Mr. Uelmen, do you have additional evidence you intend to present with regard to the motion?
All right. Let's see -- I don't believe you marked any exhibits with regard to this hearing, although we do have 'A' through 'H' that have been marked by the defense. There was reference to other exhibits that have been marked with regard to the preliminary hearing itself.
yes. Nothing freshly marked. I stand corrected. Thank you, Your Honor. I'd ask they be admitted to the extent referred to by the people as to this hearing as well then.
Yes. There would be an objection to Defendant's 'E'. I still don't see the relevance of that. Those were notes taken by detective Fuhrman. With respect to the search warrant affidavit, again, Your Honor, the people renew their objection. I think that the court had indicated it was not going to receive that. And with respect to 'G', Defendant's 'G', the three vehicle reports concerning the Bronco, those are hearsay. No adequate foundation was laid for their receipt, nor was any theory of relevance, I think, ever demonstrated by the defense to justify their receipt. And the rest are -- with regard to all the photographs, the people have no objection.
All right. Mr. Uelmen, do you wish to be heard with regard to 'E', 'G' and 'H'? With regard to 'H', the court has already made a ruling. Unless you have something new to add, I think the record -- your record is clear that you felt that that was admissible. That's the search warrant affidavit.
Yes. I believe there was a question that was permitted with respect to the representation in the affidavit that the trip was unexpected, so to that extent we believe the affidavit itself is admissible. With respect to 'E', the relevance of those notes, of course, is that they abruptly end when the detective left the premises at Bundy and to show that no contemporaneous record was made of any of the events that he was describing at the Rockingham premises. With respect to the vehicle impound reports, the reference to the coffee stains was contained in G-2, I believe.
And G-1 also indicates the time of the impound of the Bronco as being 7:30 in the morning.
All right. Let me take them one at a time. The search warrant affidavit, the court doesn't feel that that -- the grounds have been established to admit the entire affidavit, so the ruling stands as to that. With regard to detective Fuhrman's notes, apparently there was testimony that he didn't take any notes beyond the time that he left the first location. And, therefore, I don't feel that that then makes what he did write down at the first location admissible. The fact that he didn't take additional notes is part of the record, so I don't think that 'E' should come in. With regard to G-1, -2 and -3, there was some testimony about a coffee stain, and apparently some testimony about somebody from the media placing their coffee cup down on the Bronco and spilling it. But, nonetheless, there was no foundation established for G-1, -2 or -3 as to who made them, when they were made and the accuracy of the information contained in them. In the absence of that foundation -- and the people have raised that foundational objection -- the items are hearsay, and so 'E', G-1, -2 and -3 and 'H' would not be received. Now, with regard to the People's exhibits, you asked that they be admitted to the extent that they were utilized in the hearing on the motion, and my recollection with regard to that is that there were photos of the Bronco that were shown. I think with regard to the diagram, you mainly used the diagram that the defense prepared. And there was some photos of the driveway area and the house and photos of the glove and that pathway area. I don't recall, just off the top of my head, which numbered exhibits -- which People's numbered exhibits those were.
And with reference to the motion then, Mr. Uelmen, are you going to be speaking to the motion?
All right. Does the defense have any objection to the receipt of People's 6, 8 and 9, as it relates to the motion?
All right. Then those items would be received with regard to the motion. It is the People's burden to justify, since we're acting in the absence of a search warrant. Do you wish to be heard at this time, Ms. Clark?
Your Honor, although it is the People's burden, it is the defendant's motion, and as the moving party I believe they are entitled to be heard first.
