COURT CLARIFIES RULE ON POLICE EMERGENCY-AID SEARCHES
Only The Person Needing First Aid Can Be Searched

The emergency-aid exception of the Fourth Amendment only allows police
and paramedics to search the person and personal belongings of the one
in need of medical assistance, the Utah Court of Appeals has ruled.

The court said the emergency-aid exception to the constitutional
protection against unreasonable search and seizure does not allow
officers to search others present at an emergency scene. The ruling
comes in a case in which Salt Lake police officers searched a man who
was present when his friend overdosed on drugs and found drugs on the
friend.

"Expanding the scope of the exception to allow searches of third
parties in this way will logically lead to unconstitutional searches
of all persons present at the scene of an apparent drug overdose or
other similar medical emergency," wrote Justice Russell W. Bench.

The opinion basically destroys the case against Steven Davidson, who
was convicted of a misdemeanor charge of possession of drug
paraphernalia.

On April 11, 1998, officers were dispatched to a possible heroin
overdose at a home on Third Avenue. When they arrived they found
Davidson present with the unconscious victim. However, Davidson would
not give his name or address to officers and would not provide any
information about the type of drug the victim had taken. Hoping to
identify the drug used by the unconscious victim, officers arrested
and searched Davidson and located a marijuana pipe and marijuana.

The court, in finding the search illegal, said other than hoping to
identify the drugs used by the victim there was no other probable
cause to search Davidson. There was also no reason for officers to
believe they would find on Davidson the drug used by the victim.

Appeals courts have consistently found that the emergency-aid
exception is limited to the search of the individual with the medical
need, and no one else, the court ruled.

"The emergency situation was the medical condition of the man who was
unconscious and thought to have overdosed on some substance," wrote
Presiding Justice Pamela T. Greenwood.

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Michael J. Wilkins said expanding the
emergency-aid exception to a third party is warranted when the person
is "immediately connected with the person in need of emergency
assistance." The officer's main concern was to assist the unconscious
man and Davidson was only searched after he refused reasonable
requests to assist the victim, the justice wrote.

"I would not want to deter law enforcement officers from rendering aid
to those persons in emergency situations," Wilkins wrote.

Wilkins wrote his opinion prior to being sworn in as a Utah Supreme
Court justice.