Case Information
*1 Michigan Supreme Court Lansing, Michigan Syllabus Chief Justice: Justices: Bridget M. McCormack Stephen J. Markman Brian K. Zahra Chief Justice Pro Tem: Richard H. Bernstein David F. Viviano Elizabeth T. Clement Megan K. Cavanagh This syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been Reporter of Decisions: Kathryn L. Loomis prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. PEOPLE v HAMMERLUND
Docket No. 156901. Argued on application for leave to appeal April 24, 2019. Decided July 23, 2019.
Jennifer M. Hammerlund was charged in the Kent Circuit Court with operating while
intoxicated, third offense, MCL 257.625; and failing to report an accident resulting in damage to
fixtures, MCL 257.621, for her involvement in a single-vehicle accident that she did not report to
the police. Her abandoned vehicle was discovered by Officer Erich Staman of the Wyoming Police
Department, who searched the vehicle, found that it was registered to defendant, and went to her
home. According to Staman, he stood on her porch while she remained inside, approximately 15
to 20 feet away from the front door, and they had a short conversation during which defendant
admitted to driving the car that caused the damage. When Staman asked defendant to produce her
identification, she passed a card to him through a third party in the home. After verifying her
information, Staman offered the identification card back to defendant. According to Staman, when
defendant came to the door and reached out to take the card, he grabbed her by the arm and
attempted to take her into custody for having failed to report her accident. Staman stated that when
defendant pulled away, the momеntum took him inside the home, where he handcuffed defendant
and completed the arrest before taking her to jail. Breath tests administered at the jail indicated
that defendant had a blood alcohol content over the legal limit. Defendant filed a pretrial motion
to suppress evidence and dismiss the charges, arguing that Officer Staman had violated her Fourth
Amendment rights by arresting her inside her home without a warrant and that the evidence
gathered following the arrest was subject to the exclusionary rule. The trial court, Paul J. Sullivan,
J., denied the motion, ruling that the arrest was constitutionally valid because defendant had
voluntarily reached out of her open doorway, which was a public place for Fourth Amendment
purposes under
United States v Santana
, 427 US 38 (1976). After a jury trial, defendant was
convicted as charged, and she was sentenced to five years’ probation and four months in jail for
having violated MCL 257.625 and to a concurrent term of 60 days in jail for having violated MCL
257.621. Defendant appealed, challenging the trial court’s denial of her motion to suppress
evidence. The Court of Appeals, M URRAY , P.J., and S AWYER and M ARKEY , JJ., affirmed, holding
that the arrest was constitutional under and that the trial court had not erred by denying
defendant’s motion.
People v Hammerlund
, unpublished per curiam opinion of the Court of
Appeals, issued October 17, 2017 (Docket No. 333827). Defendant sought leave to appeal in the
Supreme Court, which ordered and heard oral argument on whether to grant the application or take
other action.
In an opinion by Justice C AVANAGH , joined by Chief Justice M C C ORMACK and Justices V IVIANO , B ERNSTEIN , and C LEMENT , the Supreme Court, in lieu of granting leave to appеal, held :
Defendant was not subject to public arrest because she remained inside her home, where she maintained her reasonable expectation of privacy. Defendant’s act of reaching out to retrieve her identification card did not expose her to the public as if she had been standing completely outside her house under Santana , and the circumstances were insufficient to justify the hot-pursuit exception to the warrant requirement. Because the arrest was completed across the Fourth Amendment’s firm line at the entrance of the home, it was presumptively unreasonable, and the prosecution failed to overcome this presumption. The Court of Appeals judgment was reversed and the case was remanded to the trial court to consider whether evidence should be suppressed under the exclusionary rule.
1. The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution provides that the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. In order to be reasonable, an arrest must be justified by probable cause to believe that an offense has been or is being committed. Even when based on probable cause, however, a warrantless search or seizure inside a suspect’s home is presumptively unreasonable, absent exigent circumstances. Warrantless arrests that take place in public upon probable cause do not violate the Fourth Amendment.
2. The officer had probable cause to arrest defendant for failing to report an accident that
caused damage to fixtures under MCL 257.621(a), which is a misdemeanor. While probable cause
alone may justify a warrantless public arrest, the same is not true when it comes to arresting a
suspect in the suspect’s home. Under
Payton v New York
,
3. When officers have probable cause and exigent circumstances exist, it is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment for officers to enter a home without a warrant. Exigent *3 circumstances exist when an emergency leaves law enforcement with insufficient time to obtain a warrant. While hot pursuit of a fleeing felon is one recognized example of exigent circumstances, there was a not a legitimate hot pursuit in this case. It is unclear whether an officer with probable cause to arrest a suspect for a misdemeanor may rely on the hot-pursuit exception to make a warrantless home entry, and there was no suggestion of any emergency that would have entitled the police to enter defendant’s home throughout the conversation up to the point when defendant reached out to retrieve her identification. Accordingly, the seizure in this case, which occurred beyond the “firm line at the entrance of the house,” was prohibited under Payton because it was accomplished without a warrant, without consent, and without any exigent circumstances.
Court of Appеals judgment reversed; case remanded for further proceedings.
Justice Z AHRA , joined by Justice M ARKMAN , dissenting, would have held that
Santana
was
on point, applicable, and not meaningfully distinguishable from the facts presented in this case,
given its holding that the doorway of one’s residence is considered a public space for purposes of
Fourth Amendment analyses. He stated that under
Santana
, when the arrest was initiated after
some part of defendant’s person had extended beyond the constitutionally protected bounds of her
home, defendant was “as exposed to public view, speech, hearing, and touch as if she had been
standing completely outside her house.” He also stated that because the arrest was supported by
probable cause, initiated in a public place in accordance with , and properly completed
inside defendant’s home under the hot-pursuit exception to the warrant requirement, he would
have affirmed defendant’s convictions. He further reasoned that if the warrantless entry into
defendant’s home and subsequent arrest were improper, the established facts were sufficient to
hold that exclusion of the evidence obtained after the arrest would not be appropriate under the
United States Supreme Court’s decision in
New York v Harris
,
©2019 State of Michigan
Michigan Supreme Court Lansing, Michigan OPINION Chief Justice: Justices: Stephen J. Markman
Bridget M. M cCormack Brian K. Zahra Chief Justice Pro Tem: Richard H. Bernstein David F. Viviano Elizabeth T. Clement Megan K. Cavanagh FILED July 23, 2019 S T A T E O F M I C H I G A N SUPREME COURT
PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN,
Plaintiff-Appellee, v No. 156901 JENNIFER MARIE HAMMERLUND,
Defendant-Appellant. BEFORE THE ENTIRE BENCH
C AVANAGH , J.
