State of Minnesota, Respondent,

This opinion is nonprecedential except as provided by
Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 136.01, subd. 1(c).

STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A21-0745

State of Minnesota,
Respondent,

vs.

Derelle Keith Todd,
Appellant.

Filed March 21, 2022
Affirmed
Slieter, Judge

Hennepin County District Court
File No. 27-CR-20-21049

Keith Ellison, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and

Michael O. Freeman, Hennepin County Atto rney, Nicole Cornal e, Assistant County
Attorney, Minneapolis, Minnesota (for respondent)

Kirk M. Anderson, Anderson Law Firm, PLLC, Minneapolis, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Bratvold, Presiding Judge; Slieter, Judge; and Kirk,
Judge.


 Retired judge of the Minnesota Court of Ap peals, serving by appointment pursuant to
Minn. Const. art. VI, § 10.
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NONPRECEDENTIAL OPINION
SLIETER, Judge
Appellant challenges his conviction as an ineligible person in possession of a
firearm or ammunition arguing that the district court failed to suppress evidence obtained
through an unconstitutional search. Because the police intrusion into appellant’s home was
justified by the emergency-aid exception a nd the evidence therea fter obtained did not
require suppression, we affirm.
FACTS
The facts are not in dispute. At 12:47 a.m. on September 30, 2020, the Minneapolis
Police Department received a report of suspect ed gunfire near the 3500 block of Bryant
Avenue North.1 Officers arrived 15 minutes later a nd discovered in the alley the body of
an apparent homicide victim who had a gunshot wound in the chest. Approximately two
houses down the alley from the victim, officer s noticed an unoccupied vehicle with the
driver’s door open and, as the approaching officer learned, with keys located on the running
board. The gate and back door of the house directly in front of the vehicle were open, and
lights were on in the house.
Officers approached and began to su rround the house with the goal of making
contact with anyone inside. Tw o officers took positions on e ither side of the back door,

1 The report came from ShotSpotter, a system which uses acoustic sensors and computer
programs to detect suspected gunshots, tr iangulate their approximate location, and
automatically report that loca tion to law enforcement. See ShotSpotter,
https://www.shotspotter.com/law-enforcement/gunshot-detection/ (last visited Mar. 14,
2022).
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and a third officer briefly leaned in for obse rvation but retreated when he heard someone
approaching from inside the house. As appellant Derelle Keith Todd approached the back
door, the officers identified themselves and directed Todd to show his hands. Todd did not
show his hands and, instead, began to push the door closed. At that point, the third officer
pushed the door open and forced Todd outside. While being forced out of the house, Todd
threw an object across the ya rd, which police later recovered and determined was an
extended gun-magazine. Once outside, offi cers handcuffed Todd and began questioning
him about his identity and others who might be in the house.
Police then obtained a search warrant and discovered evidence inside the house,
including a handgun which fit the previously seized extended gun-magazine.
Respondent State of Minnesota charged Todd with second-d egree intentional
murder without premeditation, in violation of Minn. Stat. § 609.19, subd. 1(1) (2020),
second-degree unintentional murder while committing a felony, in violation of Minn. Stat.
§ 609.19, subd. 2(1) (2020), an d possession of a firearm or ammunition by an ineligible
person, in violation of Minn. Stat. § 624.713, subd. 1(2) (2020). Todd moved to suppress
the evidence obtained as a resu lt of the officers’ intrusion in to his home. Following an
evidentiary hearing, the district court deni ed Todd’s motion to su ppress. A jury found
Todd guilty of being an ineligible person in possession of a firearm or ammunition and not
guilty of the two murder coun ts. The district court sent enced Todd to 60 months’
imprisonment. Todd appeals.

