People v. Bloyd
| Decision Date | 23 December 1982 |
| Docket Number | Docket No. 64883,No. 13,13 |
| Citation | 416 Mich. 538,331 N.W.2d 447 |
| Parties | PEOPLE of the State of Michigan, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Omer BLOYD, Defendant-Appellee. Calendar |
| Court | Michigan Supreme Court |
William L. Cahalan, Pros. Atty., County of Wayne, Edward Reilly Wilson, Chief Appellate, Asst. Pros. Atty., Timothy A. Baughman, Asst. Pros. Atty., Detroit, for plaintiff-appellant.
Brook McCray Smith, Brook McCray Smith, P.C., Ann Arbor, for defendant-appellee.
This opinion was written by Justice BLAIR MOODY, Jr., prior to his death on November 26, 1982. We concur in this opinion and adopt it as our own.
We are faced with the seizure, detention, and transportation of a person in a police car at a time when the officers were without probable cause to believe that a crime had been committed and without probable cause to believe that the person had committed a crime.
We hold that under the facts of this case, a person may not be seized, detained, and questioned, and then transported in a police car from one place to another in the absence of probable cause to arrest. U.S. Const., Am. IV; Const.1963, art. 1, Sec. 11. Furthermore, after examining and balancing the character of the intrusion on the personal security of the person detained with the law enforcement interest allegedly justifying such an intrusion, we hold that the detention in this case violated the defendant's constitutional right to be secure against an unreasonable seizure of his person. U.S. Const., Am. IV; Const.1963, art. 1, Sec. 11.
On August 6, 1978, at approximately 4:50 a.m., an Inkster police officer on routine patrol observed the defendant pull out of the supply yard of the Ernst Fuel and Supply Company. According to the officer, the company was closed at that time.
The officer, who was alone, called a second officer on the radio when he first observed the defendant. The officer's suspicions were aroused, and he stopped defendant's car to investigate what the driver was doing on the company's property at that time. There is no indication in the record that the defendant had committed a traffic offense, that the property was posted against trespassing, that the property was enclosed by a fence, or that there had been any reports of criminal activity in the area.
When the defendant stopped his car, he jumped out and ran back to the officer's patrol car. He presented the officer with his wallet when asked for his license. The officer checked his license and asked him to have a seat in defendant's automobile. The officer requested this action because it had "been my experience when people jump out of the car and run back to meet you, especially late at night, there is something they don't want you to see in their car".
Defendant was asked what he was doing and where he was coming from. He responded that he was changing a tire on the company's property. The officer checked the tires and noted that they were all uniformly covered with dust and dirty and that none of them appeared to have been changed. The officer noted that the defendant was extremely nervous and perspiring. At this time the officer looked into defendant's car and observed a pair of white cotton gloves, a flashlight and a screwdriver in the front area of the automobile, and a pry bar and three somewhat transparent plastic bags containing magazines and boxes of "x-rated movies" on the rear seat.
A second officer arrived at the scene in response to the radio call. Defendant was advised of his constitutional rights. 1 After defendant indicated that he understood these rights, he was asked where all the movies came from. He declined to give a substantive answer. The defendant was then placed in the back of the first officer's patrol car. The bags of magazines and books, along with the other items, were also placed in the police car. The defendant's car was locked and left where it had been stopped.
The defendant 2 was taken in the patrol car to a business establishment that sells "x-rated books", the Book Shack, to see "if that place had been broken into". On the way to the Book Shack the officer asked the police dispatcher "to call ADT and see how the alarm was" at the Book Shack. The defendant was detained three or four minutes in the patrol car at the Book Shack while the building was checked to see if there were signs of a break-in. There had been no break-in.
Defendant was then driven to the Melody Theatre. The testifying officer stated that theater showed exclusively "x-rated films". It was testified that the theater is located on the same side of the street as Ernst Fuel and Supply and there were no other businesses between these two places. Initially, the officers did not find any evidence of a break-in at the theater. The defendant was questioned "if he could help us out and tell us where he broke in". The defendant refused.