In this case we must decide whether defendant’s constitutional right to be free from
unreasonable seizures was violated when a police officer entered her home to complete her
arrest for a misdemeanor offense. The Court of Appeals concluded that defendant exposed
herself to public arrest when she reached out her doorway to retrieve her identification and
that when she pulled her arm back into her home the officer’s entry was lawful as a “hot
pursuit.” We disagree. Defendant did not surrender her Fourth Amendment rights when
she interacted with law enforcement at her doorway because she consistently maintained
*5
her reasonable expectation of privacy throughout the encounter, and further, the entry was
not justified under the “hot pursuit” exception to the warrant requirement. The warrantless
arrest was unreasonable under
Payton v New York
,
I. BACKGROUND Defendant, Jennifer Marie Hammerlund, was involved in a single-vehicle accident in the early morning hours of September 30, 2015, on a highway exit ramp in Wyoming, Michigan. According to defendant, another driver cut her off, causing her to overcorrect and lose control of her car. Her vehicle scraped a cement barrier and left a dent on a metal guardrail. Defendant suffered only minor injuries; however, the car was no longer drivable. She attempted to call her insurance company and then used a rideshare service to get home. She did not report the accident to police.
Soon after, Officer Erich Staman of the Wyoming Police Department was dispatched to the scene of a reported abandoned vehicle on the shoulder of the highway off-ramp. After observing the damage to the vehicle, as well as the guardrail and cement barrier, Officer Staman requested a tow truck and conducted an inventory search. He discovered that the vehicle was registered to defendant and that it contained paperwork bearing defendant’s name, so he requested that officers from the Kentwood Police Department go to defendant’s home to perform a welfare check.
In the meantime, according to defendant, she returned home, found that she was “really shaken up,” and drank some alcohol. She then went into her room and went to bed.
2 *6 Only a few minutes later, the Kentwood officers arrived and told her roommate that they wished to speak with defendant. Defendant initially declined to leave her room; however, after her roommate spoke to the officers and reported back to defendant that the police would take her into custody and arrest the roommate for harboring a fugitive if she did not appear, defendant came to the door. After that, Officer Staman arrived at the home to “make contact” with defendant.
Officer Staman testified that when he arrived at defendant’s home, he stood on her porch while she remained inside, approximately 15 to 20 feet away from the front door. He acknowledged that it “didn’t appear that [defendant] wanted to come to the door . . . .” And, when asked whether defendant “made it pretty clear that she wasn’t coming out of the home,” he agreed, stating, “It seemed that she wasn’t going to come out.” During their short conversation, defendant admitted to driving the car that caused the damage. When he asked defendant to produce her identification she was “reluctant” to give it to him so she passed it to him through a third party in the home. Officer Staman testified that defendant told him that she “thought [Officer Staman] might be trying to coax her out of the house.”
After verifying her information, Officer Staman offered the identification card back to defendant. He explained:
And then I had to give the I.D. back to her, so I made sure I gave it back to Ms. Hammerlund. In doing that she came to the door where I was standing and reached out to get the I.D. as I gave it back to her, at which point I grabbed her by the arm and attempted to take her into custody . . . [f]or the hit and run that she just admitted to.
3 *7 He said that when defendant pulled away he grabbed her again and “the momentum” took him inside the home two to three steps where he handcuffed defendant and completed the arrest.
Following the arrest, Officer Staman placed defendant into the back of his patrol car. After she was advised of and waived her Miranda rights, defendant provided further details about the crash, which she described to the officer as possibly a “road rage situation.” Officer Staman detected a smell of intoxicants that was “moderate at best” and asked defendant if alcohol played a role in the crash. She opined that it had not, but did acknowledge drinking alcohol earlier in the night after finishing her shift as a bartender and later indicatеd that she thought her blood alcohol level may have been over the legal limit. When asked if she had any alcohol to drink after the accident, defendant replied, “Absolutely not.” Once transported to the county jail, defendant was given two successive breath tests, which indicated a blood alcohol content over the legal limit at .22 and .21, respectively. Consequently, defendant was charged with operating while intoxicated (OWI), third offense, MCL 257.625, and failing to report an accident resulting in damage to fixtures, MCL 257.621.
Defendant filed a pretrial motion to suppress evidence and dismiss the charges. In
the motion, she argued that Officer Staman had violated her Fourth Amendment rights by
arresting her inside her home without a warrant and that all the evidence gathered following
that arrest was subject to the exclusionary rule. The trial court denied the suppression
motion, concluding that the arrest was constitutionally valid pursuant to
United States v
*8
Santana
,
The case proceeded to trial. Dеfendant’s theory of the case was that she became intoxicated only after the accident. However, she acknowledged that she did not tell any of the officers that she drank when she got home. Defendant’s statements made to Officer Staman in his patrol car, as well as her blood-alcohol-content test results, were admitted at trial. After a jury trial, defendant was convicted as charged, and she was sentenced to five years’ probation and four months in jail for violating MCL 257.625 and to a concurrent term of 60 days in jail for violating MCL 257.621.
Defendant appealed, continuing to challenge the trial court’s denial of her motion
to suppress. The Court of Appeals, like the trial court, concluded that the arrest was
constitutional under ,
II. STANDARD OF REVIEW
We review a trial court’s findings of fact at a suppression hearing for clear error.
People v Williams
,
III. LEGAL BACKGROUND The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution provides: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and sеizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. [US Const, Am IV.] [3]
for a police officer to compel, coerce, or otherwise entice a person located in his or her home to enter a public place to perform a warrantless arrest.” People v Hammerlund , 501 Mich 1086, 1087 (2018). After receiving the benefit of briefing and oral argument, we find it improvident to consider this issue because the facts of this case do not lead to the conclusion that defendant subjected herself to a public arrest. That our order directed the parties to address the issue of constructive entry—which the dissent agrees need not be decided under the facts of this case—does not mean that we are imprudently or incorrectly deciding the very legal issues decided by the trial court and the Court of Appeals and briefed by the parties on appeal to this Court. The Michigan Constitution, Const 1963, art 1, § 11, provides coextensive protection to
that of its federal counterpart. See
People v Mead
,
6
*10
The touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is reasonableness.
Brigham City, Utah v Stuart
,
Even when based on probable cause, however, a warrantless search or seizure inside
a suspect’s home is presumptively unreasonable.
Payton
, 445 US at 586. In fact, the
United States Supreme Court has recognized that “physical entry of the home is the chief
evil against which the wording of the Fourth Amendment is directed.”
Id
. at 585 (quotation
marks and citations omitted). To protect against unreasonable intrusions into the home, a
warrant is required to “interpose the magistrate’s determination of probable cause between
the zealous officer and the citizen.”
