Opinion

YOUNG, C.J.

In this case, we are called upon to determine whether the community caretaking exception to the Fourth Amendment's requirement that a warrant be obtained before a residence can be entered applies to a first-response firefighter answering a 911 call and, if so, whether the firefighter's entry into defendant's residence was reasonable in the instant case. We conclude that the community caretaking exception applies to firefighters no less than to police officers when they are responding to emergency situations that threaten life or property. We also conclude that the firefighter's actions in this case were reasonable, thus satisfying the community caretaking exception to the warrant requirement. Accordingly, we reverse the decision of the circuit court and the Court of Appeals' judgment and remand this case to the circuit court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Defendant, Mark Slaughter, resided in a townhouse in Royal Oak, Michigan.1 In May 2007, defendant's neighbor, Kathleen Tunner, saw water running down her basement wall and over her electrical box. She also heard water flowing behind that wall, which adjoined defendant's townhouse.2 Tunner attempted to locate defendant by knocking on his door, but he was not home. She then called her townhouse management company in a further attempt to locate defendant. After this attempt failed, Tunner dialed 911. The city of Royal Oak dispatched several firefighters to the townhouse, including Lieutenant Michael Schunck. After consulting with Tunner about her emergency call, Schunck entered defendant's residence. When he went to the basement to shut off defendant's water and to assess whether any additional measures needed to be taken to prevent a fire, Schunck observed, in plain view, grow lights and several dozen plants that appeared to be marijuana. He then reported what he saw to the Royal Oak police.

The Royal Oak Police Department dispatched an officer to secure defendant's townhouse while another officer procured a search warrant. After entering defendant's townhouse, officers seized 48 marijuana plants, grow lights, a watering system, defendant's state identification card, books on marijuana horticulture, packaging material, and other drug paraphernalia.

Defendant was charged with manufacturing with the intent to deliver more than 20 but fewer than 200 marijuana plants.3 The district court bound defendant over as charged, notwithstanding defendant's claims that the firefighter's entry into the townhouse violated his Fourth Amendment rights and that he did not exercise dominion and control over the seized marijuana plants.

Although defendant did not appeal the bindover decision, he subsequently filed a pretrial motion to suppress in the circuit court. After hearing testimony and oral argument, the court granted the motion in a written opinion and order. The circuit court concluded that Lieutenant Schunck "did not attempt to hear or see for himself what was causing the problem [that led Tunner to dial 911], nor did he attempt to verify the existence of running water in the wall prior to entering the defendant's home." The circuit court also observed that Schunck had indicated that "he would have entered the apartment even if he had shut off the water and/or electrical from the outside" because "he has to investigate the [911] calls to the fullest extent possible. . . ."

The circuit court applied this Court's decision in People v. Tyler4 and the United States Supreme Court's decision in Camara v. Muni. Court of City & Co. of San Francisco5 in concluding that firefighters are required to procure a warrant before entering a building "to prevent a fire from occurring. . . ." Furthermore, it relied on the fact that this Court's decision in People v. Davis,6 which articulated the community caretaking exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement, did not contain "anything related to the investigation of a possible fire hazard." Accordingly, the court ruled that the firefighters could not avail themselves of the community caretaking exception.

The Court of Appeals affirmed the circuit court's ruling in a split, unpublished decision, albeit on alternative grounds.7 First, the majority determined, contrary to the circuit court's decision, that the community caretaking exception can apply to searches performed by first-response firefighters to abate a possible fire hazard. However, the majority explained that "the record permits the conclusion that the firefighters were simply too quick to enter into defendant's unit and failed to investigate the complaint" before entering defendant's residence.8 Thus, the majority concluded that "there are too many outstanding questions to conclude whether the firefighters acted reasonably" and, therefore, that the circuit court had properly granted the motion to suppress.9

The dissenting judge agreed with the majority that first-response firefighters can avail themselves of the community caretaking exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement. The dissenting judge, however, concluded that the firefighters had acted reasonably in the instant case, indicating that "[t]he firefighters were faced with a possible emergency situation and they needed to make quick judgments about what to do in order to avoid a potential fire."10

This Court granted the prosecutor's application for leave to appeal and ordered the parties to brief whether

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

A court's factual findings at a suppression hearing are reviewed for clear error, but the application of the underlying law—the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution and article 1, § 11 of the Michigan Constitution—is reviewed de novo.12

III. ANALYSIS

A. FOURTH AMENDMENT PRINCIPLES

The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution guarantees every person's right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures and provides, in its entirety:

Similarly, article 1, § 11 of the Michigan Constitution provides, in relevant part:

This Court has ruled that the Michigan Constitution "is to be construed to provide the same protection as that secured by the Fourth Amendment, absent `compelling reason' to impose a different interpretation."14

Although the entry into defendant's residence was warrantless, "[u]nder the common law and agreeably to the Constitution search may in many cases be legally made without a warrant. The Constitution does not forbid search, as some parties contend, but it does forbid unreasonable search."15 While many warrantless searches are unreasonable pursuant to the warrant requirement,16 the United States Supreme Court has articulated several instances in which warrantless searches are reasonable. These include searches of automobiles,17 searches incident to contemporaneous lawful arrests,18 inventory searches conducted according to established procedure,19 searches conducted during exigent circumstances,20 and searches the police undertake as part of their "community caretaking" function.21

The instant case involves only the last circumstance listed—searches undertaken as part of a community caretaking function—and requires this Court to determine the scope of that community caretaking exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement. Because it is uncontested that the initial search of defendant's residence was warrantless, we must determine whether the community caretaking exception to the warrant requirement applies.

