This would be a different case if defendant’s name had not been in the NCIC alert. It is because of the NCIC report, within the context of the other factors identified, that the officers were not required to blithely accept defendant’s responses to their initial questions while they awaited confirmation of the missing person’s report.
Defendant’s contention that the police lacked justification to direct him out of the auto once he had answered their preliminary questions would have merit if the police had not been given the NCIC alert. In the face of that alert, however, it was reasonable for them to believe that he was suicidal or in some other danger that required police intervention. Removing him from his car and getting him out of the rain, away from a presumably busy highway, and into the safety of a police car, did not exceed the boundaries of their caretaker role.
This disposition is not altered by the fact that the officers relied on an erroneous NCIC alert. Regarding criminal investigations, New Jersey does not recognize an exception to the exclusionary rule based on an officer’s good-faith reliance on an improperly issued warrant. State v. Novembrino, 105 N.J. 95, 157-58 (1987). Here, however, the error in failing to remove defendant’s name from the NCIC database occurred not within the framework of an intended prosecution, but under the protective rubric of the community-caretaker doctrine. Thus, under the circumstances here, Novembrino does not control the analysis.
Importantly, the officers did not perform the community-caretaker function as a pretext for a criminal investigation. Their testimony describes how they acted out of concern for defendant’s safety as they sought to put him securely in the police car. Their determination reflected the essence of the community-caretaker function, revealing no motive other than an honest desire to verify defendant’s status as a missing person. With reasonableness as the polestar, the state’s proofs more than adequately supported its position that the officers did not impermissibly cross the line from caretakers to investigators when they discovered the loaded ammunition clip. Although the caretaker doctrine is not limitless, it provides sufficient leeway to the police to act as they have done here.
As to the officers’ inquiry regarding the location of the gun and the resulting search of defendant’s car, the Court again essentially echoes the Appellate Division’s analysis, 362 N.J. Super. at 627-28:
. . . the warrantless entry of the vehicle was justified to search for the gun in the automobile, based on the finding of the loaded ammunition clip because the gun could provide a danger even before a warrant could be secured . . . . Nor is suppression of the gun required because the police asked defendant where the gun was located. Particularly in these circumstances in which defendant had not been arrested for a crime, the limited inquiry could be made in the interests of public safety.
The conditions that provided both probable cause and exigency to search defendant’s car did not materialize until well after the community caretaker activity was underway. From that perspective, although the automobile search passes muster primarily as a public-safety measure, it also was consistent with the traditional notions of probable cause and exigency.
Therefore, the police acted within the boundaries of the federal and state constitutions throughout these events. However, the state should not construe this holding as approving wide application of the community-caretaker doctrine in this setting. This disposition is the result of the facts here, most particularly the NCIC missing person’s report and the other four factors discussed. The community-caretaker doctrine remains a narrow exception to the warrant requirement. All future cases decided under that doctrine will turn strictly on their facts and will be subject to meticulous judicial review.
Affirmed.
Chief Justice Poritz and Justices Long, LaVecchia, Zazzali, Albin and Wallace join in Justice Verniero‘s opinion.
� Digested by Judith Nallin
[The slip opinion is 28 pages long.]
For appellant � Frank J. Pugliese, Assistant Deputy Public Defender (Yvonne Smith Segars, Public Defender). For respondent � Joseph P. Connor Jr., Assistant Prosecutor (Michael M. Rubbinaccio, Morris County Prosecutor). For amicus curiae Attorney General � Steven A. Yomtov, Deputy Attorney General (Peter C. Harvey, Attorney General).