Id
. at 602. In other words, “the Fourth Amendment
has drawn a firm line at the entrance to the house,” which “[a]bsent exigent
circumstances . . . may not be reasonably crossed without a warrant.”
Id
. at 590; see also
Kirk v Louisiana
,
7
*11
the presumption of unreasonableness attached to a warrantless entry rests on the
prosecution.
People v Oliver
,
Warrantless arrests that take place in public upon probable cause do not violate the
Fourth Amendment.
United States v Watson
,
IV. ANALYSIS
As noted, the Fourth Amendment permits an arrest without a warrant in a public
place as long as the police officer making the arrest possesses sufficient probable cause.
Watson
,
8
*12
information was more than adequate to provide the officer with probable cause to believe
that the misdemeanor offense had been committed. Defendant does not argue otherwise.
*13
While probable cause alone may justify a warrantless public arrest, the same is not
true when it comes to arresting a suspect in her home. Under
Payton
, law enforcement
must obtain a warrant or identify exigent circumstances that excuse the warrant
requirement before entering a home to make an arrest.
Payton
,
In Santana , undercover officers who had probable cause to believe the defendant had just been involved in an illegal purchase of heroin drove to the defendant’s house and saw her standing in the doorway holding a brown paper bag. , 427 US at 40. According to one officer, the defendant was “standing directly in the doorway—one step forward would have put her outside, one step backward would have put her in the vestibule of her residence.” Id . at n 1. The officers pulled up within 15 feet of the defendant and got out of the vehicle while shouting “police” and displaying their identification. Id . at 40. The defendant retreated into her home, and the officers followed her inside and arrested her, discovering drugs in the bag and marked money on her person. Id . at 40-41. Before trial, the defendant successfully moved to suppress the evidence after the trial court ruled the facts that were known to Officer Staman at the time of the arrest were not sufficient to establish probable cause for OWI or any other identified felony. The dissent’s position would allow the police to retroactively manufacture probable cause where none existed at the time the arrest was made. Most important, however, is that even if we were to conclude that the officer possessed probable cause to arrest defendant for OWI, it would not render this a constitutional arrest because there was no legitimate hot pursuit.
that a warrant was necessary to enter her home. Id . The United States Supreme Court reversed, concluding that (1) the arrest began in a public place, and (2) the police were in lawful hot pursuit when they entered the defendant’s home because there was a realistic expectation that she would destroy the evidence. Id . at 43. Therefore, the arrest was constitutional because “a suspect may not defeat an arrest which has been set in motion in a public place . . . by the expedient of escaping to a рrivate place.” Id .
A. PUBLIC ARREST In our view, Santana is distinguishable from the instant case. Unlike the defendant in Santana , in this case defendant was not “exposed to public view, speech, hearing, and touch, as if she had been standing completely outside her house.” Id . at 42. Defendant was never in a public place and possessed a reasonable expectation of privacy inside her home that she maintained throughout the encounter. The lower courts erred by holding otherwise.
Initially, we do not agree with the Court of Appeals’ conclusion that defendant “went further” than the Santana defendant to expose herself to the public by approaching the doorway and “extending her arm beyond the threshold” to retrieve her identification. Hammerlund , unpub op at 5. The defendant stood squarely in the middle of her doorway. Here, the circuit court found only that defendant “reached out of her door” to retrieve her property. According to the record, all that breached the threshold was some portion of defendant’s arm or hand.
*15
But the fact that some portion of defendant’s arm or hand crossed the threshold does
not tell us the constitutional significance of this fact. Should we consider her to be in public
if her whole arm was outside the threshold? What if it was only her wrist or a couple of
her fingers? Fortunately, an attempt to determine how far defendant extended her arm or
hand over the threshold and what that might mean is an unnecessary exercise. Our Fourth
Amendment analysis does not focus on such arbitrary calculations; our focus remains on
determining whether a person sought to preserve her constitutionally protected reasonable
expectation of privacy. See
Katz v United States
,
It is beyond clear that defendant had a reasonable constitutional expectation of
privacy within her home.
Payton
,
fractions of an inch can be a very treacherous endeavor, producing arbitrary results. But we need not pull out our rulers and begin to measure. Under the Fourth Amendment, the point must be identified by inquiry into reasonable expectations of privacy.”).
officers does not destroy an occupant’s right to maintain a reasonable expectation of
privacy from unreasonable intrusion.
Kentucky v King
,
The lower courts compared this case to
Santana
to conclude that defendant did not
have a reasonable expectation of privacy because she exposed herself to public arrest. See
Hammerlund
, unpub op at 5.
Santana
is distinguishable. In that case, the defendant was
voluntarily standing in the middle of her open doorway before the police encounter even
began; by doing so, she exposed herself to the public “as if she had been standing
completely outside” and she did not have
any
reasonable expectation of privacy from the
very beginning of the encounter. ,
Nonetheless, the Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s application of
Santana
to this case because it reasoned that defendant exposed herself to public arrest by
approaching the door and reaching out to retrieve her identification.
Hammerlund
, unpub
op at 5. But there is a fundamental difference between the reasonable expectation of
privacy of a person who voluntarily stands in an open doorway and the reasonable
expectation of privacy of a person who remains inside the confines of her home,
approaching the doorway only briefly and momentarily breaking the plane of the doorway
with some portion of her arm or hand. In other words, defendant did not surrender her
*18
expectation of privacy because she did not expose herself to public view, speech, hearing,
and touch
as if she had been standing completely outside
.
Santana
,
Defendant manifested an intent to remain fully within her home by carefully standing several feet away from the door. She continued to manifest this intent when she approached the doorway briefly and only broke the plane of the doorway with some portion of her arm or hand. We think that society would recognize defendant’s behavior as preserving a reasonable expectation of privacy. In fact, we would venture that what society would not view as reasonable is exactly what occurred in this case—that a person suspected of a minor misdemeanor could be subjected to a warrantless arrest inside her home in the middle of the night.
To recap, defendant’s expectation of privacy within her home was reasonable, and her action of reaching out over the threshold and retrieving her identification did not relinquish that reasonable expectation. Defendant was not exposed to public arrest, and accordingly, Santana is inapplicable to the facts of this case.
B. EXIGENT CIRCUMSTANCES Beyond the fact that does not apply because defendant did not leave the confines of her home or otherwise subject herself to public arrest, Santana is still showed a conscious intention to protect the privacy of his home by utilizing only the small hole in the wall.
The dissent directs its attention to the factual differences between this case and
Flowers
,
but it disregards the
Flowers
court’s focus on the defendant’s limited exposure of his hand
outside the home in connection with his conscious intention to maintain his reasonable
expectation of privacy, which is what we find most relevant to the instant discussion.
*19
inapplicable because there was no hot pursuit or need for immediate police action. When
officers have probable cause and exigent circumstances exist, it is reasonable under the
Fourth Amendment for officers to enter a home without a warrant.
