Can a Misdemeanor Count as an “Emergency” for Purposes of Skipping the Warrant?

SHERRY F. COLB

Cornell law professor Sherry F. Colb comments on a case currently before the U.S. Supreme Court that presents the question whether the exigent circumstances exception to the warrant requirement applies when the suspect may have committed a misdemeanor, as opposed to a more serious crime. Colb argues that if the Court believes that a misdemeanor (or a particular misdemeanor) is not important enough to justify the invasion of a person’s home, then it ought perhaps to hold that the police officer in the present should not have entered the suspect’s home, period, with or without a warrant.

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Council of Organizations & Others for Ed. v. Michigan

Docket: 158751

Opinion Date: December 28, 2020

Judge: Stephen J. Markman

Areas of Law: Constitutional Law, Education Law, Government & Administrative Law

In June 2016, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder signed into law 2016 PA 249 (codified at MCL 388.1752b), appropriating $2.5 million in funds for the 2016–2017 school year “to reimburse costs incurred by nonpublic schools” for compliance with various state health, safety, and welfare mandates identified by the Department of Education, such as state asbestos regulations and vehicle inspections. In July 2016, the Governor asked the Michigan Supreme Court for an advisory opinion as to whether MCL 388.1752b violated Const 1963, art 8, sec. 2, which generally prohibited “aid” to “nonpublic schools.” The Court declined this request. In March 2017, plaintiffs sued the state defendants in the Court of Claims, alleging that MCL 388.1752b violated Const 1963, art 8, sec. 2 and Const 1963, art 4, sec. 30, which provided that “[t]he assent of two-thirds of the members elected to and serving in each house of the legislature shall be required for the appropriation of public money or property for local or private purposes.” The parties stipulated not to disburse any funds under the statute until the Court of Claims resolved the case. In July 2017, the Legislature amended MCL 388.1752b to appropriate additional funds for the 2017–2018 school year. Also in that month, the Court of Claims issued a preliminary injunction against disbursing the appropriated funds. Defendants sought leave to appeal in the Court of Appeals, and the panel denied the application. The Supreme Court also declined review. In April 2018, the Court of Claims entered a permanent injunction against disbursing the appropriated funds, concluding the statute was unconstitutional. Meanwhile, in June 2018, the Legislature again amended MCL 388.1752b to appropriate funds for the 2018–2019 school year. In October 2018, the Court of Appeals reversed the Court of Claims and remanded for further proceedings, finding the statute did not violate the state Constitution to the extend that a reimbursed mandate satisfied a three-part test. The Supreme Court concluded MCL 388.1752b was indeed in accordance with both the religion clauses of the First Amendment of the federal Constitution and Article 8, sec. 2, as amended by Proposal C in 1970, of the Michigan Constitution. The Court of Appeals was affirmed and the matter remanded to the Court of Claims for further proceedings.

Michigan v. Hughes

Docket: 158652

Opinion Date: December 28, 2020

Defendant Kristopher Hughes was convicted by jury of armed robbery, for which he was sentenced as a fourth-offense habitual offender and given 25 to 60 years in prison. In 2016, Ronald Stites and Lisa Weber were at Stites' home when Weber called a drug dealer to obtain drugs and deliver them to the residence. A man arrived, sold Stites and Weber crack cocaine, and left. Later that night, the seller returned to Stites’s home with a gun, and stole a safe from Stites’s bedroom. Weber later identified defendant as the drug dealer and robber; Stites was not able to identify the perpetrator. A detective submitted a warrant affidavit to search defendant’s property for evidence related to separate allegations of drug trafficking. The affidavit included information from a criminal informant that defendant and another man were dealing drugs, and the detective asserted that drug traffickers commonly used mobile phones and other electronic equipment in the course of their activities. The district court concluded there was sufficient probable cause to support a search warrant and authorized a warrant to search three properties and a vehicle connected with defendant. While executing a search at one of the addresses identified in the warrant, the police detained defendant and seized a cell phone found on his person. Another detective performed a forensic examination of the phone and extracted all of the phone’s data. About a month after the data was extracted, the prosecutor in the armed-robbery case asked for a second search of defendant’s cell-phone data. These searches revealed several calls and text messages between defendant and Weber on the night that Stites was robbed, including text messages from Weber to defendant indicating the location of Stites’s home, that the home was unlocked, and that it had a flat-screen TV. After his conviction, defendant appealed, arguing that the phone records should have been excluded from the trial because the warrant that authorized the search of his phone’s data permitted officers to search for evidence of drug trafficking, not armed robbery. Defendant also argued that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to object to the admission of that data on Fourth Amendment grounds. Finding that the second search of defendant's phone was not reasonably directed at obtaining evidence regarding drug trafficking (the criminal activity alleged in the warrant), the Michigan Supreme Court concluded the search violated defendant's Fourth Amendment rights. The Court of Appeals judgment was reversed, and the matter remanded for further proceedings.