B. THE COMMUNITY CARETAKING EXCEPTION

The United States Supreme Court first recognized the community caretaking exception to the warrant requirement in Cady v. Dombrowski, which involved the constitutionality of the search of the trunk of an out-of-town police officer's automobile.22 The police officer was hospitalized after a serious automobile accident, and local police officers arriving on the scene of the accident directed that the injured officer's vehicle be towed to a private garage. Because the private garage was unsecured, local police sought to locate and safeguard the injured officer's service revolver. After failing to find the revolver on the officer's person or in the glove compartment of the vehicle, officers searched the vehicle's trunk and discovered the revolver, along with evidence of a murder.23

Before addressing the legality of the search, the Court explained that police officers often perform certain duties independent of their duty to investigate crimes:

In considering the case before it, the Cady Court determined that the officers had acted not to investigate a crime, but out of "concern for the safety of the general public who might be endangered if an intruder removed a revolver from the trunk of the vehicle."25 The Court concluded that searches conducted to further these community caretaking functions do not necessarily require a warrant in order to be reasonable. Once it had determined that the search was not conducted pursuant to an investigation, the Court analyzed the reasonableness of the search within the scope of the officers' community caretaking functions: the officers "were simply reacting to the effect of an accident-one of the recurring practical situations that results from the operation of motor vehicles and with which local police officers must deal every day."26 In the end, the Court held that the warrantless search was a reasonable exercise of the officers' community caretaking functions and concluded that their search of the vehicle did not violate the Fourth Amendment:

This Court has recognized the community caretaking exception as applicable under Michigan law. In People v. Davis, we explained:

Davis further explained that, because "[c]ommunity caretaking activities are varied and are performed for different reasons,"29 not all conduct that falls within the police's community caretaking functions can be judged equally. Indeed, shortly after issuing the Davis decision, this Court listed several additional types of intrusions that courts have justified pursuant to the exercise of community caretaking functions:

Accordingly, courts must consider the reasons that officers are undertaking their community caretaking functions, as well as "the level[] of intrusion the police make while performing these functions," when determining whether a particular intrusion to perform a community caretaking function is reasonable.31 For instance, "a police inventory of a car is much less intrusive than a police entry into a dwelling."32 This is because the privacy of the home stands "`[a]t the very core'"33 of the Fourth Amendment and because "[i]n [no setting] is the zone of privacy more clearly defined than when bounded by the unambiguous physical dimensions of an individual's home. . . ."34 Thus, the threshold of reasonableness is at its apex when police enter a dwelling pursuant to their community caretaking functions.

C. FIREFIGHTERS AND THE COMMUNITY CARETAKING EXCEPTION

This Court asked the parties to brief whether the community caretaking exception to the warrant requirement applies to firefighters' actions. We conclude that the community caretaking exception to the warrant requirement applies when a firefighter, responding to an emergency call involving a threat to life or property, reasonably enters a private residence in order to abate what is reasonably believed to be an imminent threat of fire inside. Therefore, once it is determined that a firefighter's entry into a private residence was an exercise of community caretaking functions, and not an exercise of investigative functions, we must consider the reasonableness of the entry within the context of that community caretaking purpose.

United States Supreme Court caselaw specifically pertaining to firefighters supports this conclusion. In Michigan v. Tyler, the Court concluded that "the Fourth Amendment extends beyond the paradigmatic entry into a private dwelling by a law enforcement officer in search of the fruits or instrumentalities of crime."35 Indeed, "there is no diminution in a person's reasonable expectation of privacy nor in the protection of the Fourth Amendment simply because the official conducting the search wears the uniform of a firefighter rather than a policeman . . . ."36

The principle most relevant to this case from those decisions applying the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement to firefighters is that the Fourth Amendment applies equally to police officers and firefighters. It thus follows that if a police officer can avail himself of an exception to the warrant requirement, a firefighter can likewise avail himself of an exception if the circumstances permit. Indeed, Tyler is premised on just that principle: that the exceptions to the warrant requirement apply no less to firefighters than to police officers who have responded to 911 calls requiring imminent action to prevent harm to persons or property.

Like decisions applying the community caretaking exception to police officers' actions, Tyler distinguished a firefighter's community caretaking functions from his investigative functions.37 As a general rule, "official entries to investigate the cause of a fire must adhere to the warrant procedures of the Fourth Amendment."38 Nevertheless, "it would defy reason to suppose that firemen must secure a warrant or consent before entering a burning structure to put out the blaze. And once in a building for this purpose, firefighters may seize evidence of arson that is in plain view."39 In short, under Tyler, the purpose of a firefighter's initial entry into a building is crucial in determining whether a warrant is required for that entry.