Payton
,
To begin, application of the hot-pursuit doctrine under the instant circumstances is
suspect. See
Welsh v Wisconsin
,
*20
However, even were we to characterize what occurred as a “pursuit,” that pursuit
would be far from a “hot” one. “What makes the pursuit ‘hot’ is ‘the emergency nature of
the situation,’ requiring ‘immediate police action.’ ”
Smith v Stoneburner
,
The Court of Appeals held that, under
Santana
, the officer’s pursuit of defendant
was legitimate because he acted lawfully by attempting to grab her arm when she extended
it beyond the threshold of her home.
Hammerlund
, unpub op at 6. As we have explained,
critical to
Santana
’s holding was the fact that the defendant in that case was voluntarily in
full public view when she first interacted with the police and before she retreated into her
home. But, as previously discussed, defendant was not voluntarily exposed to public arrest
at any point in the encounter. Therefore, unlike in
Santana
, when defendant pulled her arm
away from the officer she did not thwart an “otherwise proper arrest” that had been “set in
motion in a public place.” ,
C. PAYTON Because Santana is inapplicable, we return to Payton , which prohibits entry into a suspect’s home without a warrant in the absence of an emergency situation. Payton , 445 US at 590. Defendant did not expose herself to public arrest or relinquish her reasonable expectation of privacy throughout the encounter and there was no hot pursuit, but Officer Staman conceded that defendant’s arrest was completed inside her home. Since the seizure occurred beyond the “firm line at the entrance of the house,” it was unreasonable because it was accomplished without a warrant, without consent, and without any exigent circumstances. Payton prohibits it.
V. CONCLUSION
Officer Staman completed defendant’s arrest inside her home, the place where the
Constitution most protects her freedom from unreasonable governmental intrusion.
Defendant was not subject to public arrest because she remained inside, she maintained her
reasonable expectation of privacy, and her act of reaching out to retrieve her identification
did not expose her to the public “as if she had been standing completely outside her house,”
,
Accordingly, we reverse the Court of Appeals judgment and remand to the trial
court for further proceedings. Whether suppression of evidence under the exclusionary
rule is appropriate is an issue separate from whether defendant’s Fourth Amendment rights
were violated by police conduct.
People v Hawkins
,
Megan K. Cavanagh Bridget M. McCormack David F. Viviano Richard H. Bernstein Elizabeth T. Clement *23 S T A T E O F M I C H I G A N SUPREME COURT
PEOPLE OF MICHIGAN,
Plaintiff-Appellee, v No. 156901 JENNIFER MARIE HAMMERLUND,
Defendant-Appellant. Z AHRA , J. ( dissenting ).
The majority holds that defendant’s arrest violated the United States Constitution because defendant never left the sanctity of her home—or otherwise relinquished the reasonable expectation of privacy inherent to the home [1] —when Officer Erich Staman began the process of arresting her. I respectfully dissent. I conclude that United States v [2] is on point and applicable to the instant case and not, as held by the majority, meaningfully distinguishable from the facts presented in this case. In my view, nothing about the probable cause underlying the arrest or its location rendered it constitutionally deficient. But even if the warrantless entry into defendant’s home and subsequent arrest were improper under Payton v New York , the established facts are sufficient to hold that *24 exclusion of the evidence obtained after the arrest is not appropriate under New York v Harris . [4] For these reasons, I would affirm defendant’s convictions. [5]
I. NO MEANINGFUL DISTINCTION FROM UNITED STATES v SANTANA The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution provides: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
An arrest of a person, like all seizures (and searches), must therefore be reasonable to pass constitutional muster. Warrantless searches and seizures that occur within a defendant’s *25 home are presumptively unreasonable. [7] Indeed, “ ‘physical entry of the home is the chief evil against which the wording of the Fourth Amendment is directed.’ ” [8] As the United States Supreme Court stated in Payton v New York :
The Fourth Amendment protects the individual’s privacy in a variety of settings. In none is the zone of privacy more clearly defined than when bounded by the unambiguous physical dimensions of an individual’s home— a zone that finds its roots in clear and specific cоnstitutional terms: “The right of the people to be secure in their . . . houses . . . shall not be violated.” That language unequivocally establishes the proposition that “[a]t the very core [of the Fourth Amendment] stands the right of a man to retreat into his own home and there be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion.” In terms that apply equally to seizures of property and to seizures of persons, the Fourth Amendment has drawn a firm line at the entrance to the house. Absent exigent circumstances, that threshold may not reasonably be crossed without a warrant. [9]
On the other hand, arrests made in public places are not afforded nearly the same level of protection under the Fourth Amendment. [10] Rather, in public settings, a police officer does not typically violate the Fourth Amendment by performing a warrantless arrest as long as it is supported by probable cause. [11] Critically, under the United States Supreme Court’s decision in United States v Santana , the doorway of one’s residence is considered *26 a public space for purposes of Fourth Amendment analyses. [12] That is, a defendant does not have an “expectation of privacy” in the threshold separating the interior of his or her home from the outside world. [13]
In , the police went to the defendant’s house on the basis of information that she was in possession of marked money used to make a controlled purchase of heroin by an undercover agent. [14] Testimony established that, when the officers arrived, the defendant was “standing directly in the doorway[;] one step forward would have put her outside, one step backward would have put her in the vestibule of her residence.” [15] The officers displayed identification and shouted “police,” prompting the defendant to retreat into the vestibule of the house. [16] As she did, the defendant spilled two bundles of paper packets containing a white powder, later determined to be heroin. [17] The police followed the defendant into her home, restrained her, and asked her to empty her pockets. [18] The defendant produced $70 of marked money. [19] The defendant was charged with distribution *27 of heroin, and she moved to suppress evidence recovered at the scene. [20] The Supreme Court of the United States determined that suppression was inappropriate because the arrest was “set in motion in a public place . . . .” [21] That is, the defendant was in a public place— the threshold of her home, where she had no reasonable expectation of privacy—when the police, armed with probable cause, sought to arrest her. [22] The defendant could not avoid an otherwise proper arrest by retreating into her home because law enforcement officers armed with probable cause for an arrest are within constitutional bounds to engage in a “hot pursuit” of a fleeing felon, even if that pursuit requires intrusion into the home. [23] The Supreme Court observed that “[t]he fact that the pursuit here ended almost as soon as it began did not render it any the less a ‘hot pursuit’ sufficient to justify the warrantless entry into Santana’s house.” [24]
In the present case, the majority makes much of the fact that defendant began her encounter with Officer Staman from a position within the interior of her home. But this factual distinction from Santana [25] is without legal significance. What mattered in Santana *28 was that the arrest was initiated from a lawful point in a public place. [26] I would hold that Officer Staman complied with this aspect of by initiating the arrest only after defendant voluntarily reаched across the threshold of her home to retrieve her identification. [27]
The majority suggests that the record is unclear regarding how much of defendant’s arm or body was on either side of the imaginary line dividing the protected area within the interior of the home and the unprotected public space outside. While defendant’s exact position at the time the arrest was initiated has not been established with pinpoint accuracy, the uncontroverted record evidence shows that Officer Staman did not reach across the threshold of the house at all when defendant attempted to retake her identification. At the evidentiary hearing following defendant’s motion to suppress, Officer Staman testified, *29 “I don’t think my hand was ever inside the house when I handed [defendant] the I.D.” [29] Rather, he only entered the house when he took hold of defendant and was pulled inside while attempting to complete the arrest. Some part of defendant’s person, at the very least up to her wrist, had extended beyond the constitutionally protected bounds of her home; and from the record, it appears that there is no evidence that Officer Staman took hold of any part of defendant’s person that remained inside the house at the moment when he initiated the arrest.
