by Anthony W. Accurso

The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit held that the Government failed to satisfy its burden of proof that the emergency-aid exception to the warrant requirement applied to justify police officers’ warrantless entry into a home where the facts showed they had reason to believe that the subject of their search had been dead for at least one day and they had no reason to believe she was inside the home.

Dario and Arline Giambro lived in a trailer on a “homestead” property in Hebron, Maine. Their son, Antonio, returned from a two-week trip in January 2022 and sought to check on his parents since they were in their seventies. Dario said that Arline had died while Antonio was away, which raised concerns for Antonio about his father’s mental health. Antonio, under the pretense of taking Dario out for lunch, instead took him to Stephens Memorial Hospital in Norway, Maine, which is located approximately 15 minutes from the trailer.

After talking with Dario, staff at the hospital summoned police, and Corporal Robert Federico, an officer with the Norway Police Department, arrived to interview the two men. Dario offered vague answers about Arline’s whereabouts but ultimately stated that “she died in her sleep” and “they lived on a homestead.” Antonio also asked Federico about the legality of burying a family member on a homestead plot.

Federico made contact with Oxford County Police Dispatch, which patched him through to Deputy Brandon Tiner with the Oxford County Police Department. Federico relayed that “the father is telling the son that the mother died but she’s not in the house and he won’t say where she is” and expressed concern that Arline might still be alive. He asked Tiner to come to the hospital to speak with Dario.

Instead, Tiner and other officers converged on Dario and Arline’s home. They were unable to make contact with Arline, nor could they see inside the trailer through the windows. They forced entry into the home and “observe[d] many firearms in plain view throughout the trailer, as well as behind the locked door.”

After they failed to locate Arline inside the home, the officers spread out around the property. One followed “tracks and found an unhinged door lying on top of the snow.” There “was a body-sized object wrapped in cloth and plastic” underneath the door, which was later identified as Arline. An autopsy revealed she had died of natural causes.

Based on the fact that Dario had been convicted of a felony and had been on federal supervision sometime in 2008 and that numerous firearms were present in his home during the search for Arline, police sought a warrant to search the home and seize the weapons.

Giambro was charged with violating 18 U.S.C. § 922(g), possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. He sought to suppress the evidence as the product of an unlawful search. The U.S. District Court for the District of Maine denied his motion, accepting the Government’s argument that the emergency aid exception to the warrant requirement was applicable under the facts. Giambro timely appealed.

The Court began its analysis by noting that the Fourth Amendment requires police to obtain a warrant to search a person’s home and that “searches and seizures inside a home without a warrant are presumptively unreasonable.” Brigham City v. Stuart, 547 U.S. 398 (2006); see also Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27 (2001). However, the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized the need to render emergency aid as an exception to the warrant requirement, explaining that “the need to protect or preserve life or avoid serious injury is justification for what would be otherwise illegal.” Brigham (quoting Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385 (1978)). “Thus, law enforcement officers ‘may enter a home without a warrant to render emergency assistance to an injured occupant or to protect an occupant from imminent injury.’” Michigan v. Fisher, 558 U.S. 45 (2009).

When the Government seeks to justify a warrantless entry under the emergency aid exception, it bears the burden of establishing an “objectively reasonable basis for believing that a person within [the house] is in need of immediate aid.” Id. The Government is required to justify its belief regarding “(1) the existence of an emergency and (2) the reason for linking the perceived emergency with the area or place into which [the officers] propose to intrude.” United States v. Martins, 413 F.3d 139 (1st Cir. 2005).

In analyzing the application of this standard to the facts of the case, the Court wrote, “We part ways with the district court’s analysis because the key facts the officers had before entering the trailer indicated that (i) Arline had died and (ii) she was not inside the trailer.” Therefore, the Government failed to carry its burden as a matter of law, the Court held.

Regarding the first prong of the emergency aid analysis—existence of an emergency, the Court explained that “although we well understand the officers’ subjective concerns, on these facts, it was not objectively reasonable for them to enter the home without a warrant, at least not without first speaking to Arline’s available family members.” However, the Court stated that a report of a death (especially one that reportedly occurred at least a day earlier) by itself “does not support a reasonable belief in an urgent, ongoing emergency.” See United States v. Richardson, 208 F.3d 626 (7th Cir. 2000).

The Court reasoned that if “the officers had questions about Arline’s well-being, her adult son and husband were with a police officer, Cpl. Federico, immediately before the warrantless entry and available for questioning.” See Hopkins v. Bonvicino, 573 F.3d 752 (9th Cir. 2009) (“if [police officers] otherwise lack reasonable grounds to believe there is an emergency, they must take additional steps to determine whether there [i]s an emergency that justifie[s] entry in the first place”). The Court instructed that “officers may not ignore obvious and available options for gathering facts to determine if an emergency actually exists.” Thus, the Court concluded that the Government failed to satisfy the first prong because there was no evidence of an ongoing emergency.

Turning to the second prong—police have an objectively reasonable basis to believe that the person in need of aid is in the place they decide to search, the Court determined that “all the available facts indicated that Arline was not in the trailer,” and therefore, they did not have an objectively reasonable basis to believe she was inside the trailer when they decided to enter without a warrant. All the statements provided by Dario indicated she was no longer in the home. Further, “Antonio had been inside the trailer that very morning and had not seen his mother, even though the trailer was not a large home.” Thus, the Court concluded the Government failed to satisfy the second prong.

Because the emergency-aid exception to the warrant requirement did not apply on these facts, the Court held that the warrantless entry into the trailer by police violated Giambro’s Fourth Amendment rights, and because the unlawfully obtained evidence was the sole basis for his conviction, it “cannot stand.” See Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471 (1963).

Accordingly, the Court reversed the District Court’s order denying Giambro’s suppression motion, vacated his conviction, and remanded for proceedings consistent with its opinion. See: United States v. Giambro, 126 F.4th 46 (1st Cir. 2025).

Editor’s note: Anyone interested in the emergency-aid exception to the warrant requirement is strongly encouraged to read the Court’s full opinion, which contains a thorough examination of the case law on this topic.  

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