Detained for Drinking Bleach?
I filed a suppression motion not too long ago in a case involving possession of contraband. Facts were straight forward: Client’s wife had called 911 to report that her husband drank some bleach that she had been using to clean the kitchen. The bleach had been in a coffee mug and… ya. He chose poorly. Moving on, police respond to the house and get told by the wife that client had left the house in his car saying he felt sick. Police drive around looking for him and about 30 minutes later discover his truck parked at a gas station. They pull in and contact client as he’s leaving the store. They ask client what he’s doing and if he’s feeling alright. Client says I’m fine I accidentally drank some bleach. No big deal. Client then tries to get into his truck to leave and one of the officers says he can’t leave. There’s some back and forth and client keeps saying he wants to leave and the officer telling him he needs to stay. I’m not getting the dialogue exactly right. It was all captured on the officer’s body worn camera. Client said he wanted to leave several times and officer told him as many times he had to stay.
After about 90 seconds client says fine whatever I’ll stay then. Officers later discover some contraband and place him under arrest. I moved to suppress the evidence on 4th Amendment grounds arguing that my client’s detention, which was predicated on a report of bleach drinking 30 minutes earlier, was unlawful. Good argument. Let me provide some general background information.
Investigative detentions need to be supported by reasonable and articulable suspicion that the person being detained has committed a crime. If an officer detains someone without any suspicion of criminal activity then evidence later uncovered is usually inadmissible in court. There’s much more to it that I won’t go into, including all kinds of exceptions.
Returning to my case. What was the basis for the detention of my client? Bleach drinking? I don’t think that there was any serious dispute that my client had been detained without reasonable suspicion. So are police allowed to detain you if they think you’ve drank bleach? Can they force you to undergo a medical examination late at night in a gas station parking lot? What does this medical examination entail? As always, it depends. There are these two related doctrines called the community caretaking doctrine and emergency aid doctrine that are implicated here. Emergency aid doctrine is a subcategory of the community caretaking doctrine. Both generally excuse an officer’s 4th Amendment violation if it occurred while trying to save a life or something. Think a gunshot victim bleeding on the floor of an apartment and an officer sees it from outside. That officer can usually go into the home without a warrant in order to render aid to the gunshot victim. Now both of these doctrines - emergency aid and community caretaking - require as a prerequisite, I’m almost certain, the existence of an exigency (or emergency.) I have no problem with any of these doctrines and think that law enforcement should be able to act quickly in emergency situations without concern for the constitution. Wait. That’s a horrible thing to say. I do not think that at all. The Patriot Act? Abu Ghraib? Calling someone an “enemy combatant”? Ok all I’m saying is that under special circumstances it should be permissible for a police officer to go into your house to administer lifesaving aid. I accept that and I want the police to be able to do things like that.
So what did I argue in the bleach case? I argued that the client’s constitutional rights were breached when the police officers told him that he was not free to leave. This breach deepened the more it became obvious to them that my client was totally fine and didn’t need any medical help. Keep in mind: my client drove to the gas station. He parked appropriately parallel to a pump. He went in and made a purchase. He was responsive to the officer’s questions. There were no physical manifestations of bleach… intoxication? This was information all available to the officers at the time too. Therefor the emergency had abated (if you even think an emergency existed in the first place, which I don’t.)
How does this end? Court denied my motion. I think I wrote in my motion that it would not be unpersuasive if a hypothetical DA were to hypothetically argue that because the client was climbing into a truck and getting ready to operate it on a public street, there was an urgent need to make sure that he was safe to drive. So of course the DA does argue that. I think. It was the only argument that could be made. My guess is court found this public safety argument persuasive enough to deny my motion. I can sort of live with that if I squint hard enough. Maybe. No, not really.
Do not drink bleach.