Yes, Your Honor. Your Honor, I think a good starting point for this motion is with the Fourth Amendment itself, because essentially that's what this motion is all about. It's about the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, a right that shall not be violated, and no warrant shall issue but upon probable cause supported by oath or affirmation and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized. I think what we're confronting here is police officers who have the Fourth Amendment backwards, who believe in conducting the search first and then obtaining a warrant. It's important to put this into the context of the search of a private family home where the cases uniformly recognize that the Fourth Amendment protection is the strongest and the discretion of the officers is the most limited. I don't believe there's any serious dispute at this point, although the prosecution did assert in their motion that the area of the premises at 360 north Rockingham were some sort of common entryway for multiple dwellers in the premises. I think the evidence quite clearly shows that the entire area behind the walls and fences of this home were within the area that is traditionally defined as the curtilage of a home, and as Oliver versus United States made quite clear, at common law the curtilage was the area to which extends the intimate activity associated with the sanctity of a man's home and the privacy of life, and therefore has been considered part of the home itself for Fourth Amendment purposes. And so the courts have extended Fourth Amendment protection to the curtilage, and they have defined the curtilage as did the common law by reference to factors that determine whether an individual reasonably may expect that an area immediately adjacent to the home will remain private. Every iota of the testimony that you have heard confirms the reasonable expectation of Mr. Simpson that these premises would remain private, including the maintenance of electronically controlled gates and the surrounding of the entire perimeter by a wall five and a half feet high and a fence that is even higher on the boundary between the premises and the neighboring residential premises. Now, there are some limited exceptions to the necessity of probable cause and a warrant before an entry is made into protected premises, and it does appear that the exception upon which the prosecution is placing most reliance is the exception for exigent circumstances or emergencies. It's important, of course, to note that the prosecution bears the burden of proving that they came within this exception with respect to the investigative activity that was conducted at the premises on the morning of June the 13th. The exception for emergencies or exigent circumstances is a very, very limited one. It is limited to situations in which there is an imminent threat, and the kind of entry it permits is limited by the threat that is presented. In this case, what is being urged is an extension of the emergency or exigent circumstances exception beyond any which has been ever recognized in any reported case in the courts of California, or the Federal courts for that matter. If Your Honor examines each and every case relied upon by the prosecution in their response to this motion, you will discover that every one of these cases involves a search of the scene of a reported crime where the police officers have information that a crime has actually been committed on the premises or the premises are immediately adjacent to the scene of a reported crime, and none of these cases involve investigative activity not related to the exigency that justified the original entry. I can go through each of these cases and Your Honor will discover that they are consistent in this respect. For example, People versus Wharton involved a victim who had been reported missing and an entry to the home of the victim to seek the missing victim, and the officers found a dead body wrapped in plastic. And the issue was simply whether the officers, by exigent circumstances, were entitled to cut open the plastic wrapper to confirm the presence of the missing victim without a search warrant. In the Tamborino case cited by the prosecution, the police were responding to a radio call that a robbery and a victim was injured and bleeding on the premises that they entered. They found blood spots outside the building and on a walkway of the apartment, and a neighbor confirmed that an injured person was inside the apartment before the officers made entry. In the Mc dowell case, once again, we have a report of an actual crime taking place on the premises and an entry to investigate the circumstances. It's a typical hot pursuit situation where there was actually a blood trail from the murder to an adjacent house, and the officers were following that trail within 45 minutes of the discovery of a murder. In the Amaya case, again, the officers had a report of a shooting on the premises. They observed a pool of fresh blood in front of the apartment, a trail of blood to a laundry room where they found a body of a victim, and they then entered the apartment in which the fresh pool of blood was found. And finally, Bradford, a classic hot pursuit situation, where the police were actually chasing the suspects engaged in a gun battle with them, and the court held they were thus entitled to enter the premises where the suspects had fled to. These are the kind of emergencies in which the courts have recognized exigent circumstances and permitted officers to dispense with the requirement of probable cause and the seeking of a warrant. Obviously, those don't come near to any of the circumstances that have been presented here. We are extending the exigent circumstance exception by a distance of about two miles and by a duration of about six hours, and that is a long, cold trail for exigent circumstances. Here we have officers coming to these premises at 5:00 o'clock in the morning, at least six hours after the murders that they were investigating had occurred, a distance