The Tyler Court's application of the Fourth Amendment to firefighters fits directly into the purposes of the community caretaking exception. Thus, as Cady and Tyler illustrate, we must analyze the reasonableness of the initial intrusion in light of the scope of the intrusion and the firefighter's purpose in entering the residence. If the purpose of a firefighter's initial entry into a private residence is to abate an imminent threat of fire, then a warrantless entry is lawful under the Fourth Amendment as long as it is reasonable. Contrarily, if the purpose of a firefighter's entry is solely to investigate a crime, then a warrant is required unless a different exception to the warrant requirement applies. Tyler's holding and rationale lead inexorably to the conclusion that the community caretaking exception applies to firefighters. Therefore, we hold that the community caretaking exception applies to firefighters.40

Application of the community caretaking exception does not provide firefighters with a blank check to enter private residences; rather, it only authorizes reasonable intrusions. Because "[c]ommunity caretaking functions are varied and are performed for different reasons,"41 reviewing courts must tailor their analysis to the specifics of a particular intrusion before determining whether it is reasonable. Although neither Michigan caselaw nor that of the United States Supreme Court has specifically analyzed what factors affect whether a firefighter's intrusion into a private residence is reasonable, there is ample authority within the caselaw applying specific factors in related circumstances that allows this Court to articulate the standards that both protect individuals' Fourth Amendment rights and allow firefighters to perform their duty to abate serious fire hazards.

As stated, the privacy of the home stands at the very core of the Fourth Amendment's protections, and the zone of privacy is most clearly defined "when bounded by the unambiguous physical dimensions of an individual's home."42 In determining whether firefighters acted reasonably in entering an individual's home, a reviewing court must first consider the firefighters' basis for making the intrusion—namely, whether, acting in good faith,43 they "possess[ed] specific and articulable facts" leading them to the conclusion that their actions were necessary to abate an imminent threat of fire inside the private residence.44 Their belief in the necessity of their intrusion need not be "ironclad," only "reasonable."45 Furthermore, courts must not engage in a "hindsight determination" that an entry is unreasonable simply because no imminent hazard actually existed.46 Rather, courts must determine whether an entry was reasonable on the basis of the circumstances known to the firefighters at the time of entry.47

Next, courts should consider the scope of the entry, which "must be limited to the justification therefor" and may not extend beyond what "is reasonably necessary to determine" whether the imminent threat of fire exists inside the private residence.48 If firefighters do, in fact, find such a threat inside the residence, they may "remain in [the] building for a reasonable time" to abate the hazard and to "investigate [its] cause," because investigating the cause of the hazard "may be necessary to prevent its recurrence."49

Finally, in determining whether a particular entry is reasonably necessary, firefighters are not constrained to follow the least intrusive means of abating the imminent threat of fire. Indeed, that firefighters could have abated the fire hazard "by `less intrusive' means does not, by itself, render the search unreasonable."50 Rather, reviewing courts must consider whether the means and scope of entry were themselves reasonable under the totality of circumstances, not whether they were perfect.

D. APPLICATION

Because the community caretaking exception is not a blank check for warrantless entry by firefighters, we apply the foregoing analysis to determine whether the firefighters' entry into defendant's residence was reasonable.

As stated, we must first analyze the firefighters' basis for entering defendant's private residence. The circuit court's findings of fact are relevant here and are not clearly erroneous:

At no point did the circuit court indicate that it disbelieved Schunck's testimony. Schunck also testified that he shut off the water to defendant's townhouse and that he did so from the basement of defendant's townhouse.

It is clear from Schunck's testimony that he acted in good faith. There is no indication that his entry into defendant's residence was pretextual, and only upon entering defendant's basement to shut off the water to defendant's residence did Schunck see what appeared to be contraband in plain view.

Of course, good faith alone is not sufficient to satisfy the requirements of the Fourth Amendment; firefighters must "possess specific and articulable facts" leading them to the conclusion that their imminent action is necessary to abate the threat to persons or property inside the private residence.51 In this case, Schunck knew of the 911 call and the information it contained. Moreover, he spoke with Tunner, who reported that she saw water coming into her basement from the wall that she shared with defendant and that she heard water flowing behind that wall.52 Schunck had no reason to disbelieve Tunner's assertion, although there was no evidence that he corroborated Tunner's statement by witnessing or hearing the water himself. Nevertheless, Tunner's report of water leakage next to her electrical box was specific and articulable evidence supporting Schunck's conclusion that his imminent action was necessary to abate a condition inside defendant's residence that he reasonably believed was a threat to persons or property.

Furthermore, the fact that the townhouse complex contained several units attached to each other elevated the imminence of the potential hazard. Schunck explained that the attached units were "real close together" and that they "share[d] electrical panels in the basement at the bottom of these [common] walls." Moreover, because a "high density" of people lived in "all [the] connected apartments," Schunck explained that "a definite life hazard and possible structur[al] fire type situation" existed. These facts further supported Schunck's decision to enter defendant's residence.

We conclude that, in assessing whether an entry was reasonable, courts must also determine whether the scope of the entry was "limited to the justification therefor" or whether it extended beyond what was "reasonably necessary" to abate the hazard inside the private residence.53 In this case, Schunck entered defendant's townhouse by having one of his crew enter the townhouse through a window in order to let him enter through the front door. Moreover, Schunck shut off the water to defendant's townhouse from the basement, which was where Tunner believed the water was flowing and where Schunck found, in plain view, the plants he believed to be contraband.54 Therefore, the extent of Schunck's entry and search of defendant's residence was limited to the area of the residence that the available information indicated was the location of the hazard.

