Appellant's Brief - Washington State Courts

announced in Cady v. Dumbrowski, 413 U. S. 433,93 S. Ct. 2523,
37 L. Ed. 2d 706 (1973), and expanded by subsequent Washington
cases to cover situations involving either emergency aid or routine
health and safety checks. State v. Kinzy, 141 Wn.2d 373, 385-86,
5 P.3d 668 (2000). The greater the emergency, the greater the
intrusion permitted. The emergency aid function applies when "(1)
the officer subjectively believed that someone likely needed
assistance for health or safety reasons; (2) a reasonable person in
the same situation would similarly believe that there was a need for
assistance; and (3) there was a reasonable basis to associate the
need for assistance with the place searched." Kinzy, supra, at 386.
Whether the officer acted in an objectively reasonable manner is
"evaluated in relation to the scene as it reasonably appeared to the
officer at the time, 'not as it may seem to a scholar after the event
with the benefit of leisured retrospective analysis. " Johnson,
supra, at 420.
The emergency aid doctrine is different from the exigent
circumstances exception to the warrant requirement in that the
emergency aid doctrine does not involve the investigation of a
crime but aiding persons believed to be in danger of physical harm
or death. Kinzy, supra, at 387. Nevertheless, it will be noted in a