for obvious reasons, did defendant abandon his privacy interest by having the home indirectly exposed to the public by loud noise emanating therein.

Given this reasonable expectation of privacy, federal and state constitutional provisions “express[] a preference” that, before conducting a search, government officials should first obtain a warrant founded on probable cause issued by a neutral and detached judge “‘particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.’” … Thus, warrantless searches have been permitted when, among other circumstances, incident to lawful arrest, consent is obtained, government officials act in a community-caretaking function, or exigent circumstances compel action. Johnson, supra, 193 N.J. at 552, 940 A.2d 1185. Of course, the State carries the burden of proving by a preponderance of evidence that a search falls within one of these or other carefully crafted exceptions and that it was premised on probable cause. Ibid.; State v. Pineiro, 181 N.J. 13, 19-20, 853 A.2d 887 (2004).

. . .

Rather, the question in this case is whether, once legitimately inside, the police acted lawfully in fanning out in search of those in control of the premises in an attempt to abate the noise nuisance. In this regard, the State relies exclusively on the community caretaker exception to the warrant requirement. On this score, the court found credible the testimony of Officer Camacho “that he and the other officers embark[ed] upon a search of the house to locate the owner or the … person in charge of the … residence[,]” but nevertheless concluded it was unreasonable for the police to extend their search beyond the first floor main living area because “[t]here [were] no exigent circumstances.”

As to the community care taking exception:

As is evident here, the community caretaking doctrine does not fit neatly within the “exigent circumstances” or “emergency aid” constructs and therefore their analytical framework is inapposite to a consideration of whether such police action is constitutionally tolerable. Indeed, no exigency existed here at least in the traditional law enforcement sense of hot pursuit of a fleeing felon, removal or destruction of evidence, or imminent danger to life or property. Yet the constitutional allowance of such intrusions simply recognizes that “some situations addressed by officers within their community caretaking functions, though not within the scope of traditional law enforcement, can still present important government interests that may rise to the level of traditionally recognized ‘exigent circumstances.’” Ray, supra, 626 F.3d at 176 (quoting United States v. Rohrig, 98 F.3d 1506, 1521-22 (6th Cir. 1996)).

Thus, the relevant question in community caretaking situations focuses not on the compelling need for immediate action or the time needed to secure a warrant, but instead on the objective reasonableness of the police action in executing their service function. Bogan, supra, 200 N.J. at 80, 975 A.2d 377.

. . .

We agree with Rohrig to the extent that there is no broad “nuisance abatement” exception to the general rule that warrantless entries into private homes are presumptively unreasonable. We adhere, as did the Bogan Court, to the “objectively reasonable” test, Bogan, supra, 200 N.J. at 81, 975 A.2d 377, and to the case-specific nature of the inquiry.

Governed thusly by the reasonableness standard, and weighing all of its component competing interests, we conclude that the police action in this instance was not constitutionally permitted. Although police entry into the dwelling was initially justified, their subsequent action in fanning out and conducting, in essence, a full-blown search of the home was neither reasonably related in scope to the circumstances that justified the entry in the first place nor carried out in a manner consistent with the factors supporting the entry’s initial legitimacy. Indeed, unlike Rohrig, the objective of noise abatement could have been achieved well short of the full-scale search engaged in by the officers in this matter.