The Court of Appeals panel determined that Schunck entered without considering alternative, less intrusive means of abating the hazard. This kind of post hoc analysis is inconsistent with the principles for assessing the reasonableness of entry that we announce today.

Although it was possible for Schunck to turn off the water from outside defendant's residence, several facts led Schunck to the conclusion that actual entry into defendant's residence was necessary. First, because defendant's residence was physically attached to several other units, Schunck sought to minimize disruption to defendant's neighbors. Schunck believed that turning off defendant's water from outside the unit would have shut off the water to the entire complex. Generally, he testified, the fire department "isolate[s] the individual problem in the apartment and shut[s] [the water] off from the inside." Second, even if he had turned off the water to defendant's residence from the outside, Schunck testified that "[t]here's no question" he would have still entered the residence because, as an agent of the city of Royal Oak, he needed to be sure the situation was "totally safe." Accordingly, there is no indication that Schunck's entry exceeded what he thought necessary to abate what he believed to be the fire hazard inside defendant's townhouse.

On the basis of all these facts, we conclude that Schunck acted reasonably in entering defendant's residence pursuant to an emergency call. The Fourth Amendment does not prevent firefighters responding to emergency calls from undertaking their duty to protect the public from imminent danger. However, we emphasize that the Fourth Amendment does not give firefighters a blank check to enter and search private residences, and we caution reviewing courts to apply these principles carefully in order to ensure the appropriate protection of private residences under the Fourth Amendment. The Fourth Amendment strikes a careful balance, as seen in the instant case, between a citizen's reasonable expectation of privacy with his similarly reasonable expectation that emergency personnel will act swiftly to protect his residence from the threat to persons or property therein.

E. RESPONSE TO THE DISSENT

In addition to the responses made to the dissent throughout this opinion, we offer the following general discussion of the dissent's criticisms of our holding.

One of the recurring themes of the dissent is that this opinion does not address how the various community caretaking functions fit within the Fourth Amendment. The response to this criticism is simple: this case only addresses how to apply the Fourth Amendment when a firefighter enters a private residence that he believes to be under the imminent threat of fire. We leave all other variants and all other applications of the community caretaking exception for another day.

For this reason alone, the dissent's criticism of this opinion for "not wad[ing] into [the] judicial morass" of the distinctions among the community caretaking doctrine, the emergency doctrine, and the emergency aid doctrine is off the mark. Moreover, the dissent's understanding of these doctrines is needlessly complex because it characterizes them as separate and distinct exceptions to the warrant requirement, rather than as aspects of the community caretaking exception.55 Readers can judge for themselves whether this opinion thoroughly examined the law relevant to deciding this case. The central purpose of a state court of last resort is not merely to bemoan that "the scope of [the community caretaking] exception[ ] is far from clear,"56 but to establish clear principles of law, consistent with the Constitution, that subsequent courts can apply as the facts of any particular case dictate.

By contrast, the dissent would further muddle Fourth Amendment doctrine by deriving several separate exceptions to the warrant requirement based on the exercise of community caretaking functions. But if there is anything clear from the United States Supreme Court's articulation of the community caretaking exception, it is that actions pursuant to community caretaking functions qualitatively differ from actions pursuant to criminal investigations. This is the central basis for today's holding.

The dissent would also hold that the community caretaking exception does not apply to entry into private residences. A central part of the dissent's rationale appears to be that because the decision identifying the community caretaking exception, Cady v. Dombrowski, "included language that sharply distinguished automobile searches from searches of private residences," the exception cannot encompass searches of private residences. However, the dissent can identify no United States Supreme Court decision that rejected the application of the community caretaking exception to private residences. Indeed, the dissent admits, in its discussion of the "emergency" and "emergency aid" exceptions, that firefighters acting pursuant to their community caretaking functions may, under certain circumstances, enter a private residence.

The dissent claims that this opinion "extinguishes the emergency and emergency-aid exceptions to the warrant requirement in Michigan . . . ."57 Far from it. We recognize that these different aspects of the community caretaking exception apply the exception to specific circumstances. Our opinion today merely recognizes that in all these circumstances, we must apply the standard of reasonableness that governs all Fourth Amendment cases.58 Thus, while different circumstances will lead to different conclusions regarding the reasonableness of a particular search,59 we are only constitutionally required to forbid unreasonable searches.

The reasonableness of the instant entry turns on the fact that the responding firefighters believed that there existed the imminent threat of an electrical fire in defendant's residence.60 The firefighters reasonably believed that the danger posed an imminent threat to property or life, and they acted reasonably in abating that threat.

IV. CONCLUSION

We conclude that the community caretaking exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement applies no less to firefighters than to police officers engaged in abating emergency conditions that concern the protection of life and property. Thus, first-response firefighters may avail themselves of the community caretaking exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement. In this case, the firefighter entered defendant's residence in order to abate what he reasonably believed was the imminent threat of a serious electrical fire. We conclude that he acted reasonably in doing so and that, accordingly, the circuit court and the Court of Appeals majority erroneously suppressed the evidence he discovered in plain view during this entry. We therefore reverse the circuit court's decision and the Court of Appeals judgment and remand this case to the circuit court for entry of an order denying defendant's motion to suppress and for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. We do not retain jurisdiction.

