A recent Michigan Supreme Court ruling on police searches of passengers during traffic stops can give people more power to challenge such probes and is expected to affect police training in Metro Detroit and across the state, officials and legal experts say.
“The opinion protects Michigan citizens and visitors against unreasonable police searches,” said Michael Faraone, the Lansing-based attorney for the passenger whose case sparked the decision. “It is a change in Michigan law. State and local police will need to be retrained on what is allowed.”
On Monday, the court ruled in favor of a passenger, Larry Mead, who claimed his rights were violated when police in Jackson County searched his backpack in May 2014 without his consent.
A sheriff’s deputy had stopped the car he was riding in with an expired plate driven by a woman Mead had met earlier that night. The driver was giving him a lift, the ruling said.
The deputy looked in Mead’s backpack after the driver consented to a search of her car. The backpack held marijuana and methamphetamine.
Mead eventually was arrested, convicted as a fourth-offense habitual offender and sentenced to serve two to 10 years in prison.
In its unanimous decision, the state Supreme Court said the search was unconstitutional.
“…A passenger’s personal property is not subsumed by the vehicle that carries it for Fourth Amendment purposes,” the ruling stated, referring to the amendment that protects against unreasonable searches and seizures. “…A person can get in a car without leaving his Fourth Amendment rights at the curb.”
The decision overruled the court’s previous 2007 decision that stopped passengers from challenging a search of a car in which they were traveling.
McCormack compared the situation to someone using a ride-sharing service.
“Because (the driver) did not have apparent common authority over the backpack, the search of the backpack was not based on valid consent and is per se unreasonable unless another exception to the warrant requirement applies,” the court ruled.
The ruling is significant “because it cleared up an area in which the Supreme Court had gotten the law wrong,” said David Moran, a University of Michigan law professor who leads the Michigan Innocence Clinic. “…The Fourth Amendment is all about common sense and reasonable expectations of privacy and social norms. It’s just common sense that the police will now need to ask passengers: ‘Mind if I search that bag?’”
In a statement, Michigan State Police spokeswoman Shanon Banner said: “We are reviewing the ruling and will publish a legal update to ensure our members are aware of the case-specific circumstances of this ruling.”
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