[4] The "emergency aid” exception allows officers to enter a home without a warrant to provide assistance to an occupant who is injured or under imminent threat of injury.

[5][6] The “hot pursuit” exception allows officers to pursue a fleeing suspect onto protected property without a warrant.

King entered a conditional guilty plea in the Fayette Circuit Court, reserving his right to appeal denial of his motion to suppress evidence obtained from what he argued was an illegal search.

"[11] He rejected rules that impose requirements beyond lawful conduct, including bad faith; reasonable foreseeability; probable cause and time to secure a warrant; and standard or good investigative tactics.

He also rejected King's proposed rule, which would prohibit officers from creating an exigency by “engag[ing] in conduct that would cause a reasonable person to believe that entry is imminent and inevitable,” for turning on "subtleties" and requiring a "nebulous and impractical test."

He explained that the police officers actions before they entered the apartment, knocking and announcing their presence, were lawful and "no more than any private citizen might do."

She further pointed out that the facts here are indistinguishable from Johnson v. United States, 333 U. S. 10 (1948) in which the Court held a warrantless entry and search to be unconstitutional.

The state court decided that the prosecution had not met its burden of proving exigent circumstances to justify a warrantless entry since the police's testimony about movement inside the apartment were "indistinguishable from ordinary household sounds."