CORRECTED VERSION
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
JAMES MICHAEL FLIPPO v. WEST VIRGINIA
ON PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE CIRCUIT
COURT OF WEST VIRGINIA, FAYETTE COUNTY*
No. 98-8770. Decided October 18, 1999
PER CURIAM.
Petitioner's motion to suppress evidence seized in a
warrantless search of a "homicide crime scene" was denied
on the ground that the police were entitled to make a
thorough search of any crime scene and the objects found
there. Because the rule applied directly conflicts with
Mincey v. Arizona, 437 U. S. 385 (1978), we reverse.
One night in 1996, petitioner and his wife were vaca-
tioning at a cabin in a state park. After petitioner called
911 to report that they had been attacked, the police
arrived to find petitioner waiting outside the cabin, with
injuries to his head and legs. After questioning him, an
officer entered the building and found the body of peti-
tioner's wife, with fatal head wounds. The officers closed
off the area, took petitioner to the hospital, and searched
the exterior and environs of the cabin for footprints or
signs of forced entry. When a police photographer arrived
at about 5:30 a.m., the officers reentered the building and
proceeded to "process the crime scene." Brief in Opposi-
tion 5. For over 16 hours, they took photographs, collected
evidence, and searched through the contents of the cabin.
According to the trial court, "[a]t the crime scene, the
investigating officers found on a table in Cabin 13, among
other things, a briefcase, which they, in the ordinary
course of investigating a homicide, opened, wherein they
found and seized various photographs and negatives."
Indictment No. 96-F-119 (Cir. Ct. Fayette County,
W. Va., May 28, 1997), App. A to Pet. for Cert., p. 2.
Petitioner was indicted for the murder of his wife and
moved to suppress the photographs and negatives discov-
ered in an envelope in the closed briefcase during the
search.#1 He argued that the police had obtained no war-
rant, and that no exception to the warrant requirement
justified the search and seizure.
In briefs to the trial court, petitioner contended that
Mincey v. Arizona, supra, rejects a "crime scene exception"
to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment.
The State also cited Mincey; it argued that the police may
conduct an immediate investigation of a crime scene to
preserve evidence from intentional or accidental destruc-
tion, id., at 394, and characterized the police activity in
this case as "crime scene search and inventory." Brief in
Opposition 12. The State also relied on the "plain view"
exception, id., at 393 (citing Michigan v. Tyler, 436 U. S.
499, 509-510 (1978)), noting only, however, that the brief-
case was unlocked.
In denying the motion, the trial court said nothing about
inventory or plain view, but instead approved the search
as one of a "homicide crime scene":
"The Court also concludes that investigating offi-
cers, having secured, for investigative purposes, the
homicide crime scene, were clearly within the law to
conduct a thorough investigation and examination of
anything and everything found within the crime scene
area. The examination of [the] briefcase found on the
table near the body of a homicide victim in this case is
clearly something an investigating officer could law-
fully examine." App. A to Pet. for Cert., at 3.
After hearing an oral presentation of petitioner's petition
for appeal of this ruling, and with the full record before it,
the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia denied
discretionary review. No. 982196 (W. Va., Jan. 13, 1999).
App. B to Pet. for Cert.
A warrantless search by the police is invalid unless it
falls within one of the narrow and well-delineated excep-
tions to the warrant requirement, Katz v. United States,
389 U. S. 347, 357 (1967), none of which the trial court
invoked here.#2 It simply found that after the homicide
crime scene was secured for investigation, a search of
"anything and everything found within the crime scene
area" was "within the law." App. A to Pet. for Cert., at 3.
This position squarely conflicts with Mincey v. Arizona,
supra, where we rejected the contention that there is a
"murder scene exception" to the Warrant Clause of the
Fourth Amendment. We noted that police may make
warrantless entries onto premises if they reasonably
believe a person is in need of immediate aid and may
make prompt warrantless searches of a homicide scene for
possible other victims or a killer on the premises, id., at
392, but we rejected any general "murder scene exception"
as "inconsistent with the Fourth and Fourteenth Amend-
ments- . . . the warrantless search of Mincey's apartment
was not constitutionally permissible simply because a
homicide had recently occurred there." Id., at 395; see
also Thompson v. Louisiana, 469 U. S. 17, 21 (1984) (per
curiam). Mincey controls here.
Although the trial court made no attempt to distinguish
Mincey, the State contends that the trial court's ruling is
supportable on the theory that petitioner's direction of the
police to the scene of the attack implied consent to search
as they did. As in Thompson v. Louisiana, supra, at 23,
however, we express no opinion on whether the search
here might be justified as consensual, as "the issue of
consent is ordinarily a factual one unsuitable for our
consideration in the first instance." Nor, of course, do we
take any position on the applicability of any other excep-
tion to the warrant rule, or the harmlessness vel non of
any error in receiving this evidence. Any such matters,
properly raised, may be resolved on remand. 469 U. S., at
21; see also United States v. Matlock, 415 U. S. 164 (1974).
The motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis and
the petition for a writ of certiorari are granted, the judg-
ment of the Circuit Court of West Virginia, Fayette
County, is reversed, and the case is remanded for further
proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Footnotes
*Petitioner sought a writ directed to the West Virginia Supreme
Court of Appeals. That court, however, merely declined to exercise
discretionary review. The last State court to rule on the merits of
this case was the Circuit Court of West Virginia, Fayette County, to
which the writ is therefore addressed.
1 The photographs included several taken of a man who appears to be
taking off his jeans. He was later identified as Joel Boggess, a friend of
petitioner and a member of the congregation of which petitioner was
the minister. At trial, the prosecution introduced the photographs as
evidence of petitioner's relationship with Mr. Boggess and argued that
the victim's displeasure with this relationship was one of the reasons
that petitioner may have been motivated to kill her.
2 The State suggests that the trial court's finding that the search was
"within the law" could be read as premised on the theories of plain
view, exigent circumstances, and inventory that the State advanced
below. No trace of this reasoning appears in the trial court's opinion,
which instead appears to undermine the State's interpretation. It
seems implausible that the court found that there was a risk of inten-
tional or accidental destruction of evidence at a "secured" crime scene
or that the authorities were performing a mere inventory search when
the premises had been secured for "investigative purposes" and the
officers opened the briefcase "in the ordinary course of investigating a
homicide." Nor does the court's validation of "investiga[ting] and
examin[ing] . . . anything and everything found within the crime scene
area," including photographs inside a closed briefcase, apparently rest
on the plain view exception. App. A to Pet. for Cert., at 2, 3.
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