of two miles away from the scene of those murders. The victim -- one of the victims of those murders had been identified at 1:00 o'clock that morning, and it appears that most of the delay from 1:00 o'clock until 5:00 o'clock in the morning was consumed simply in deciding what detectives were going to investigate this homicide. We are told that four detectives, the four detectives who were most responsible for investigating the circumstances of this homicide, all converged on the residence of Mr. Simpson simply for the purpose of informing him of the tragedy that had taken place at the Bundy location, a purpose that could just as easily have been accomplished by the placing of a telephone call. The officers claim no exigency, no emergency, until they discover what Your Honor has seen as a one-eighth to one-quarter inch dried speck of substance on the door of an automobile, which could not even be confirmed as being blood after scientific investigation; a stain which was just as consistent with a dripping taco or a driver with a hang nail as with any circumstances of murder, suicide or bleeding victims on the premises. I think it's very important to bear in mind what the California Supreme Court said in the case of People versus Smith, that "the belief upon which an officer acts must be the product of facts known to or observed by him and not a fanciful attempt to rationalize silence into a justification for a warrantless entry." And that is precisely all that these officers encountered at the Rockingham premises: silence. And from that silence, they had conjured up horrific visions of the need to jump over the wall and enter the premises, circumstances which do not appear in any of their reports and do not appear in any written form until after the motion to suppress had been filed in this case and the testimony was presented in this hearing. Even more important is the scope of activity in which these officers engaged after their entry to the premises. Even if we concede -- and we do not concede -- but even if we did concede that there were exigent circumstances justifying a warrantless entry to the premises, again, the scope of their activity on those premises is limited by that exigency. And that is a purpose which could easily have been accomplished in ten minutes or less to ascertain whether there were any murder victims or suicide victims or hostages or bleeding persons on the premises. Everything the officers encountered immediately after their entry to the premises confirmed that there was no such problem on the premises. Their mission essentially was accomplished prior to 6:00 o'clock in the morning. They had accomplished the notification of Mr. Simpson. They had made arrangements for the well-being of the children that were the subject of concern. They had ascertained or located no other victims or no reports of any other problems, with the one exception that actually came later after their mission had been accomplished of the report by Mr. Kaelin of a thumping on the wall seven hours before the officers were then engaged in investigative activity. And I think everything that happened from then on can only be described as investigative activity, the gathering of evidence of a crime, the precise activity that the Fourth Amendment commands officers obtain probable cause and a warrant before they engage in it. Again and again we heard the detectives say, "well, we didn't know what we had. We didn't know what had happened on these premises." Well, we know what they didn't have. They didn't have a search warrant. And if we were to carve out an exception to the Fourth Amendment for detectives who don't know what they have, in effect we would turn the Fourth Amendment on its head and we would say, "the less you know, the more you can search." Now, I know and Your Honor knows that the pundits and the cynics who are following this case suggest that this case is too high profile a case for a motion to suppress to be granted. We do not share that --
We do not share that cynicism, Your Honor. I think it's important for us to bear in mind that what is at issue here is the application of an exclusionary rule whose purpose is to teach. And what better vehicle do we have to teach the lesson that the Fourth Amendment is alive and well in Los Angeles. I would close with the words of justice Brandeis in Holmstead versus the United States: "our government is the omnipotent, the omnipresent teacher for good or ill. It teaches the whole people by its example. If the government becomes a law breaker, it breeds contempt for law, it invites every man to become a law unto himself and invites anarchy." Thank you.
Thank you, Your Honor. Well, Mr. Uelmen speaks very eloquently and with a great deal of passion in terms that are very graphic concerning the activities that transpired in the early morning hours of June the 13th. But none of the rhetoric and none of the fine quotations can change the facts as they existed on those early morning hours. He attempts to depict in very graphic terms the search or the activities that were conducted at the location of 360 Rockingham as though a Sherman tank were being driven through the backyard and being plowed in through the doors. In fact, nothing could be farther from the truth. In fact, all of the actions that were taken by the officers in this case were clearly very carefully confined to the stated purposes that they have given to us throughout these proceedings. And I'm going to point out exactly how logical and how consistent those actions are as they match up with every single motivation they've testified to in this courtroom. Mr. Uelmen pointed out that we may have created a new exception here for officers who, quote, don't know what they have. No, that's not a new exception, Your Honor. As a matter of fact, I'm sure the court is aware of the case of Mincey versus Arizona in which the officers were permitted to enter a location for a limited victim or suspect search. In fact, that is exactly what occurred in this case. They did not enter with