STEPHEN J. MARKMAN, DIANE M. HATHAWAY, MARY BETH KELLY and BRIAN K. ZAHRA, JJ., concur.

MARILYN J. KELLY, J. (dissenting).

In my view, the majority's decision today extends the community-caretaking exception to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement beyond discernable limitation. Therefore, I respectfully dissent.

I would affirm the Court of Appeals' judgment, which affirmed the trial court's decision to grant defendant's motion to suppress. However, I would do so based on a different analysis than that used by the Court of Appeals. Consistently with many other courts that have considered the issue, I would hold that the community-caretaking exception to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement cannot justify a warrantless entry into a private residence. Because the majority concludes otherwise without a sufficient legal basis for doing so, I cannot join its opinion.

I. LEGAL BACKGROUND

The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution protects the people from unreasonable searches and seizures.1 The Michigan Constitution contains a similar protection.2 Both constitutional provisions require a warrant supported by probable cause for searches and seizures to be reasonable, and therefore constitutional, unless an exception to the warrant requirement applies.3

A person's home is entitled to the most heightened Fourth Amendment protection.4 Thus, a warrantless entry into a home is presumptively unreasonable.5 It violates the Fourth Amendment unless an exception to the warrant requirement exists.

A. EXCEPTIONS TO THE WARRANT REQUIREMENT GENERALLY

Exceptions to the warrant requirement generally relate to two important functions of law enforcement and other state actors: criminal-investigation functions and so-called "community-caretaking" functions. The exceptions for criminal-investigation functions exist because sometimes obtaining a warrant is impracticable due to the need to act expeditiously when investigating criminal activity.

Such exceptions include searches incident to lawful arrests6 and searches conducted because of the existence of exigent circumstances, for instance, when the police are pursuing a fleeing felon.7 Neither party to this case asserts that the warrantless entry into defendant's home occurred in the course of investigating criminal activity. Thus, none of the warrant exceptions under the criminal-investigation umbrella justify the entry.

Other exceptions to the warrant requirement further the government's interest in protecting individuals or the general public from harm. These exceptions relate to the community-caretaking functions of state actors. They are "totally divorced from the detection, investigation, or acquisition of evidence relating to the violation of a criminal statute."8 For example, an official's community-caretaking functions justify the inventory exception to the warrant requirement, which allows searches conducted according to established police procedures.9 Community-caretaking functions also include the administration of emergency aid,10 which provides another exception to the warrant requirement.

The firefighters in this case were investigating a potential water leak and electrical problem,11 which is "totally divorced" from any criminal investigation. However, several of the exceptions to the warrant requirement that form part of the government's community-caretaking functions are implicated under the facts of the instant case.

Yet determining that this case implicates the community-caretaking functions of governmental actors answers only the beginning of the inquiry. As previously stated, the community-caretaking function is the foundational premise for several exceptions to the warrant requirement. Three such exceptions are significant to this case and will be discussed herein: the general community-caretaking exception, the emergency exception,12 and the emergency-aid exception.

In discussing these exceptions, one essential distinction is paramount. Although all the exceptions fall under the rubric of an official's community-caretaking functions, they involve different circumstances, and different standards are used in assessing their application.13 Thus, although the exercise of community-caretaking functions involves many different factual circumstances, warrantless entries pursuant to the community-caretaking exception are justified in only a narrow subset of those circumstances.

B. THE "COMMUNITY-CARETAKING," "EMERGENCY," AND "EMERGENCY-AID" EXCEPTIONS

As the majority correctly states, one exception to the warrant requirement is the search of a vehicle conducted as part of a police officer's community-caretaking functions.14 This exception, first established in Cady v. Dombrowski, is commonly referred to as the community-caretaking exception to the warrant requirement.15

A related exception also involves the exercise of community-caretaking functions, but is grounded on the need for immediate action by police or firefighters to address emergency situations.16 This exception is sometimes subdivided into the emergency exception and the emergency-aid exception.17

Unfortunately, the scope of these exceptions is far from clear. Consequently, courts across the country have rendered vastly different decisions about the proper application of the community-caretaking, emergency, and emergency-aid exceptions.18 These anomalous results stem primarily from conflicting nomenclature

However, in Davis, this Court made clear that the exigent-circumstances exception involves actions pursuant to criminal investigation. Davis, 442 Mich. at 24, 497 N.W.2d 910. As previously noted, it is undisputed that the entry in this case did not occur in the course of an investigation of criminal activity. regarding the exceptions.19 The South Dakota Supreme Court recently summarized this confusion:

Pursuant to Michigan v. Tyler and Brigham City v. Stuart,21 it is well settled that police and firefighters may enter a private residence without a warrant in emergency circumstances. Such circumstances include, at a minimum, responding to a fire in progress and assisting injured persons in need of medical treatment.22 However, the law remains unclear regarding the proper application of the warrant exception to actions conducted pursuant to community-caretaking functions that are not in response to an emergency situation. The United States Supreme Court has not seen fit to extend the community-caretaking exception established in Cady beyond the context of automobile searches. This, in my view, should be the starting point for the Court's analysis in this case.