The officers continued to investigate and discovered that two outside doors had been removed from their hinges. The two officers entered the building and found a display case to be almost empty. The dispatcher was asked to call the manager who arrived at the theater and confirmed that property was missing.
The defendant was advised that he was under arrest for breaking and entering and driven to the police station. He was charged with breaking and entering. M.C.L. Sec. 750.110; M.S.A. Sec. 28.305. At the preliminary examination, the defendant argued that the arrest and seizure of property were improper. Defendant was bound over for trial in Wayne Circuit Court. His motion to suppress evidence and to quash the information asserted that he was illegally stopped and that evidence was illegally seized. His challenges were based on the fourth and fourteenth amendments to the United States Constitution 3 as well as the Michigan Constitution, art. 1, Sec. 11. 4 The motion was denied.
The Court of Appeals granted defendant's application for leave to appeal. That court reversed the denial of his motion. People v. Bloyd, 96 Mich.App. 264, 292 N.W.2d 546 (1980).
The Court of Appeals held that the initial stop of the defendant's automobile for questioning was proper. However, it held that the evidence was improperly seized, because there was no probable cause to seize the evidence. Nor was the evidence seized incident to a lawful arrest since the defendant had been improperly arrested, i.e., without probable cause at the time of the seizure, and the items seized as a result of the illegal arrest must be excluded. "At the time of defendant's arrest, there was no probable cause to link either defendant or the seized items to any particular crime." 96 Mich.App. 269, 292 N.W.2d 546.
This Court granted the prosecutor's application for leave to appeal which argued that detaining the defendant during the investigation by the officers was proper. 409 Mich. 897 (1980). 5
The principal issue before the Court is the permissible scope of a detention based on less than probable cause. The detention in the police car, argues plaintiff, was within the scope of an investigative stop under Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968), and even if the detention falls outside of the scope of Terry, a standard of reasonableness, less than probable cause, is the proper test.
We assume for the purposes of decision of this appeal that the initial stop of defendant's automobile and the on-the-scene questioning and observations which immediately followed the Terry stop were constitutionally permissible. The subsequent detention, seizure, and transportation of defendant is in issue.
We also note that the prosecutor does not contend that the defendant was not seized. Thus, the detention involved must comply with the constitutional protection from unreasonable seizures. It is also significant that the prosecutor does not assert that the officers had probable cause to seize or arrest the defendant or that the officers had probable cause to seize the items in the defendant's car prior to the discovery of the break-in at the Melody Theatre. The prosecutor argues that the detention of the defendant beyond the initial stop for questioning need not be based on probable cause, but on a standard of reasonableness.
Our analysis of the instant case involves an assessment of two recent United States Supreme Court cases and an application to the instant facts of the constitutional principles analyzed in those cases. 6 In Dunaway v. New York, 442 U.S. 200, 99 S.Ct. 2248, 60 L.Ed.2d 824 (1979), the Court held that a detention for custodial interrogation, a procedure that was indistinguishable from a traditional arrest, must be supported by probable cause. And in Michigan v. Summers, 452 U.S. 692, 101 S.Ct. 2587, 69 L.Ed.2d 340 (1981), a search warrant for narcotics was found to implicitly carry with it the authority to detain occupants of a dwelling, including requiring them to return to the premises if found leaving the dwelling, while the search pursuant to the warrant is conducted.
The Rochester, New York, police seized Mr. Dunaway, drove him to police headquarters in a police car and placed him in an interrogation room. He was questioned by officers and ultimately made statements after waiving his right to counsel. After reviewing Terry v. Ohio, supra, and its progeny, the Court concluded that the detention could not be constitutionally permitted on the basis of a standard of "reasonable suspicion", nor would the Court adopt a multifactor balancing test which weighed the reasonableness of the particular law enforcement conduct for all cases involving seizures which are not technical arrests.
Of primary importance to the Dunaway decision was the purpose of the detention--custodial interrogation. Although the questioning, which occurred in custody, happened prior to the development of probable cause, there can be no doubt that the investigation...
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