No. 24-1052

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Appellee,

v.

DARIO GIAMBRO,

Defendant, Appellant.

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MAINE

[Hon. George Z. Singal, U.S. District Judge]

Before

Rikelman, Lynch, and Aframe, Circuit Judges.

Edward S. MacColl, with whom Marshall J. Tinkle and Thompson, MacColl & Bass, LLC, P.A. were on brief, for appellant.

Brian S. Kleinbord, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom Darcie N. McElwee, United States Attorney, was on brief, for appellee.

January 15, 2025 RIKELMAN, Circuit Judge. Dario Giambro appeals his conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), the felon-in-possession statute, on two grounds. First, Giambro argues that the district court erred in denying his motion to suppress evidence found by police officers after they forcibly entered his Hebron, Maine home without a warrant. The district court concluded that the entry fell within the emergency aid exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement, which would apply here only if the officers had an objectively reasonable basis to believe that Giambro's wife, Arline, was inside the couple's home and in need of immediate aid. Giambro argues that the exception cannot apply because the information reported by Arline's family to the police officers was exactly the opposite: that Arline was not in the home and that she had died at least one day earlier. Second, he argues that the district court erred in denying his motion to dismiss the charge against him on Second Amendment grounds.

We agree with Giambro that the officers' entry into his home cannot be justified under the emergency aid exception to the warrant requirement and thus violated his Fourth Amendment rights. Considering the record facts here, there was no objectively reasonable basis for the officers to conclude that they needed to enter the home to render emergency assistance to Arline. Further, the officers conducting the search knew that Arline's adult son and husband were nearby and available for questioning immediately

- 2 - before the warrantless entry, yet they never tried to speak to the family members. We conclude that officers may not ignore obvious and available options for gathering facts to determine if an emergency actually exists. Accordingly, we reverse the district court's denial of Giambro's motion to suppress the evidence used against him and remand for further proceedings. Given our ruling on the Fourth Amendment issue, we do not reach Giambro's Second Amendment claim.1

I. BACKGROUND

The events leading up to the warrantless entry and search of Giambro's home began when Antonio, his son,2 visited his parents' trailer in Hebron, Maine on the morning of January 26, 2022. Antonio had returned from a week-long vacation the day before and, understandably, wanted to check on his parents, both of whom were in their seventies. After arriving in Hebron, Antonio spoke to his father inside the trailer, and his father told him that his mother had died while Antonio was on vacation. During their conversation, Antonio became concerned about his father's mental health and decided to drive him to a hospital in a nearby town, about 15 minutes away. Importantly, Antonio did not see his

1At oral argument, Giambro agreed that if we reverse the district court's Fourth Amendment ruling, we need not address his Second Amendment claim. 2To avoid confusion, we refer to Giambro's wife and son by their first names