II. ANALYSIS

The majority does not wade into this judicial morass. Instead, it ignores it, proceeding as if the law is clear and dictates its result. In so doing, it does precisely what State v. Deneui cautioned against: creating contradictory and conflicting doctrines using inconsistent language.23

For example, the majority proclaims that "the community caretaking exception applies to firefighters . . . when they are responding to emergency situations that threaten life or property."24 This is a correct characterization of the scope of the emergency exception to the warrant requirement, not of the community-caretaking exception.

However, the majority also states that, as long as the entry was "an exercise of [the state actor's] community caretaking functions," courts need assess only the reasonableness of the entry.25 This suggests that a firefighter's entry into a residence pursuant to a community-caretaking function absent any imminent threat would be sanctioned as long as a court determines the entry was reasonable. This standard could conceivably be characterized as a wholly independent community-caretaking exception along the lines of that created by the United States Supreme Court in Cady.

However, the majority lacks an adequate legal basis for extending the community-caretaking exception discussed in Cady to entries of residences generally and to the facts of this case specifically. The majority relies almost exclusively on the United States Supreme Court decision in Tyler and our decision in People v. Davis.26 As I will explain, the majority's reliance on those decisions is unfortunate. Tyler is of nominal usefulness, and Davis suggests a result opposite to that reached by the majority.

A. DOES THE COMMUNITY-CARETAKING EXCEPTION JUSTIFY WARRANTLESS ENTRIES INTO PRIVATE RESIDENCES?

The majority recognizes that the privacy of the home stands at the very core of the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. But it assumes without analysis that warrantless entries into a private residence to engage in community-caretaking functions are permissible if reasonable.27 I cannot agree. The majority's conclusion assumes, without deciding, what should be the threshold question.

1. TYLER DOES NOT SUPPORT THE MAJORITY'S HOLDING

The United States Supreme Court's decision in Tyler did not cite or discuss Cady, the seminal case that created the community-caretaking exception. Nor do the words "community caretaking" appear anywhere in Tyler. Rather, Tyler is typically viewed as involving the emergency exception to the warrant requirement.28 Yet the majority uses Tyler as a central basis for its holding interpreting a warrant exception that Tyler never mentioned. Reliance on a case involving one exception to the warrant requirement to formulate the parameters of another exception to the warrant requirement is erroneous.29

Tyler held that "[a] burning building clearly presents an exigency of sufficient proportions to render a warrantless entry `reasonable.'"30 Courts construing Tyler have generally read this exception to the warrant requirement narrowly, confining it to situations involving an imminent need for police intervention to protect life or property.31 Many courts have also noted that the critical inquiry is "whether there is a `true immediacy' that absolves an officer from the need to apply for a warrant and receive approval from an impartial magistrate."32

Thus, Tyler provides a basis for concluding that firefighters may enter onto property without a warrant under emergency circumstances, such as to fight a fire in progress. However, the majority reads more into Tyler by concluding that it "lead[s] inexorably to the conclusion that the community caretaking exception applies to firefighters."33 This conclusion is simply wrong. It stretches Tyler's holding far beyond what that opinion actually said. In fact, Tyler only leads "inexorably" to the conclusion that firefighters may enter a burning building in order to fight a fire in progress.

Because Tyler did not discuss the community-caretaking exception, much less establish rules for its application, the majority should not have placed such reliance on it. Finally, as I explain later, I do not believe that the prosecution in this case established a factual record that justified a warrantless entry under any exception to the warrant requirement.34

2. DAVIS DOES NOT SUPPORT THE MAJORITY'S DECISION

With Tyler properly limited to emergency situations, the majority opinion is left to relying solely on our decision in Davis. But Davis does not support it either.

Davis explicitly stated that its holding was based on the emergency-aid exception, not the community-caretaking exception.35 Thus, its discussion of the broader community-caretaking exception is dicta and is not binding on this Court. Nonetheless, to the extent that Davis is informative here, it points to a result the opposite of that reached by the majority.

Davis involved the warrantless entry of a hotel room by police officers after they received reports of gunshots being fired. In its discussion of community-caretaking functions, the Court was extremely careful to note the significant difference in privacy interests between a car and a dwelling.36 The Davis Court ultimately held that the warrantless entry in that case could not be justified under the emergency-aid exception.37 Once the Davis Court so held, it did not make an independent community-caretaking analysis to determine whether the warrantless entry could be justified on that basis.

Hence, Davis created a sliding scale for assessing the reasonableness of searches undertaken on the basis of community-caretaking functions. Because of the greater Fourth Amendment protections afforded to residences, there are few community-caretaking functions that would justify a warrantless search of a residence under Davis. Only when governmental officials act to address an emergency and their actions meet the standard for the emergency or emergency-aid exceptions is a warrantless entry into a home proper.38

Two Michigan cases, People v. Toohey and People v. Krezen, have discussed the community-caretaking function of police officers in upholding automobile searches under the inventory exception to the warrant requirement.39 The Toohey Court surveyed the United States Supreme Court's decisions in Cady and South Dakota v. Opperman.40 It noted that inventory searches of automobiles satisfy the Fourth Amendment's "reasonableness" requirement if they are "conducted pursuant to standardized police procedure. . . ."41 Although Toohey and Krezen discussed the community-caretaking functions of the police in impounding automobiles, neither decision discussed an independent community-caretaking exception to the warrant requirement.