On this record, I disagree with the majority’s assertion that defendant had a reasonable expectation of privacy at the time of the arrest. [30] In Katz v United States , the Supreme Court of the United States held that “[w]hat a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protectiоn.” I discern no principled reason why the act of appearing at the doorway and reaching outside *30 is not properly characterized as “knowingly expos[ing oneself] to the public.” Several federal circuit courts agree. Consider Sparing v Village of Olympia Fields , [32] the case cited by the majority for the proposition that “an attempt to determine how far defendant extended her arm or hand over the threshold and what that might mean is an unnecessary exercise.” In that case, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit explained a “doorway arrest” as follows:
But what if the individual is not voluntarily standing in an open doorway, but answers a knock at the door, standing by a “fraction of an inch” behind an open doorway? We still apply -type “public view, speech, hearing, and touch” analysis to aid in the determination of whether a reasonable expectation of privacy exists . . . .
. . . [W]hen an individual voluntarily stands behind an open doorway—fractions of an inch “inside the home”—ordinarily, for purposes of the Fourth Amendment, she stands outside, in a public place. [33]
Sparing is not the only federal circuit case to hold that a person standing entirely inside the home by a small amount is in a “public place” for the purposes of the Fourth Amendment (and thus potentially subject to warrantless arrest). In United States v Vaneaton , the issue was whether “the police, acting with probable cause but without a warrant and while standing outside [the defendant’s] motel room, could lawfully arrest [the defendant] while he was standing immediately inside the open doorway.” The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit concluded that the arrest wаs lawful, reasoning that the *31 defendant “exposed himself in a public place” because “he voluntarily opened the door and exposed both himself and the immediate area to them.” [35] Similarly, in United States v Council , the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit concluded that a warrantless arrest was lawful where the defendant was arrested “at the doorway of his camper.” [36] The court explained that the precise placement of the defendant in relation to the doorway was not dispositive:
Lest we become too preoccupied with the exact location of the individual in relation to the doorway, we make clear our general conclusion that [the defendant] forfeited any reasonable expectation of privacy during the exchange. When [the defendant] appeared at his doorway, he was not merely visible to the public, but was as exposed to public view, speech, hearing, and touch as if he had been standing completely outside his house. [37]
These courts properly applied the principles set forth in
Katz
and .
[38]
*32
The
Santana
Court reasoned that the defendant was in a public place when she stood
in the threshold of her home because “[s]he was not merely visible to the public but was as
exposed to public view, speech, hearing, and touch as if she had been standing completely
outside her house.” So, too, was defendant in this case “exposed to public view, speech,
hearing, and,” clearly, “touch” as if no part of her was occupying the space within her home
at the time of her arrest. Officer Staman testified at trial that, during his initial interaction
with defendant, “it was still dark, but you cоuld see who [he] was talking to inside the
house without any difficulty.” No door or barrier impeded defendant’s ability to speak to
Officer Staman from a point initially between 10 and 20 feet within her home or her ability
to reach across the threshold in an attempt to retake her identification, nor did any such
barrier prevent Officer Staman from taking hold of some portion of defendant’s hand or
wrist without crossing the threshold himself. When Officer Staman initiated the arrest by
taking hold of the part of defendant that crossed her threshold, it was of no consequence
that some other portion of her body remained within the protected area of the home’s
afforded to the individual’s interest in the privacy of his own home . . . .” [
Id
.
at 1227, quoting
Payton
,
While the majority cites
Flowers
for its acknowledgment of the defendant’s “conscious
intention to maintain his reasonable expectation of privacy,” that case is easily
distinguishable because the defendant cannot be said to have been “exposed to public view,
speech, hearing, and touch as if []he had been standing completely outside h[is] house”
when he reached his arm through a panel next to an adjacent
but closed
front door. See
Santana
,
interior. As was the case in Santana , the circumstances surrounding the arrest reveal that defendant’s expectation of privacy was diminished to a point “as if she had been standing completely outside her house.” [41]
II. PROBABLE CAUSE TO ARREST DEFENDANT Having determined that the holding is applicable under these facts, it is still necessary to determine whether Officer Staman had probable cause to arrest defendant [42] and whether a “hot pursuit” justified Officer Staman’s еntry into the home after initiating the arrest. I would hold that Officer Staman had probable cause sufficient to execute a public arrest and that—regardless of the relatively fleeting “pursuit” leading into defendant’s home—Officer Staman’s entry after beginning the arrest was lawful.
As the majority articulates, “[p]robable cause to arrest exists where the facts and circumstances within an officer’s knowledge and of which he has reasonably trustworthy information are sufficient in themselves to warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief that an offense has been or is being committed.” In this case, by the time Officer Staman attempted to perform the arrest at issue, he had already discovered an abandoned car registered to defendant bearing indication that it had been the cause of damage to public road fixtures. After Officer Staman arrived at defendant’s residence, defendant made *34 noncustodial prearrest statements that she was driving and that she had left the scene of the accident without reporting the damage. Probable cause was therefore clearly established as to defendant’s involvement in failing to report an accident causing damage to fixtures. [44]
MCL 764.15 outlines several state-specific rules for conducting warrantless arrests. Under that statute, a police officer may conduct a warrantless arrest for any felony, misdemeanor, or ordinance violation committed in that officer’s presence. [45] Felonies can form the basis for a valid warrantless arrest under MCL 764.15(1)(b) even when not committed in the officer’s presence; but misdemeanors that are not committed in the officer’s presence can only form the basis for a warrantless arrest under MCL 764.15(1)(d) when they are punishable by imprisonment for more than 92 days and when the arresting officer has “reasonable cause” to believe the person being arrested committed the misdemeanor. Here, Officer Staman went to defendant’s home to investigate a suspected failure to report an accident causing damage to fixtures in violation of MCL 257.621, although the crime was not committed in his presence. Failure to report an accident causing damage to fixtures is only a 90-day misdemeanor. Accordingly, it does not meet the criteria for a valid warrantless arrest under MCL 764.15(1)(d). The arrest at issue therefore constituted a statutory violation.
