NY4: Def was missing and police couldn’t find him; entry into backyard and then house were reasonable under Mitchell and Brigham City

Applying Mitchell (1976) and Brigham City (2006), it was reasonable for the officer to enter defendant’s fenced back yard after going there on a welfare check first reported by a person claiming defendant was apparently missing. His and his girlfriend’s car were at home, mail had accumulated, his dogs were unattended inside, and no one would answer their phones or come to the door. The motive wasn’t to arrest anyone, it was to check, and the girlfriend’s body was found under tarp in the backyard, and then backup was called in. Defendant was convicted of second degree murder. People v. Larson, 2026 NY Slip Op 05641, 2026 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 5865 (4th Dept. Oct. 2, 2026):

Upon “looking at the ‘totality of the circumstances’ ” (Case, 607 US at 118), we conclude that the evidence presented by the People at the suppression hearing established that the officer’s warrantless entry into the fenced-in backyard of the home was lawful under the Fourth Amendment because he “had ‘an objectively reasonable basis for believing’ that his entry was direly needed to prevent or deal with serious harm” (id. at 117, quoting Brigham City, 547 US at 400). The officer knew, among other things, that defendant had missed without explanation his youth baseball coaching responsibilities 48 hours earlier, which was wholly out of character for him and thus cause for concern; that neither defendant nor the girlfriend could be contacted by phone or in person; that defendant was not located at any local hospital; and that defendant or the girlfriend could have been inside the house in need of assistance inasmuch as each had a vehicle parked in the driveway and no one appeared to be attending to their dogs. Contrary to defendant’s suggestion, the officer “d[id] not need ironclad proof of ‘a likely serious, life-threatening’ injury to invoke the emergency aid exception” (Fisher, 558 US at 49) inasmuch as “the emergency doctrine is premised on reasonableness, not certitude” (Doll, 21 NY3d at 671). In light of the particular circumstances that led the officer to the premises in search of missing individuals, we conclude that the officer’s limited entry into the backyard of defendant’s home fell within the recognized emergency exception to the warrant requirement under the Fourth Amendment (see Brigham City, 547 US at 406-407; see generally People v Lively, 163 AD3d 1466, 1467 [4th Dept 2018], lv denied 32 NY3d 1065 [2018]).

Assuming, arguendo, that the three-pronged Mitchell test remains independently viable as the standard in evaluating the emergency aid exception under article I, § 12 of the New York Constitution, we further conclude that the officer’s warrantless entry into the backyard was lawful under that standard as well. For the reasons previously discussed, we conclude that the officer had “reasonable grounds to believe that there [was] an emergency at hand and an immediate need for their assistance for the protection of life or property” (Mitchell, 39 NY2d at 177; see People v Caruth, 247 AD3d 545, 545 [1st Dept 2026]). With respect to the second prong, the officer testified that he entered the backyard to ascertain the welfare of defendant, and the People thus established that the entry was not primarily motivated by an intent to arrest or seize evidence (see People v Junious, 145 AD3d 1606, 1608 [4th Dept 2016], lv denied 29 NY3d 1033 [2017], reconsideration denied 29 NY3d 1129 [2017]). Given the combination of the accumulation of mail, the apparently unattended dogs, the presence of two vehicles in the driveway, and the officer’s inability to see the interior of the house or make contact with any occupants thereof by way of the front of the house, the evidence also established under the third prong that there was a reasonable basis, approximating probable cause, to associate the emergency with defendant’s residence, thereby justifying the officer’s limited entry into the backyard of the premises in his attempt to see if defendant or the girlfriend was located in the house (see Mitchell, 39 NY2d at 179; People v Edwards, 245 AD3d 1024, 1027 [3d Dept 2026], lv denied 45 NY3d 945 [2026]).

Defendant also contends in cursory fashion that, upon discovering the torso in the backyard and with defendant still missing, the police were not justified in later entering the home without a warrant because they waited a few hours before doing so. That contention lacks merit under both federal and state law. “[A]n entry under the emergency doctrine does not have to be immediate in order to be constitutional” (Rodriguez, 77 AD3d at 289; see Case, 607 US at 118; People v Molnar, 98 NY2d 328, 332-335 [2002]). Here, the evidence adduced at the suppression hearing established that, after discovering the torso in the backyard, the officer exited the yard and called for backup, reentered the yard to show the torso to another officer, and then waited outside the yard while additional officers secured the scene before the police eventually entered the house. We conclude that, contrary to defendant’s contention, “the measured response of the police [before entering the house] does not remove the situation from the realm of emergency” under the circumstances of this case given the discovery of the torso and the fact that defendant remained unaccounted for at that time (Molnar, 98 NY2d at 332; see Case, 607 US at 118; Matter of Pablo C., 220 AD2d 235, 236 [1st Dept 1995]).