In sum, no decision from this Court has expressly defined the parameters of a community-caretaking exception to the warrant requirement. Krezen, Toohey, City of Troy v. Ohlinger, and Davis all discussed the community-caretaking functions of law enforcement officers.42 But in none of those cases did the Court uphold a warrantless entry or search on the basis of the community-caretaking exception. Rather, the Krezen and Toohey decisions relied on the inventory exception. The Ohlinger and Davis decisions relied on, and fashioned a test for the application of, the emergency-aid exception. Therefore, this Court has no controlling authority on point.

3. SURVEY OF OTHER JURISDICTIONS

Tyler and Davis do not support, much less mandate, the majority's result. Because there is no controlling Michigan authority, I turn to other jurisdictions for guidance. Many courts have observed that the Cady decision included language that sharply distinguished automobile searches from searches of private residences.43 Therefore, they have limited the community-caretaking exception solely to the former.44 Recently, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit joined the majority of other federal circuits and adopted this approach:

Numerous other courts have tacitly rejected extending the community-caretaking exception to warrantless entries into private residences.46 Similarly, others have evaluated the warrantless entry under the emergency or emergency-aid exceptions only and, finding them inapplicable, declared the entry unconstitutional without considering a broader community-caretaking exception.47

Cases from jurisdictions in which the courts have ostensibly permitted warrantless entries into private residences pursuant to the community-caretaking exception are also instructive. For example, in United States v. Quezada,48 the Eighth Circuit upheld a warrantless entry into the defendant's apartment. The Quezada Court stated that "[a] police officer may enter a residence without a warrant as a community caretaker where the officer has a reasonable belief that an emergency exists requiring his or her attention."49

Thus, the warrantless entry in that case, like the entries in Tyler and Mincey v. Arizona, was premised on an emergency situation, not simply that the officer was acting in a community-caretaking capacity.50 Many other cases that purportedly allowed warrantless entries into homes under the community-caretaking exception similarly relied on the fact that an emergency situation was involved.51

Cases like Quezada persuasively illustrate how the law pertaining to the community-caretaking exception, the emergency exception, and the emergency-aid exception are often muddled. Courts often confuse a police officer's actions pursuant to a community-caretaking function with the community-caretaking exception to the warrant requirement. Moreover, these cases also reveal the dearth of authority for a community-caretaking exception to the warrant requirement that applies to homes independently of the emergency or emergency-aid exceptions.

The majority ignores all of this and assumes, without really deciding the issue, that community-caretaking duties can justify a warrantless entry into a private residence. This assumption is precariously based, given the dearth of authority to support it. I would hold that, to the extent an independent community-caretaking exception to the warrant requirement may be recognized in Michigan, it cannot justify a warrantless entry into a private residence. Rather, such entries must be justified by another exception, such as the emergency or emergency-aid exceptions discussed in Tyler and Davis.

4. THE MAJORITY'S MISCONSTRUCTION OF FOURTH AMENDMENT PROTECTIONS

The majority's articulation of the general legal principles applicable to this case is generally accurate. For example, I do not dispute that the touchstone of Fourth Amendment analysis is reasonableness. The problem is that the majority opinion restricts itself to general legal principles. Indeed, a simple reason exists why the majority does not answer my refutation of Tyler and Davis as a basis for its holding or my discussion of the other caselaw: it cannot. Instead, it attempts to distract from this failure by dismissing my opinion as "bemoan[ing]" the state of the law in this area.52 The majority also claims that my approach would "further muddle Fourth Amendment doctrine. . . ."53 To the contrary, my analysis fully examines and evaluates the existing nuances in Fourth Amendment doctrine recognized by courts across the country, including this one. Such nuances are lost on the majority.

If, as the majority asserts, my understanding of these nuances is "needlessly complex,"54 so too is the understanding of countless other judges and commentators. Contrary to the majority's assertion, the emergency and emergency-aid exceptions are not merely "aspects" of the community-caretaking exception.55 As previously explained, the community-caretaking functions of police and other state actors provide the basis for several distinct exceptions to the warrant requirement. These exceptions include the inventory exception, the emergency exception, and the emergency-aid exception.56 Each exception is subject to a different standard for assessing whether a warrantless entry or search conducted pursuant to that exception was reasonable.57

The majority opinion falls short because it creates out of whole cloth a previously unrecognized community-caretaking exception to the warrant requirement. Its wholly unsupported decision not only to adopt that exception but to extend it to warrantless entries into private residences compounds this error. Moreover, the majority refuses to recognize that its stated standard for this new exception is the essence of the standard for the emergency exception to the warrant requirement. Implicit in this failure is the inevitable conclusion that, under the majority's new exception, warrantless entries into a home to perform nonemergency community-caretaking functions can be reasonable.58

In sum, the majority's opinion today (1) extinguishes the emergency and emergency-aid exceptions to the warrant requirement in Michigan by creating a broader community-caretaking exception with no discernable limitation,59 (2) exposes the perils of distilling broad Fourth Amendment principles from inapposite authority and without comprehensive analysis, (3) pays only lip service to United States Supreme Court precedent emphasizing the difference between the home and a vehicle,60 (4) ignores the United States Supreme Court's admonition that the warrant requirement is subject only to specifically established and well-delineated exceptions,61 (5) directly contravenes Davis by applying a general reasonableness standard to all warrantless entries carried out to perform community-caretaking functions,62 and (6) fails to explain which community-caretaking functions, beyond responding to an emergency or administering emergency aid, would reasonably justify a warrantless entry into a home.63

B. DOES THE COMMUNITY-CARETAKING EXCEPTION APPLY TO FIREFIGHTERS?

This portion of the majority's holding is unique.64 No jurisdiction has extended the community-caretaking exception to the warrant requirement to firefighters.