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DECISION
In reviewing whether a valid exception to the search-warrant requirement exists,
appellate courts review the district court’s factual findings for clear error and its legal
conclusions de novo. State v. Stavish, 868 N.W.2d 670, 677 (Mi nn. 2015). “When facts
are not in dispute, as here, we review a pretrial order on a motion to suppress de novo and
determine whether the police articulated an ad equate basis for the search or seizure at
issue.” State v. Williams, 794 N.W.2d 867, 871 (Minn. 2011) (quotation omitted).
The district court, based upon the emergenc y-aid exception, declined to suppress
evidence obtained as a result of the officers’ warrantless entry into Todd’s home and the
subsequently issued search warrant.
The United States and Minnesota constitutions guarantee individuals the right to be
free from unreasonable government searches and seizures. U.S. Const. amend. IV; Minn.
Const. art. 1, § 10; State v. Lemieux , 726 N.W.2d 783, 787 (Minn. 2007). Warrantless
searches are presumpt ively unreasonable, subject to a few well-established exceptions,
State v. Licari, 659 N.W.2d 243, 250 (Minn. 2003), and “[c]ourts are particularly reluctant
to find exceptions to this rule in the context of a warrantless search or seizure in a home.”
State v. Othoudt, 482 N.W.2d 218, 222 (Minn. 1992).
One well-established exception includes lim ited home intrusion to protect human
life by rendering emergency aid. State v. Gray, 456 N.W.2d 251, 256 (Minn. 1990). The
emergency-aid exception provid es that “law enforcemen t officers, in pursuing a
community-caretaking function, ‘may enter a home without a warrant to render emergency
assistance to an injured occupant or to pr otect an occupant from imminent injury.’”
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Lemieux, 726 N.W.2d at 787-88 (quoting Brigham City v. Stuart , 547 U.S. 398, 403
(2006)). Entry is reasonable if (1) officers “have reasonable grounds to believe that there
is an emergency at hand and an immediate need for their a ssistance for the protection of
life or property,” (2) the search is not “primar ily motivated by intent to arrest and seize
evidence,” and (3) the officers have “some reasonable basis, approximating probable cause,
to associate the emergency with the area or place to be searched.” Id. at 788. If the
warrantless search is reasonable, it must still be “strictly circumscribed by the exigencies
which justify its initiation.” Id. (quoting Mincey v. Arizona , 437 U.S. 385, 393 (1978)).
The burden of proof is on the state to show th at the conduct was justified by the officers’
objectively reasonable belief at the time. Id.
The district court applied the test set forth in Lemieux to conclude that the
warrantless entry of Todd’s home was jus tified by the emergency-aid exception, and
therefore the resulting evidence did not require suppression. Todd argues that the district
court erred by applying the emergency-aid exception because “there was nothing to suggest
to law enforcement there was a person insi de the residence that needed emergency
assistance” and the officers should have allowed him to close the door and retreat into his
home. Lemieux compels our disagreement.
In Lemieux, the supreme court held that a warrantless “entry of the residence in close
proximity to a brutal and seemingly random homicide was justified under the emergency-
aid exception” where the officers had reasonable grounds to believe a crime of violence
was “in progress or had recently occurred,” the officers were “motivated primarily to look
for possible victims, and the scope of the search was limited to the emergency.” Id. at 790.
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In Lemieux, six hours after a homicide, officers approached a house approximately one-
half block from the body “to find out if pers ons using the premises might have seen or
heard something useful to the ongoing homicide investigation” and, upon noticing signs of
forced entry indicating a possible burglary, conducted a limited search for possible victims
during which they discovered evidence linking Lemieux to the homicide. Id. at 785, 789.
The supreme court concluded that the emergency-aid exception allowed for the warrantless
home entry. Id. at 790.
In this matter, the house was a similar distance—two houses away—from a gunshot
victim and a gunshot had been reported in the immediate area within 25 minutes of the
officers’ arrival. As the officers secured the alley, they noticed a vehicle with the driver’s
door open and keys laying on the running board, and that the backyard fence gate and back
door of the house immediately in front of the vehicle were open. The officers did not see
any other open vehicle or hous e doors. These facts led the officers to believe the house
“was related in one way or another” to th e apparent homicide. They were concerned
“someone had shot [the victim] and ran into that house . . . [or] this was . . . some type of
hostage situation, and [the victim] made it out and got shot as he was coming out” so they
approached the house “to make contact at that house, check the welfare of everyone in the
house, while keeping in mind a suspect may or may not be inside of that house.” In sum,
the physical and temporal proximity of the house to an apparent homicide in combination
with the open vehicle and house doors during the early morning gave the officers
reasonable grounds to believe the house was linked to the recent violent crime and they
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approached the house with the intent to dete rmine if anyone inside required emergency
assistance.
When Todd approach ed the back door, th e officers “didn’t know if [he] was a
suspect, [or] a victim” or if he was “going to go hurt . . . a resident in the house” if he was
allowed to retreat into the house. The officers prevented Todd from closing the door and
secured him in order “to freeze the scene to try and begin to figure it out safe[ly].” In the
course of being secured, Todd “tossed” the extended gun-magazine and, immediately after
Todd was handcuffed, police began to inquire about his identity and that of other occupants
who may be in the house.
In sum, the officers reasonably believed th at there may be an emergency at the home
they approached because of its proximity to an apparently random homicide, their primary
intent was not to gather evidence or make an arrest, they reasonably associated the home
with the emergency, and appropr iately limited the scope of their entry to addressing the
emergency.
Affirmed.