CA6: Police called to ER for shooting victim can make plain view

When the police are called to the ER for a shooting victim, the bloody clothes can be in plain view. United States v. Clancy, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 35567 (6th Cir. Nov. 12, 2020):

The context of this plain-view sighting goes a long way to resolving the appeal. The officer responded to an emergency call from the hospital, which notified him that it had received a shooting victim. It’s hardly surprising—it’s indeed expected—that police will respond to emergency departments when shooting victims show up. That’s because officers are duty bound to investigate crimes, especially “reported shooting[s].” United States v. Davis, 690 F.3d 226, 234 n.13 (4th Cir. 2012) (upholding police presence in an emergency room by an officer “lawfully fulfilling his duty to investigate a reported shooting”); Sheffield v. United States, 111 A.3d 611, 620 (D.C. 2015) (noting that police were lawfully present in a hospital room “on official business to investigate a reported shooting”); State v. Rheaume, 889 A.2d 711, 714 (Vt. 2005) (explaining that police are “emergency workers” who “as a matter of course” show up in emergency rooms); Craft v. Commonwealth, 269 S.E.2d 797, 799-800 (Va. 1980) (pointing out that the officers went to the hospital to “investigat[e] an attempted robbery in which it had been reported that the robber had been shot”); see also State v. Thompson, 585 N.W.2d 905, 911 (Wis. Ct. App. 1998); People v. Torres, 494 N.E.2d 752, 755 (Ill. Ct. App. 1986); State v. Cromb, 185 P.3d 1120, 1126 (Or. Ct. App. 2008); Dombrovski v. State, Nos. A-7238, 4253, 2000 WL 1058953, at *3 (Alaska Ct. App. Aug. 2, 2000); Buchanan v. State, 432 So.2d 147, 148 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 1983).

This all makes considerable sense. With time of the essence, any hope of catching a suspect turns on nimble law enforcement willing to drop everything and rush to the hospital to gather information. Waiting for the shooting victim—who may well be a suspect—to leave the hospital runs the risk of losing track of him and, worse, of allowing him to strike again.