As previously mentioned, Tyler established that firefighters are entitled to enter private residences without a warrant in emergency situations, including fighting a blazing fire. Stuart makes clear that police may enter homes to render emergency aid to someone inside in clear need of medical treatment.65 Both of these exceptions are subsumed within the broader rubric of community-caretaking functions.

Because I would not allow the community-caretaking exception to justify warrantless entries into private residences by any state actors, I would not reach this issue. However, under the majority's broad new community-caretaking exception, firefighters and police officers may effectively enter private residences at any time and for virtually any reason without a warrant.

C. APPLICATION TO THIS CASE

Under existing law, the firefighters in this case were permitted to enter defendant's townhouse only to combat an ongoing emergency. The thin factual record precludes the conclusion that a reasonable person could have believed that an emergency existed in defendant's townhouse. At best, the facts establish that a potential fire threat existed in the townhouse neighboring defendant's, which belonged to Kathleen Tunner.

The only facts that the firefighters responding to Tunner's phone call knew when they entered defendant's home were that (1) Tunner had observed water running over her electrical box and (2) she thought that she heard water running between the common wall her townhouse shared with defendant's townhouse. As the majority observes, Royal Oak Fire Department Lieutenant Michael Schunck testified that he did not independently confirm that water was running in Tunner's home. Hence, he did nothing to respond to the only possible emergency of which he was aware when he arrived-a potential fire hazard in Tunner's townhouse.66

In concluding to the contrary, the majority discounts the legal principle that a warrantless entry into a home is presumptively unreasonable.67 The government bears the burden of proving that a "`carefully delineated'" exception to the warrant requirement applies.68

Indeed, the facts justifying the entry in this case are significantly less compelling than those present in Davis. In Davis, the police had received a radio dispatch informing them that the manager at a motel had reported hearing gunshots fired in or near one of two motel rooms. The dispatcher identified two possible rooms and directed police officers to a possible witness, but did not suggest that any person was injured. With this dispatch as their only source of information, the police arrived at the motel and proceeded to one of the two rooms. Once there, they encountered an occupant who was unwilling to open the door.

Notably, the police had not themselves heard shots fired. Nor did they interview any witnesses who heard them, not even the desk clerk, whom the dispatcher had identified as the source of the information. The initial source of information gave very little detail about the situation. The record did not indicate that the police made inquiries of the manager who approached them or that they knocked on other doors. They encountered no circumstances that suggested that shots had in fact been fired. Under these facts, the Davis Court unanimously refused to apply the emergency-aid exception to uphold the warrantless entry.

Thus, Davis involved a situation in which gunshots had been fired—a situation specifically recognized by courts as falling within the emergency exception.69 Yet the Davis Court refused to apply the exception absent police corroboration of the shots independent of the phone call.

This case involves an alleged water leak and potential electrical problem—not a scenario specifically recognized as falling within the emergency exception. Just as in Davis, however, the warrantless entry was carried out without any independent corroboration that water was actually leaking and causing a potential electrical problem in defendant's home. If there was no water leaking, there was no electrical problem and hence no emergency or imminent threat to life or property. Therefore, there was no exception to the warrant requirement that justified the warrantless entry in this case.

The majority concludes to the contrary by establishing a broad, undefined new community-caretaking exception to the warrant requirement wholly unsupported by existing law. Indeed, the scope of the majority's newly created exception to the warrant requirement is limitless.

Finally, I question the legal significance of at least one of the facts the majority finds significant when evaluating the reasonableness of the warrantless entry. The majority contends that because the townhouse complex contained several units attached to one another, this fact "elevated the imminence of the potential hazard."70 Not so. Certainly, the fact that the townhouse complex has numerous attached units elevated the potential scope of the fire threat and the number of people who potentially might have been affected. But that fact is utterly irrelevant to the imminence of a fire threat from water running over an electrical box. The question of the imminence of a fire might be influenced by whether someone saw sparks flying from the box or saw a large quantity of water flowing over it. But the scope of the threat and the imminence of the threat are distinctly different inquiries.

For these reasons, I agree with the Court of Appeals' conclusion that it is impossible to determine whether the firefighters acted reasonably in entering defendant's apartment. Thus, I would hold that the prosecution did not meet its burden of establishing that an exception to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement justified the firefighters' entry.

III. CONCLUSION

I dissent from the majority's decision to extend the community-caretaking exception to the warrant requirement to allow entry into private residences. I would hold that firefighters, as well as police officers, may enter a private residence only pursuant to the emergency and emergency-aid exceptions. The prosecution failed to establish a record indicating that the firefighters in this case reasonably believed that immediate entry into defendant's townhouse was necessary to address an emergency situation. Therefore, I would affirm the judgment, but not the reasoning, of the Court of Appeals.

MICHAEL F. CAVANAGH, J., agrees.