Puyallup man who killed his roommate released after court rules on warrantless search
A Pierce County man who successfully appealed his murder conviction on the basis that officers improperly searched his home without a warrant now has a new sentence for the crime.
Michael Clifford Boisselle, now 41, was accused of killing his Puyallup-area roommate in 2014. Officers found the decomposing body of 30-year-old Brandon Zomalt in the garage of the duplex.
Boisselle agreed to plead guilty to second-degree manslaughter and unlawful gun possession last week, according to court records. Superior Court Judge Edmund Murphy gave him a high-end sentence of six years, five months in prison Friday.
He’s already served more time than that, according to the sentencing paperwork.
Jurors originally convicted Boisselle of second-degree murder and unlawful gun possession, and he was sentenced to 21 years, eight months in prison in 2016.
He appealed, and in 2019 the Washington State Supreme Court overturned the murder conviction in a 5-4 opinion, finding there hadn’t been a “present emergency,” that would have allowed officers to search without a warrant. That sent the case back to Pierce County Superior Court for further proceedings.
‘Health or safety reasons’
Boisselle said at trial that he let Zomalt move into his home, that Zomalt held him at gunpoint later when Boisselle said Zomalt needed to leave, and that Boisselle managed to grab a weapon and fire when Zomalt came after him.
Prosecutors said Boisselle tried to burn carpet stained with Zomalt’s blood along an Auburn road, and weeks later detectives found Zomalt’s body at the duplex.
Court records gave this account of what happened:
A detective responded to a report of someone fleeing the roadside fire Aug. 13, 2014, and DNA testing identified Zomalt as the victim.
Later, police got calls about a possible homicide at the duplex, and sheriff’s deputies went to investigate at 6:50 p.m. Sept. 1, 2014.
Two sheriff’s sergeants arrived, and one who walked around the duplex smelled a foul odor like rotting garbage or a decomposing body coming from the garage.
Through a sliding glass door investigators saw overturned furniture and carpet ripped out of the living room and a dog barking inside.
Neighbors said someone named Mike lived there and that it was unusual they hadn’t seen anyone home for four or five days.
A friend said Zomalt lived at the duplex with Boisselle, and the friend hadn’t seen Zomalt for several weeks.
Investigators also spoke with the Auburn detective, who mentioned the roadside carpet fire.
Then the sergeants decided to search the home without a warrant, “believing the emergency aid function of the community caretaking exception to the warrant requirement justified entry,” the Supreme Court opinion said.
They found Zomalt’s body in the garage at 8:20 p.m. and later got a warrant to search the rest of the home.
Before the trial, Superior Court Judge Jerry Costello denied Boisselle’s motion to suppress evidence from the warrantless search. Boisselle argued the search violated his constitutional rights.
Costello found that the officers thought Zomalt or Boisselle: “could be dead or injured and therefore require assistance for health or safety reasons,” court records said.
The Court of Appeals also said the officers had a reasonable belief that someone in the duplex needed help.
Then the high court found that the search violated Boisselle’s rights under the state constitution, and that the trial court made a mistake when it denied his motion to suppress.
“We hold that the officers’ warrantless search of Boisselle’s home was a pretext for a criminal investigation because the officers had significant suspicions of criminal activity, the officers’ entry was motivated by the desire to conduct an evidentiary search, and there was no present emergency,” Justice Susan Owens wrote for the majority, which included Justices Mary Fairhurst, Sheryl Gordon McCloud, Barbara Madsen and Mary Yu.
Justices Debra Stephens, Charles Johnson, Charles Wiggins and Steven González dissented.
“While not every situation involving a reported dead body may justify a warrantless home entry, we should recognize the seriousness of such a report, just as other courts have,” Stephens wrote. “We should evaluate the totality of the circumstances in each case and not reject as a matter of law application of the community caretaking function exception in this context.”