Nevertheless, as this Court stated in People v Hawkins : *35 Irrespective of the application of the exclusionary rule in the context of a constitutional violation, the drastic remedy of exclusion of evidence does not necessarily apply to a statutory violation. Whether the exclusionary rule should be applied to evidence seized in violation of a statute is purely a matter of legislative intent. [47]
That is, “where there is no determination that a statutory violation constitutes an error of constitutional dimensions, application of the exclusionary rule is inappropriate unless the plain language of the statute indicates a legislative intent that the rule be applied.” [48] Nothing in the text of MCL 764.15 indicates that violations of the statute warrant application of the exclusionary rule. Thus, exclusion of evidence on the basis of violations of that statute is aрpropriate only if such violations establish “error of constitutional dimensions.” [49] The majority appears to acknowledge as much in a footnote. [50]
Putting aside, for the moment, probable cause to arrest defendant for failure to report an accident causing damage to fixtures, precedent from the Supreme Court of the United States provides:
[A]n arresting officer’s state of mind (except for the facts that he knows) is irrelevant to the existence of probable cause. That is to say, his subjective reason for making the arrest need not be the criminal offense as to which the known facts provide probable cause. As we have repeatedly explained, the fact that the officer does not have the state of mind which is hypothecated by the reasons which provide the legal justification for the officer’s action does not invalidate the action taken as long as the circumstances, viewed objectively, justify that action. [T]he Fourth Amendment’s concern with “reasonableness” allows certain actions to be taken in certain circumstances, *36 whatever the subjective intent. [E]venhanded law enforcement is best achieved by the application of objective standards of conduct, rather than standards that depend upon the subjective state of mind of the officer. [51]
Regardless of the propriety of an arrest for defendant’s failure to report an accident causing
damage to fixtures, Officer Staman
also
had probable cause to initiate an arrest for
operating a vehicle under the influence of intoxicating liquor, third offense, in violation of
MCL 257.625(9)(c). The felony information and affidavit of probable cause in the record
state that defendant had been convicted of operating while intoxicated twice in the past—
once in 1998 and once in 2006. Officer Staman testified at the evidentiary hearing that
*37
when he was dispatched to the scene of the accident, he found defendant’s vehicle
abandoned, facing the wrong direction on an exit ramp from US-131, and showing signs
that it had struck both of the protective barriers on the exit ramp. Defendant, herself, did
not report the accident to the police. After Officer Staman arrived at defendant’s home, he
observed defendant leaning against a wall as if to maintain balance. He also noticed that
her speech was slurred prior to transporting her to the police station. A violation of MCL
citation omitted). Even when exclusion may facilitate some marginal degree of such
deterrence, exclusion is not appropriate if the cost of applying the rule—“letting guilty and
possibly dangerous defendants go free”—outweighs the potential benefit.
Id
. “[T]he rule’s
‘costly toll’ upon truth-seeking and law enforcement objectives presents a high obstacle
for those urging application of the rule.”
Pennsylvania Bd of Probation & Parole v Scott
,
Here, the record reveals no evidence that Officer Staman believed this arrest to be unlawful before proceeding in spite of such awareness. Indeed, from his testimony at the evidentiary hearing, it seems clear that—notwithstanding the probable cause or lack thereof pertaining to the offense of operating a motor vehicle under the influence of intoxicating liquor—Officer Staman believed that he was arresting defendant for a 93-day misdemeanor in compliance with MCL 764.15(1)(d). There is no flagrant or culpable conduct on the part of the police to deter in future cases. The circumstances existing at the time of the arrest were sufficient to establish probable cause, and Officer Staman’s failure to recognize that he was able to arrest defendant for operating a vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquor should not be punished by implementation of the exclusionary rule. The majority believes that “more concrete facts”—aside from the nature of defendant’s accident, the fact that defendant abandoned her crashed vehicle without contacting the police, defendant’s use of a wall in a manner suggesting that she needed it to maintain balance, and defendant’s slurred speech—are necessary to establish probable cause to believe that defendant was under the influence of intoxicating alcohol when the accident *38 257.625(9)(c) would constitute a felony. Thus, Officer Staman was statutorily authorized under MCL 764.15(1)(b) and (h) to arrest defendant, notwithstanding his mistaken belief that failure to report an aсcident to fixtures was a 93-day misdemeanor.
III. HOT PURSUIT
Moving forward, it becomes necessary to determine whether the arrest was
improper under Fourth Amendment jurisprudence because it was completed
inside
defendant’s home, even though Officer Staman initially took hold of defendant when she
voluntarily extended her hand into a public space to retrieve her identification. The Court
of Appeals accurately alluded to the holding in
Santana
, stating that “a suspect may not
defeat an arrest which has been set in motion in a public place . . . by the expedient of
escaping to a private place.” As noted by the majority, there appears to be a divide in the
occurred. To be certain, one can imagine a scenario in which defendant imbibed alcoholic
beverages only after returning home. The majority entertains such scenarios by speculating
that defendant’s slurred speech and unstable stance were due to the accident. But the
United States Supreme Court instructs us that “[p]robable cause . . . is not a high bar: It
requires only the kind of fair probability on which reasonable and prudent people, not legal
technicians, act.”
Kaley v United States
,
federal courts as to whether the “hot pursuit” exception applies to warrantless entry into the home of a fleeing defendant suspected of committing a misdemeanor . [55] Indeed, our Court of Appeals has previously held that the “hot pursuit” exception to the warrant requirement did not allow for entry into the home of a defendant suspected of committing a misdemeanor. [56]
In any event, this Court need not take a stance on this issue in the present case. As previously stated, Officer Staman would have had probable cause to believe that defendant operated a vehicle under the influence of intoxicating liquor—a felony where, as here, it is a defendant’s third such offense [57] —before the arrest. Where Officer Staman had probable cause to believe that such a violation occurred, the “hot pursuit” exception would undoubtedly apply. [58] Accordingly, when Officer Staman took hold of defendant in a public place and defendant began to resist and pull away, Officer Staman could lawfully pursue defendant into her home to prevent her escape. [59] As stated by the Supreme Court in *40 Santana , “[t]he fact that the pursuit here ended almost as soon as it begаn did not render it any the less a ‘hot pursuit’ sufficient to justify the warrantless entry into [defendant’s] house.”
The arrest in this case was supported by probable cause, initiated in a public place in accordance with Santana , and properly completed inside defendant’s home pursuant to the “hot pursuit” exception to the warrant requirement.