guns drawn, they did not enter with helicopters flying overhead or backup units or anything else. If they had suspected there was a suspect on the premises, if they had intended to go in to collect evidence, all of those things would have been done. The fact that they were not done is further evidence to the court that what they were concerned with was an emergency situation of multiple victims, and as the cases are clear -- and the people have cited them in the motion -- the officers are not confined to one purpose. They can't be. This is a human situation. This is not a laboratory where you pursue one objective and come to a conclusion and then you pursue another one and come to that. These things do not happen in discreet units of time, and try as one might or one would like to pin down the events into a sequential order that is neatly packaged, things do not happen that way, and that's what we heard the officers testifying to repeatedly, consistently. In fact, even the civilian witnesses testified in that manner. Kato Kaelin, who was trying to explain, "well, it happened this way, it happened that way." Well, we got one picture during the questioning on direct and another picture during the questioning on cross. On direct examination, you might have had the impression that the officers came straight to the door and immediately upon seeing Mr. Kaelin heard that the defendant was in Chicago. On cross-examination, we heard no, he's not sure about when that came out. The officers went to his door, he directed them to Arnelle. One officer stayed with him, the others went to Arnelle's room. He indicated that he then had a conversation with that detective during which he told him about the thumps on the wall. The officer asked him, "did anything unusual occur last night?" Again, consistent with all of his concerns about what had happened at the crime scene that might relate to the location of 360 Rockingham. During the course of that conversation, Kato Kaelin indicates, "yes, I told him about the thumps on the wall. I know I told that story twice. I also told some detective about what I thought was -- the defendant going to Chicago in the limousine, going to the airport in the limousine, and going to Chicago. I think I only told that one once. And I know I spoke to another detective in the bar area, and that may have been when that conversation happened and when that information came out." Because things are happening in a jumbled mess and you have witnesses, especially a civilian witness, who is rousted out of bed in the midst of sleep, disoriented and frazzled, who is unsure of the events that have occurred at that moment. So things do not happen that discreetly, and for the officers as well. Things were happening all at once. Now, with respect to the factual circumstances as they actually transpired, first of all, at the point that the officers leave for 360 Rockingham, the bloody crime scene -- what is in their minds is what they've just seen at 875 south Bundy. They've seen a bloody crime scene with bloody shoe prints leading away from the crime scene and blood drops to the side of them leading from the crime scene, and that tells them that someone left the scene bleeding. Moreover, they've seen a brown leather glove at the feet of one of the victims. They know that children, small ones, have been taken away from the scene and placed in police custody because they don't know where to place those children. They don't know into whose custody to deliver those children. They also know of the celebrity status of the victim's husband, the children's father, who lives close by. So close by that he's the most logical person to go to. You want to get someone quickly who can take care of those children as quickly as you can. The celebrity status of the victim -- of the victim's ex-husband is important because we know about the stalkers, we know that these things are in the officer's mind, and reasonably so because he has to be considering everything, every possibility that may occur. If he fails to take into account every possibility, then we justifiably are upset. "Why didn't you think of that, officer? Why didn't you protect these people? That's your job." And he takes it seriously. These officers did so. They took every possibility seriously, including that. Now, the point that they leave -- they left the crime scene, they were going to make a notification to the defendant and they were going to see what to do with his small children. That they would go to him first, who is the next of kin closest to the children, makes imminent sense; that they would go to him first because he is the nearest relative -- only two miles away, I think was the testimony -- also makes imminent sense. And expect to find him. Now, what happens when they arrive at the location, having all of those -- all of those exigencies in mind, knowing that you have small children to take care for, knowing the kind of bloody scene that you've just left and the relative -- and the ex-wife of a celebrity like this who may be the victim of a stalker, all of these things are in their minds at the time that they go to the residence and just want to find Mr. Simpson. That's all they're looking to do. Assure themselves everything's all right, take care of the children. They'll be done. And as detective Fuhrman put it, "had Mr. Simpson come to the door, it would have all been over. We would have left." But that didn't happen. That did not happen. And with all of that in mind, the officers go to 360 Rockingham and attempt to raise someone inside the house. They ring the intercom repeatedly and get no answer. Yet there are lights on. There are lights on downstairs, there's a light on upstairs. There are cars in the driveway. They contact Westec and find out that a maid should be there full time, and on a property of that size it's probably not unreasonable to think that someone should be there full time looking over it, and yet they don't reach someone. Then they finally get the house phone number, and they call that phone