Officers were justified in entering home where 3 bodies were found in 2015, Utah Supreme Court says

SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Supreme Court recently decided evidence in a 2015 triple homicide case can be used after the suspect requested it be suppressed because officers entered the home without a search warrant and found the bodies of a grandmother, her 2-month-old granddaughter and a man.

The unanimous court decision comes after Alexander Hung Tran, 41, requested the 3rd District Court prevent the evidence from being used at trial. The lower court denied his request, and he appealed to the Supreme Court.

Justice Jill Pohlman wrote in an opinion Thursday that officers entered Tran’s home with a reason, and their decision to do so was “objectively reasonable.”

Tran has been charged with three counts of aggravated murder, a first-degree felony, in the deaths of Heike Poike, 50; Poike’s 2-month-old granddaughter, Lyrik Poike; and Dakota Smith, 28. Poike rented the upstairs of Tran’s home in Salt Lake City.

The case

The Supreme Court opinion said Heike Poike did not show up as usual to pick up her 8-year-old grandson from school, and after multiple hours passed, the school contacted police and explained the tardiness was unusual. An officer tried to reach the grandmother multiple times.

The child’s other grandmother arrived at the school and expressed concern; she told officers she had the key and permission to go into Tran’s home, the opinion said. At the home, officers heard noise from a TV but did not see other signs of someone being there. They became alarmed when looking through a window to see a tarp with a large object underneath, according to the opinion.

The opinion noted officers had been called to the home multiple times in the past, including three months before, to address reports of psychotic issues with Tran, who had been waving knives.

Body camera footage presented in court shows officers debating whether to enter the home, based on seeing what looked like a covered body, the opinion states. The officers waited outside the home for a third officer and found an open door. They discussed having permission to enter and not needing permission because there was a missing 2-month-old who was supposed to be with the grandmother.

Judges on the state’s high court agreed with the officers’ analysis and said there are several exceptions to the requirement for a search warrant, including preventing the destruction of evidence, preventing a suspect’s escape, or providing emergency aid — as was the case in this instance.

The opinion said officers must have a reasonable basis to believe someone in the home needed immediate aid, which is met because the grandmother caring for a 2-month-old had not responded to attempts to contact her, and the sight of a tarp covering what could be a body in the home. It also cited previous experiences at the home.

It said officers were not only concerned about the grandmother, but they were concerned the 2-month-old would need aid if the grandmother was not there.

“The officers’ belief that grandmother and infant needed immediate aid was not based on speculation but on the facts before them and the reasonable inferences drawn from those facts,” the opinion states.

It adds, the officers faced a situation different than someone being hours late picking up a child from school.

After officers entered, they found a dead man on the couch in the living room and the grandmother’s body, along with the infant’s, under the tarp.

Police said each victim had been shot multiple times.

The Supreme Court opinion said Tran was holding a gun at the bottom of the stairs, where he lived, in the basement, and he set it down before the officers took him into custody.

Where the case stands

Although the killings occurred in September 2015, the case was delayed after Tran was found incompetent to stand trial and received treatment at the Utah State Hospital for several years. Tran pleaded not guilty to the charges in March 2021. A jury trial had been scheduled for March 2023, but it was canceled while the courts considered his appeal.

Tran claimed an emergency aid exception to the requirement for a warrant under the Fourth Amendment did not apply in his case. He also asked the court to apply a higher standard based on the Utah Constitution, which Tran’s attorneys claimed does not allow for exceptions to the requirement for a search warrant.

A new hearing in the murder case has not yet been scheduled.