The Minnesota Supreme Court applied essentially the correct standard in determining whether exigent circumstances existed. The court observed that “a warrantless intrusion may be justified by hot pursuit of a fleeing felon, or imminent destruction of evidence . . . , or the need to prevent a suspect’s escape, or the risk of danger to the police or to other persons inside or outside the dwelling.” [ Id ., quoting State v Olson ,436 NW2d 92 , 97 (Minn, 1989) (emphasis added; citation omitted).]
Thus, while the arrest may not have been valid solely on the basis of an attempt to preserve
evidence, entry into defendant’s home was necessary to prevent the circumvention of a
constitutionally proper arrest, which was initiated from a position outside the protected
area inside the home.
,
circumstances relied on in entering a defendant’s home. See
Kentucky v King
,
IV. APPLICATION OF NEW YORK v HARRIS But even if the “hot pursuit” exception does not apply, defendant still would not be entitled to suppression of the evidence. Defendant is denied the relief she seeks by the United States Supreme Court’s opinion in New York v Harris , [61] a case referred to by the majority in a single footnote. The majority remands the case to the trial court but does not decide this issue, noting that neither the trial court nor the Court of Appeals addressed the application of the exclusionary rule. Because the facts of the case have been sufficiently developed such that we could apply the holding in Harris , I believe that we should do so in the name of judicial efficiency.
In Harris , the United States Supreme Court explained that “the rule in Payton was designed to protect the physical integrity of the home; it was not intended to grant criminal suspects . . . protection for statements made outside their premises where the police have probable cause to arrest the suspect for committing a crime.” [62] That is, “where the police have probable cause to arrest a suspect, the exclusionary rule does not bar the State’s use of a statement made by the defendant outside of his home, even though the statement is taken after an arrest made in the home in violation of Payton ,” as long as the statement is not rendered inadmissible on some other grounds, e.g., coercion. It seems clear, then, that because Officer Staman had probable cause to arrest defendant for failure to report an accident causing damage to fixtures and for operating a motor vehicle under the influence *42 of intoxicating liquor, defendant’s statements in Officer Staman’s police cruiser—made after waiving her Miranda rights—would be admissible even if the arrest inside defendant’s home violated the rule in Payton . I see no reason why the rule in Harris would not extend to uphold the admissibility of defendant’s blood-alcohol-level tests as well.
V. CONCLUSION I would hold that there was no constitutional defect in the probable cause supporting the arrest and no constitutional defect stemming from the location of the arrest. Even if a constitutional error did occur when Officer Staman entered the home to complete the arrest, the United States Supreme Court’s holding in Harris instructs that the exclusionary rule would not serve to bar admission of defendant’s self-incriminating statements made in Officer Staman’s police vehicle or to the blood-alcohol-level tests administered in this case. For these reasons, I believe the lower courts ultimately reached the correct conclusion. I would affirm defendant’s convictions.
Brian K. Zahra Stephen J. Markman
Notes
[1]
Miranda v Arizona
,
[2] In our order, we directed the parties to address “whether it is constitutionally permissible 5
[4] We take this opportunity to note that failurе to report an accident resulting in damage to
fixtures is a 90-day misdemeanor. Under Michigan law, therefore, Officer Staman was not
statutorily authorized to arrest defendant. See MCL 764.15(1)(d) (A peace officer may
make a warrantless arrest where “[t]he peace officer has reasonable cause to believe a
misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment for more than 92 days or a felony has been
committed and reasonable cause to believe the person committed it.”). However, a
statutory violation and a constitutional violation are not one and the same. See
Hamilton
,
[5] The dissent concludes that Officer Staman also possessed probable cause to arrest
defendant for OWI-3d because he observed that defendant was “leaning against a wall as
if to maintain balance,” “that her speech was slurred prior to transporting her to the police
station,” and that she had previous OWI convictions. There are multiple problems with
this conclusion. First, that defendant was slurring her speech and unstable on her feet could
possibly provide probable cause to believe that she was under the influence when the crash
occurred; however, considering the fact that defendant was in an accident in which her
head collided with a steering wheel and the intervening time between the accident and the
police contact, without more concrete facts it is a stretch to conclude that any unsteadiness
оr warped speech stemmed from intoxication that was present at the time she operated the
vehicle. Second, the record is vague about when exactly Officer Staman noticed defendant
slurring her speech, and it is unclear whether it was while she remained inside her home or
only after she was arrested. Third, relatedly, there is nothing in the record to indicate that
Officer Staman was aware of defendant’s prior OWI convictions before he made the arrest.
The dissent speculates that Officer Staman “may well have been aware of” the prior
convictions, but cites nothing in the record that supports such a statement other than the
fact that OWI convictions are reported to the secretary of state under MCL 257.625(21)(a).
Further, what Officer Staman observed or discovered
after
the arrest is not relevant
to whether the officer had probable cause to arrest in the first place. Probable cause to
arrest exists where the facts and circumstances
known
to the officer would warrant a person
of reasonable caution to believe that the offense was committed by the suspect.
Champion
,
[6] Testimony concerning how far defendant reached out or how much—if any—of her body was exposed to the public is ambiguous at best. When asked if he went inside to grab her
[8] The lower courts did not conclude that defendant exposed herself to public arrest by coming to the door or by talking to Officer Staman while standing 15 to 20 feet back from the door. Rather, the lower courts concluded that defendant subjected herself to public arrest only by extending her hand beyond the threshold when retrieving her identification. See Hammerlund , unpub op at 5 (“[D]efendant’s act of reaching out to grab her identification . . . caused her to . . . expos[e] herself to a public arrest . . . .”). Accordingly, we need not decide whether her mere presence and interaction with Officer Staman at the door, and whether she did so voluntarily or as a result of coercion or deception, constituted exposure to public arrest.
[9] See
United States v Flowers
, 336 F3d 1222, 1227 (CA 10, 2003), holding that the
defendant was not subject to public arrest under
Payton
and
Kirk
and distinguishing
:
The record shows that at the time of Flowers’ arrest, and from the time
that night at which the police officers first came to Flowers, Flowers was
inside his home. Although Flowers put his arm and hand outside his house
by extending them through the panel opening, the rest of his body did not
cross his threshold. We believe that Flowers did not lose “the constitutional
protection afforded to the individual’s interest in the privacy of his own
home,”
Payton
, [
[10] Our Court of Appeals addressed this issue decades ago, opining that “the less serious
nature of a misdemeanor offense militates against extending the hot pursuit exception to
justify an unannounced entry into a private residence to make such an arrest.”