number and there's no answer once again. Now, their concern has to mount. These are human beings, these detectives, and they know all the concerns are still pressing on them. No answer to the intercom, no answer to the house phone, and there's lights on and there's cars in the driveway. They have to be concerned. Now the detective has indicated, "I see the car in front of the house, it seems to be parked kind of hastily, and I see what I think is a spot of blood on the door handle." They've come from a bloody crime scene where someone left bleeding. They get to this location, they see a spot of blood. Your Honor, I don't care if it's a spot of blood as big as a dime or as big as a quarter, it's unusual to find blood on an otherwise clean car, and a car that's parked hastily; one that belongs to Mr. Simpson, as they've been able to determine, whose ex-wife has just been found dead in a bloody mess two miles away. You have to consider that all of these things are happening at once and they're in these officers' minds. At that point when they fail to reach anyone and they get the information that Westec security has no knowledge that Mr. Simpson is supposed to be away on travel, they get nobody to answer the phone, no one to answer the door and yet there's indications there should be someone there. With the blood on the door handle, they would have been derelict in duty. It is absolutely incumbent upon them to do something at that point to assure themselves that the people inside that house are safe and secure, that there is not something horribly amiss, because they've just come from a scene so gory that nothing could be more amiss than that. And the connection directly to the household of Mr. Simpson is absolutely clear. And if they were to stand outside and think about leaving, think about waiting until Mr. Simpson came home, while someone may have lain dying, bleeding in that location, we would justifiably be upset. We would justifiably call them derelict in their duty, and they could not do that. So without calling for backup, without calling for a helicopter, without bullet proof vests, without guns drawn, they went over -- they decided to enter the property. And the fact that they did none of those things I just indicated to the court is another indication of how consistent their actions were with their stated motivation. If they were looking for a suspect, if they were looking to collect evidence that -- of a crime, they would not have gone in in that unprotected manner. Nor would they have gone simply walking on the grounds to go and knock on a guest door immediately when they get to the backyard area. In the cases cited by the people and referred to by defense counsel, though -- and I'm sure the court has already read them -- one very important distinguishing factor is that in those cases the Court validated the warrantless entry into a residence and in some cases a forced entry into that residence. These officers went in and they kicked down the doors. The minimal nature of the intrusion in this case is an important thing to bear in mind because, far from Sherman tanks going in through that backyard or using battering rams on the doors, these officers simply went into a backyard and knocked on the door of a guest house, which is an entirely reasonable thing to do under the circumstances and totally consistent with their stated motivation. If their motivation in fact, Your Honor, had been nothing more than to go and find a place to place these children with a responsible adult, given that they were left in police custody for hours at this point, their actions would be reasonable for only that motivation, but yet there was so much more, as the court is aware. Now, it is important to bear in mind that these are unfolding events, and as each event occurs, the information gathered spurs further action. So rather than going and searching for evidence, fanning out on the grounds to go and start searching under cubby -- in cubby holes and under tables and inside cabinets, they go for the straight forward thing. They go straight to a guest house in search of someone who could assure them that either nothing was amiss and assist in the placement of the children, or confirm that something was indeed amiss in which they could offer their assistance. They went to the door of Kato Kaelin. Mr. Kaelin, as he indicated himself, was frazzled and disoriented. They don't know who he is. They don't know if he belongs there. He may be a suspect himself. It's truly the case, they don't know what they have. Is he a victim? Is he a suspect? They don't know. They just have to find out. And at that point when they ask him, "well, is there someone around here who can let us into the house and find out if the defendant is okay and where he might be," he directs them to Arnelle. Now while the other detectives -- the other detectives then immediately go to Arnelle. Another indication that they are trying to resolve a situation that they just don't know enough about. They know a bloody gory scene, they know that. They know children in police custody for whom they have no immediate placement. They know that. But they do not know what has gone on and they have to find out, and they have to do it soon because every indication thus far has been that someone could be bleeding or dying back there. They go to Arnelle. The first thing they want to do is resolve where is Mr. Simpson. That is the first thing to resolve because Mr. Simpson can dictate what is done with the children. He goes to Arnelle. They go to Arnelle and talk to her. In the meantime, not knowing who Brian Kaelin is, detective Fuhrman stays with him for officer's safety. Now, while the other detectives go into the house with Arnelle to find out -- to locate Mr. Simpson, Kato Kaelin is speaking to detective Fuhrman. Now, let me point out again, the actions are entirely consistent with the stated motivation. The officers don't say, "well, if you don't let us in, we're going to go bash the door down." They don't go to bash the door