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State v. Seaman12/6/2005
of the highway with its motor running and its headlights off. Concerned for the welfare of the vehicle's occupant, the officer stopped, approached the vehicle on foot and saw the defendant sitting in the driver's seat, apparently asleep. The officer knocked on the window and when the defendant did not respond, the officer opened the door. The defendant woke up and the officer immediately observed indications of possible intoxication. The defendant was subsequently charged with driving under the influence of alcohol in violation of § 61-8-401, MCA. Lovegren, 3-4.
The defendant in Lovegren moved to suppress all of the evidence obtained by the officer claiming that it was an illegal search and seizure. The Justice Court denied the motion and convicted the defendant of the DUI charge. The defendant appealed to the District Court contending that the officer lacked a particularized suspicion of any wrongdoing on defendant's part, thus the stop was not justified. The District Court denied defendant's motion to suppress stating that a particularized suspicion was not required in this situation as the officer had a duty to investigate for the defendant's own safety. Thereafter, the defendant agreed to plead guilty, but he reserved his right to appeal the denial of his motion to suppress. Lovegren, 5-7.
This Court discussed the Community Caretaker Doctrine at length in Lovegren. We stated therein that the doctrine serves to justify certain police-citizen encounters that, at their inception, are unrelated to the detection and investigation of crime. Lovegren, 16. We noted in Lovegren that the police must frequently engage in certain community caretaking functions totally divorced from the enforcement of criminal laws, particularly with respect to automobiles on public highways. Such functions may include assisting motorists who are stranded, involved in accidents, or otherwise in need of assistance. Lovegren, 17. Assisting a motorist in peril or in apparent need of aid is often viewed as an affirmative duty of the police and we indicated in Lovegren that it would be a dereliction of an officer's duty to walk away from an uncertain situation in which a motorist may be in need of help. Lovegren, 26.
While this Court did not attempt to define the scope and parameters of the Community Caretaker Doctrine in Lovegren, we did establish the following test to be applied to community caretaking encounters between the police and citizens:
First, as long as there are objective, specific and articulable facts from which an experienced officer would suspect that a citizen is in need of help or is in peril, then that officer has the right to stop and investigate. Second, if the citizen is in need of aid, then the officer may take appropriate action to render assistance or mitigate the peril. Third, once, however, the officer is assured that the citizen is not in peril or is no longer in need of assistance or that the peril has been mitigated, then any actions beyond that constitute a seizure implicating not only the protections provided by the Fourth Amendment, but more importantly, those greater guarantees afforded under Article II, Sections 10 and 11 of the Montana Constitution as interpreted in this Court's decisions. Lovegren, 25.
Based on this test, we held in Lovegren that the officer in that case had objective facts to support his concern that the defendant might be in need of assistance, since the defendant could have been ill rather than simply asleep and the officer had a duty to check on the defendant's welfare and to open the door when the defendant did not respond to a knock on the window. We also held that opening the door to check on the defendan
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