AR: 911 call about potential suicide and police found foul odor during consensual entry and led to valid walk through

911 call to a potentially suicidal person brought police to defendant’s house. Once inside, they saw a blood stain and smelled a foul odor from what turned out to be corpses found in a valid walk through before the officers left the house. Miller v. State, 2010 Ark. 1, 362 S.W.3d 264:

Keeping in mind Rule 14.3 and this court’s application of that rule, we turn now to the Facts surrounding the search in this case. Fort Smith Police Officer Stephen Hutchinson testified at the hearing on the motion to suppress that he was dispatched pursuant to a 911 call from Miller’s father, who was in Colorado and had received a text message from Miller stating that Miller was thinking of killing himself with pills. Officer Hutchinson and Officer Derek Harwood went to an apartment rented to Bridgette Barr to conduct a welfare check on Miller. They knocked on the door and Miller opened it. They explained to Miller that they were there in response to a 911 call from his father about a suicide threat and that they were checking to see how he was doing. Officer Hutchinson asked if they could come inside to talk because it was so cold outside. After first asking to leave immediately with the officers, Miller agreed to let them in the apartment and to wait for an ambulance to take him to the hospital for a mental-health evaluation. While inside the entryway, Officer Hutchinson began to offer help to Miller and to inquire about what kind of problems he was having. Miller stated that he and his girlfriend had been fighting. While this conversation was occurring inside the apartment, Officer Hutchinson noticed pictures of a woman, whom Hutchinson thought to be Miller’s girlfriend because he had his arm around her and two small children. He also noticed a dried blood stain approximately six to eight inches in diameter on the door. Despite having a head cold at the time, Officer Hutchinson also noticed a foul odor in the apartment.

. . .

In conducting the walk-through of the apartment, the officers saw in plain view a foot with toenails painted red extending from a pile of blankets on the floor at the end of a bed. Officer Hutchinson pulled the blanket back just enough to see the forehead of a body that appeared to be decayed. Both officers then left the apartment, returned to the ambulance outside, and read Miller his Miranda rights. Officer Hutchinson then asked Miller if he had killed the person in the bedroom; Miller answered yes. Remembering that he had also seen pictures of two small children, Officer Hutchinson asked Miller where the children in the picture were. Miller stated they were in the house and then admitted to killing the children also.

Holding DL for five minutes while checking validity was reasonable during a stop. Fallon v. State, 2010 Alas. App. LEXIS 1 (January 8, 2010)*:

Based on this record, we conclude that the stop was a valid community caretaker stop. Trooper Carson was therefore authorized under AS 28.15.131 to request Fallon’s driver’s license. By calling dispatch to check on the status of the license, Carson did not unreasonably expand the scope or duration of the stop. Although Fallon testified that he sat in his car for about five minutes waiting for Carson to return his license, the electronic recording of the contact indicates that only three minutes passed between the time Carson asked for, and returned, Fallon’s license. Some of this time was occupied pulling Fallon’s vehicle back onto the roadway.