down. And they won't, once they're inside the house with Arnelle, make any attempt to search other than to find out first things first. Let's make the phone call. They do the least intrusive things they possibly can at every bend and turn. If what they were doing there was looking to perform a general exploratory search, if this was a pretextural search, excuse to search, then you would have seen them roaming through the house. That never happened. They went into the house with Arnelle, went immediately with her to the phone, "here, make the call, let's find him." And while they're doing that, as the events are unfolding, detective Fuhrman is speaking to Kato. Kato is telling him, "yes, something unusual happened last night. I heard a thump on my wall." Well, that kind of matches up to the timing of what detective Fuhrman thinks might have happened -- what may have happened over at the Bundy Drive location, and now he's got to think, "well, maybe someone did fall down, collapse, and is back there bleeding. It is a dark area back there." And hearing about three thumps on the wall (Noise made) is a very startling thing in the night. Detective Fuhrman would have been, I think, dismissable for inaction had he not gone to investigate that. So we have yet another action that is spurred by the events. As I said, the events could not occur in discreet units of time. You had a situation with the -- the unfolding nature of the information that was being received that demanded that further action be taken, but at every bend and turn the action taken was confined to the information that motivated it. Now, there is no indication at any point, I think, that Arnelle said the officers were rousting through the house and conducting an exploratory search, and the officers indicated they did not do so. At no point did she indicate that the officers twisted her arm or threatened her to let them into the house and make the phone calls that they did. And in fact, it's very interesting that what she indicates is that she was allowed to go and get the children with A.C. Cowlings and within -- she said, I think, the station was four miles away. And detective Vannatter indicated that he decided to secure the residence for a search warrant within minutes of their return with the children. So within a 10 to 15 minute period, you have the discovery by detective Vannatter on the driveway of the blood drops that causes him to then determine to secure the residence, which is just about the time that Arnelle gets back with the children and A.C. Cowlings. This, again, indicates that the timing of this is a fluid thing, but there are a lot of events occurring at once, all of which are imparting information to the officers on which they have to act, and they did, and they acted reasonably. Now, once detective Fuhrman got the information from Kato concerning the thumps on the wall, I think it can't be disputed that it was incumbent then upon him to go out and investigate the source of those thumps. But even when he did that, he did it in a manner that was consistent with the stated motivation of being in that place to begin with. Because he indicated that he walked down the path, he saw the glove, and yet he continued to walk down the path until he went all the way to the end of the property, because he thought that was the location large enough and dark enough that could have hidden a body. He went back, all the way back there and looked, leaving the evidence behind him, because the motivation of finding a victim that may need assistance or an injured party that may need assistance was the primary motivation. And although the courts have indicated in Baird and in Duncan that you may not determine that the primary motivation was the emergency, that the officers may have many motivations, one of which is legitimately the collection of evidence, yet I think it is clear in this case that the primary motivation by all of the actions taken by these officers was indeed to preserve life and to act on an emergency that may have threatened the life and limb of some party. All of the actions taken by the officers is consistent with that motivation. And again, I would reiterate to the court, to test the validity of the assertion that they were there to preserve life and limb, the court need only ask itself, what if someone had been injured and lay bleeding near death somewhere on the grounds while they decided to go and obtain a search warrant, or simply when they failed to get a response to their ringing and phone calls? Just leave? What would we have said? We would have said they were derelict, we would have said that they were incompetent. We would have said nothing good about the manner in which they fulfilled their duties because they would not have been fulfilling their duties. Instead, they did fulfill their duties. They happened upon evidence. It's clear that the evidence they happened upon was in an outside area and it was in an area that Mr. Kaelin had more control -- or more access to, I should say, because that was outside the outer wall of his guest unit. I'm not indicating in that regard that Mr. Simpson did not indicate an expectation of privacy within the gates surrounding his property. But I am indicating that there is a lesser expectation of privacy with respect to an area outside the main house that is most adjacent to a guest unit occupied by someone other than the defendant who is, no matter what he may consider himself, not a member of the family, who's been living there only for six months and freely invites friends in and out and performs duties around the house. He himself is exercising dominion and control over the area. And by indicating to officers the thumps that he heard on the wall has indicated a desire to have that -- the origin of those thumps investigated. Now, the fact that the thumps occurred hours earlier is simply no excuse for not going to investigate what might have happened to cause them. I hope that counsel is not suggesting that a police officer is supposed to take a report from