People v
Strelow
,
[11] Although we disagree with the dissent that there was no evidence of coercion in this
case, because defendant’s arrest was completed in her home, we find it unnecessary to
discuss or adopt the constructive-entry doctrine that defendant urges us to endorse. See
United States v Morgan
, 743 F2d 1158, 1166 (CA 6, 1984);
People v Gillam
, 479 Mich
253, 261-266;
[12] Amicus Curiae, the Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan, urges this Court to
conclude that the exclusionary rule must not apply here pursuant to its reading of
New York
v Harris
,
[1] See
Payton v New York
,
[2]
United States v Santana
,
[3] See
Payton
,
[4]
New York v Harris
,
[5] This Court, in its May 30, 2018 order, required the parties to prepare supplemental briefs addressing a single issue: “whether it is constitutionally permissible for a police officer to compel, coerce, or otherwise entice a person located in his or her home to enter a public place to perform a warrantless arrest.” People v Hammerlund , 501 Mich 1086, 1087 (2018). The majority does not address this question now because it has determined that defendant never left her home or otherwise relinquished her reasonable expectation of privacy prior to her arrest. Although I disagree with the majority’s reasoning, I would also decline to address this issue because—having reviewed the record—I have found no evidence of coercion in this case. Given that neither I nor the majority believes that the question posed to the parties in this Court’s May 30, 2018 order is pertinent to these proceedings, the best course of action is to either deny defendant’s application for leave or direct the parties to devote further briefing to the issues the majority now deems to be dispositive. For the reasons expressed in this dissent, I believe that the majority’s chosen course of action is imprudent and legally incorrect.
[6]
Payton
,
[7] Id . at 586.
[8]
Id
. at 585-586, quoting
United States v United States Dist Court for the Eastern Dist of
Mich
,
[9]
Payton
,
[10] See ,
[11] Id .
[12] Id . at 40, 42.
[13] Id . at 42.
[14] Id . at 39-40.
[15] Id . at 40 n 1.
[16] Id . at 40.
[17] Id . at 40-41.
[18] Id .
[19] Id . at 41.
[20] Id .
[21] Id . at 43.
[22] Id . at 42.
[23]
Id
. at 42-43. As the Supreme Court noted, the “hot pursuit” exception to the warrant
requirement is a form of the exigent-circumstances exception.
Id
. & 43 n 3, citing
Warden,
Maryland Penitentiary v Hayden
,
[24] ,
[25] See id . at 40.
[26] See id . at 42.
[27] Contrary to the majority’s assertion, the conduct of other police officers prior to defendant’s interaction with Officer Staman does nothing to affect this analysis. Defendant testified at trial that the officers who came to her door before Officer Staman’s arrival threatened her and her roommate with arrest if defendant did not get out of bed and come to her door. Putting aside that this testimony is arguably inadmissible hearsay relating to the statements of her roommate and of the police officers—all of whom never testified during these proceedings—the officers’ actions have no bearing on whether defendant maintained a reasonable expectation of privacy when she voluntarily reached across her threshold during her subsequent interaction with Officer Staman. Although I am troubled by defendant’s testimony pertaining to the conduct of the officers who preceded Officer Staman, her position inside the home before she spoke with Officer Staman does not invalidate the conclusion that, at the time of her arrest, defendant was “exposed to public view, speech, hearing, and touch as if she had been standing completely outside hеr house.” See id .
[28] Because the parties harbored some disagreement as to the pertinent facts at the initial suppression hearing, the trial court allowed for an evidentiary hearing to establish the relevant facts of the case.
[29] I cannot conclude that the record lacks clarity merely because Officer Staman testified that he did not “think [his] hand was ever inside the house when [he] handed [defendant] the I.D.” Taken at face value, the testimony establishes that Officer Staman believed he initiated the arrest while defendant extended some part of her body outside. To the extent the phrase “I don’t think” may be viewed as qualifying Officer Staman’s testimony, the absence of any contradictory evidence looms large. Simply stated, Officer Staman’s testimony is uncontroverted.
[30] I take further issue with the practical application of the majority’s holding. If future arrests are initiated near the threshold of a defendant’s home, is the defendant—who maintains a single foot inside the interior of the home—free from warrantless arrest simply because they “manifest[] an intent to stay inside, and [law enforcement is] aware of that intention”? Regardless, even if defendant subjectively intended to maintain a reasonable expectation of privacy while standing away from the door at the beginning of her interaction with Officer Staman, this expectation could not remain reasonable when she moved forward and voluntarily reached across the threshold of her home.
[31]
Katz v United States
,
[32]
Sparing v Village of Olympia Fields
,
[33] Id . at 689.
[34]
United States v Vaneaton
,
[35] Id . at 1427.
[36]
United States v Council
,
[37] Id . at 610-611 (quotation marks, citations, and brackets omitted).
[38] The majority’s reliance on the decision of thе United States Court of Appeals for the
Tenth Circuit in
United States v Flowers
,
[41] See id .
[42] See id .
[43]
People v Champion
,
[44] See MCL 257.621.
[45] MCL 764.15(1)(a).
[46] MCL 257.621(a); MCL 257.901(1) and (2).
[47]
People v Hawkins
,
[48] Id . at 507.
[49] Id .
[50] See note 4 of the majority opinion.
[51] Devenpeck , 543 US at 153 (quotation marks and citations omitted). See also United States v Anderson , 923 F2d 450, 457 (CA 6, 1991) (“[K]nowledge of the precise crime committed is not necessary to a finding of probable cause provided that probable cause exists showing that a crime was committed by the defendants.”).
[52] The majority suggests that defendant’s prior two convictions cannot be relevant to the
probable cause supporting the arrest because the record is unclear as to whether Officer
Staman was actually aware of the convictions at the time of the arrest. See note 5 of the
majority opinion. As a preliminary matter, Officer Staman may well have been aware of
those convictions, having testified at the evidentiary hearing that, in order to determine the
registered owner of the vehicle at the scene of the accident, he had to consult secretary of
state records. See MCL 257.625(21)(a) (prior convictions for operating under the influence
under MCL 257.625(1) are reported to the secretary of state).
Regardless, the majority’s interpretation of
Devenpeck
ignores language from the
Supreme Court’s opinion stating that an officer’s “subjective reason for making the arrest
need not be the criminal offense as to which the
known
facts provide probable cause,” and
“the fact that the officer does not have the state of mind which is hypothecated by the
reasons which provide the legal justification for the officer’s action does not invalidate the
action taken
as long as the circumstances, viewed objectively, justify that action
.” See
Devenpeck
,
[55] See
Stanton v Sims
,
[56]
People v Strelow
,
[57] See MCL 257.625(9)(c).
[58] See
Devenpeck
,
[59] See ,
[61] See
Harris
,
[62] Id .
[63] Id . at 20-21.
[64] See id .
[65] See id .