Police-entry case in D.C.

WASHINGTON — Police actions at a Brigham City party almost six years ago will be examined during a Supreme Court case Monday when the highest court will determine if local police had the right to enter a house and make arrests when they saw a fight going on inside.

A Utah district court judge originally threw out the charges because the police had no warrant to enter the home — a decision the Utah Court of Appeals and the Utah Supreme Court each affirmed, but the state is still pursuing the case, saying police had a right to go inside.

Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Gray is already in Washington preparing to present the state's argument that the officers did not violate any constitutional rights when they entered the home because there appeared to be an emergency inside.

Gray will have 20 minutes to present his case to the court's nine justices and answer questions. The U.S. Solicitor General of the Justice Department, which filed a friend of the court document siding with the state, will get 10 minutes to present to the justices and answer questions. Gray has been participating in moot court sessions to prepare for the arguments and trying to anticipate what the justices might ask.

The case stems from an incident at 3 a.m. on July 23, 2000, when four Brigham City police officers went to a residence after hearing complaints about a loud party, according to court documents. They heard noises that sounded like a fight and through a window saw four adults restraining a teenager against a refrigerator. The teen broke a hand free and punched one of the adults in the jaw, drawing blood. This spurred one of the officers to open the screen door and yell "police,"

but no one heard anything because of the ongoing fight, the documents state.

The officers then entered the house and eventually made arrests after the occupants became hostile to the police being inside the house, according to the court briefs.

The lower courts ruled that the situation inside the house did not pose enough of a threat to allow the officers to go inside without a warrant.

But the state says the officers going into the house was "objectively reasonable" and the fight the officers witnessed could have resulted in serious enough injury that it justified entry.

Attorney General Mark Shurtleff called the Utah Supreme court's ruling that the officers should have known that the fight would have eventually ended without getting more violent "pure speculation."