someone who indicates, "well, yes, three hours ago I heard gunshots." "Well, three hours ago? Forget it." Is an officer supposed to do that? Wouldn't that be ridiculous? Wouldn't that be horrific if an officer did that? It doesn't matter if it was seven minutes or seven hours ago. An officer has a duty to investigate what may be a very serious situation that may be indeed life threatening, and if it was seven hours or seven minutes ago, it is incumbent upon him to go and determine if something has happened to someone because he may yet preserve life. And the officer did exactly what he should do under the circumstances. I would reiterate to the court the cases previously cited of People versus Soldoff, People versus Bradford, and Tamborino versus Superior Court, all of which fully support the search that was conducted in this case. And in fact, counsel cited to Mc dowell as an example that was inapposite. I disagree. That case is very similar to the instant case. There were a couple of residences. The actual crime scene, I think, that they found was the Bradford residence. The decedent's residence had been searched by a previous officer and abandoned when officer Petroski, following a blood trail, followed it into and out of that residence, leaving evidence there, and continued to pursue the blood trail until he found the defendant, and only after securing the defendant went back without a warrant and collected the evidence. In this case we don't have any of the problems of abandoning the area of search and coming back hours later without a warrant. Under these circumstances it was very clear that by the time he went back to seize that evidence, there was no exigency, there was no emergency. The defendant was under arrest. Everything was secured. He had ample time to go and get a search warrant. He certainly had probable cause. Did he do so in Mc dowell? No, he didn't. No, he didn't. He went and he saw all those items, he left, he went to do other things, he came back without a warrant and seized them. Certainly People versus Mc dowell makes the search issue in this case look like there's no problem. There's nothing to talk about here. And People versus Amaya is the same. We have a situation where the officers go in, see evidence, leave, come back in, go get other officers, go back in again, over a period of hours, and never bother to get a warrant. That was not the case here. That was not the case. These officers went in with a stated emergency that was reasonable to believe existed. They acted in a manner consistent with that belief, happened upon evidence, and as soon as that evidence was found, stopped everything and got a warrant. Now, it is true that detective Vannatter called for a criminalist to examine the blood on the exterior, on the door of the Bronco. But, again, People versus Duncan makes it clear that there is not one purpose that an officer is restricted to, nor is the court required to find that the primary motivation of any officer is an emergency or an exigent circumstance. As long as one of those -- as long as that is one of the motivations and that motivation is reasonably held, that belief is reasonably held, then the search, the warrantless search, is valid. And in that regard, counsel has cited People versus Dickson that holds for the contrary. That's an appellate case. That case is disapproved in People versus Duncan, which is a California Supreme Court case that came later. And in that case, People versus Duncan, the court said, and I quote: "it is unreasonable to expect an officer to be unconcerned with the collection of evidence and the capture of criminals. While the trial court must find that the officer believed an emergency to exist, reasonable actions taken by the officer should not preclude such a finding." An officer who is acting reasonably under the circumstances in which he finds himself, as long as one of the purposes is justifiably that of emergency -- and I think we cannot have any doubt that that existed here -- the fact that he also intended to preserve and collect evidence, should it become relevant, certainly is no reason to find invalid the genuineness of his belief in the fact that an emergency existed. Just as the officer did in Mc dowell. When the officer in Mc dowell went running through the house following the blood trail, he saw evidence there. He decided that it had to be preserved. He went out and got the defendant, called for a criminalist, and went back to make sure it was preserved and photographed in place, never considering getting a warrant. In this case, especially with respect to the Ford Bronco parked on a public street with a door handle -- an exterior door handle that evidenced blood, detective Vannatter thought this may be needed to be collected. "We may need this in the future. We may not. We may not." But a careful officer, an experienced officer, a dedicated officer knows that you can never tell what you may encounter. They didn't, none of them, suspect that they were at the residence of a suspect. If they had, do you think in a million years they would have gone over that wall without their guns drawn, without bullet proof vests, without a back-up unit, without helicopters? Never in a million years. And that's why he indicated to you this was not a suspect's residence. "We were concerned for the occupants, not for our safety," and every action they took makes it abundantly clear that that is precisely what they were doing. Accordingly, Your Honor, the court would urge -- the people would urge this court to find that the search was reasonably undertaken for the legitimate purpose of preserving life, and additionally, Your Honor, that the car, the Ford Bronco, was in plain view, was seizable under the line of cases under Ross and its progeny, and that that does not constitute a search for which any warrant was required, especially as to the exterior door handle, which is the subject matter of this motion. And we would ask the court to admit the evidence seized prior to the issuance of the search warrant.
Very briefly, Your Honor. Four very brief points. First, if we simply take the officers at their word, that their purpose in going to these premises was to notify Mr. Simpson of the murder of his wife and to arrange for the care of his children, we're left with a real mystery as to how that minute speck on the door of the Bronco all of a sudden elevated their concern to the magnitude that is being described by Ms. Clark. There is nothing logical that we can seize on that suggests that that kind of a speck, on the exterior of an automobile, parked in front of a house, gives you any reason for concern that there are victims, hostages, or bleeding people inside the premises. It just doesn't connect. It may elevate their motivation to want to enter the premises and conduct a search, but that, we're told, is -- wouldn't in a million years have been their purpose. They were not looking for a suspect, we're told. Now again, if we take the officers at their word, they said, "if Mr. Simpson had come to the door, even after we climbed over the wall and knocked at the door, we would have left." Well, within minutes of that knock on the door, they had accomplished their purpose. The evidence is undisputed that the call was completed to speak to Mr. Simpson in Chicago shortly after 5:45 in the morning. The testimony of officer Fuhrman is that between 6:15 and 6:30, a half hour to 45 minutes later, is when he first engaged in his foray to explore the area to the south of the residence and the wall behind Mr. Kaelin's room. Third, Ms. Clark has said, "well, this case doesn't involve rousting, it doesn't involve Sherman tanks invading the premises." But, of course, that's not what the Fourth Amendment is designed to protect us against. It is designed to protect our reasonable expectations of privacy. It is designed to protect against the activity of police officers searching for evidence without probable cause and a warrant. And I don't think there can be much doubt that these officers were searching for evidence. The first thing they did when they entered Mr. Kaelin's room was not to look for a bleeding victim but to examine his clothing, to examine the shoes he had worn the night before. Finally, I think it's important to bear in mind that the whole purpose of the Fourth Amendment is that we don't entrust our privacy to the discretion of police officers who are engaged in the process of ferreting out criminal activity. The purpose of the Fourth Amendment is to have a neutral magistrate intervene between the police officers and the citizen. And here in California, we have magistrates a phone call away. All they had to do was pick up the telephone and they could have gotten a telephonic search warrant. And we were told by the officer, "we've never used that procedure." And we might ask ourselves, why? Is it because they don't need to? Is it because conjuring up this exigent circumstances or emergency exception is some sort of talisman that makes the Fourth Amendment disappear? Is it because we don't have the fortitude and the courage to say to our police officers, the Fourth Amendment means what it says? And what it says is before you invade the privacy of a person's residence, you get probable cause, you go to a judge and you get a search warrant. Thank you.
All right. The court will announce its ruling tomorrow morning. We will be in recess at this time until 9:00 o'clock tomorrow. (At 4:33 p.m., a recess was taken until Thursday, July 7, 1994, at 9:00 a.m.)
I think what we're confronting here is police officers who have the Fourth Amendment backwards, who believe in conducting the search first and then obtaining a warrant.
And if we were to carve out an exception to the Fourth Amendment for detectives who don't know what they have, in effect we would turn the Fourth Amendment on its head and we would say, "the less you know, the more you can search."
It is absolutely incumbent upon them to do something at that point to assure themselves that the people inside that house are safe and secure, that there is not something horribly amiss, because they've just come from a scene so gory that nothing could be more amiss than that.
They acted in a manner consistent with that belief, happened upon evidence, and as soon as that evidence was found, stopped everything and got a warrant.
All they had to do was pick up the telephone and they could have gotten a telephonic search warrant.