Case Name: PEOPLE v. ROBINSON
Court: Michigan Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Michigan
Decision Date: 1972-11-29
Citations: 388 Mich. 630
Docket Number: No. 2; Docket No. 53,824
Parties: PEOPLE v ROBINSON
Judges: T. E. Brennan, Swainson and Williams, JJ., concurred with Black, J.
Reporter: Michigan Reports
Volume: 388
Pages: 630–636

Head Matter:
PEOPLE v ROBINSON
Opinion op the Court
1. Prisons — Arrest—Jail—Personal Belongings.
Requiring removal and deposit of personal belongings with the jailer when a person is arrested and jailed is a customary procedure.
2. Searches and Seizures — Prisoner Inventory — Police Officer’s Observation.
Information obtained by a police officer through the exercise of his senses as he observes articles being removed by a prisoner from his pockets and transferred to a receptacle for safekeeping is not information obtained as a result of a search.
Dissenting Opinion
T. M. Kavanagh, C. J., and Adams and T. G. Kavanagh, JJ.
3. Searches and Seizures — Reasonableness—Constitutional Law —Search Warrant.
The general rule is that any search is unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment guarantee against "unreasonable searches and seizures” unless conducted pursuant to a validly issued search warrant (US Const, Am IV).
References for Points in Headnotes
5 Am Jur 2d, Arrest § 73.
47 Am Jur, Searches and Seizures § 19.
47 Am Jur, Searches and Seizures § 6.
47 Am Jur, Searches and Seizures §§ 6, 18.
"Plain view,” observation of objection, 29 L Ed 2d 1067.
47 Am Jur, Searches and Seizures § 19.
5 Am Jur 2d, Arrest §§ 24, 34^36.
Lawfulness of nonconsensual search and seizure without warrant, prior to arrest, 89 ALR2d 715.
29 Am Jur 2d, Evidence § 415.
Modern status of rule governing admissibility of evidence obtained by unlawful search and seizure, 50 ALR2d 531.
29 Am Jur 2d, Evidence §§ 425, 426.
4. Searches and Seizures — Reasonableness—Search Warrant— Arrest — Automobiles—Objects in Plain View.
Exceptions to the general rule that any search is unreasonable unless conducted pursuant to a validly issued search warrant are: (1) principally, a search may be lawful when conducted in conjunction with a lawful arrest contemporaneous to the arrest and conñned to the person and immediate surroundings of the individual arrested, (2) an automobile may be searched without a warrant when there is probable cause to believe that an object or substance is hidden within and there is a possibility that it may be destroyed before a warrant can be obtained, and (3) an object in plain view may be properly seized.
5. Searches and Seizures — Arrest—Private Citizens — Police Officers — Statutes—Misdemeanors—Objects in Plain View — Evidence — Motion to Suppress.
The power to arrest in Michigan is governed by statute, a private citizen cannot lawfully arrest another for the commission of a misdemeanor and a police officer cannot arrest a person for the commission of a misdemeanor outside his presence without a warrant; therefore, where a private citizen marched defendant into a police station and charged him with a misdemeanor and, on the strength of the private citizen’s complaint defendant was arrested and searched and among his possessions was found a cigarette lighter connecting him with a robbery, his arrest was invalid because there was no warrant issued prior to his arrest and accordingly the search of defendant cannot be sustained as being made pursuant to a valid arrest and, as there was no allegation that the lighter was in plain view but was produced only as the result of a search, the lighter was seized as the result of an unlawful search and should have been held inadmissible in defendant’s trial for armed robbery when his attorney moved to suppress the evidence (MCLA 764.15, 764.16).
6. Criminal Law — Identification—Evidence—Searches and Seizures.
An initial taint of an identiffcation procedure will affect subsequent proceedings linked to the tainted activity; therefore, where evidence of the showup identiffcation of defendant by the victim of a robbery resulting directly from the discovery of a cigarette lighter found among defendant’s possessions, springing from an impermissible search, provided the only link between defendant and the robbery of the owner of the lighter and there was no separate, independent basis connecting the two, such evidence was inadmissible as fruit of the poisonous tree.
7. Criminal Law — Evidence—Motion to Suppress — Discretion.
While it is generally true in Michigan that a motion to suppress evidence must be made prior to trial, the trial judge does have the discretion to entertain such a motion at trial.
Appeal from Court of Appeals, Division 1, Levin, P. J., and R. B. Burns and J. H. Gillis, JJ., affirming Recorder’s Court of Detroit, George W. Crockett, Jr., J.
Submitted September 5, 1972.
(No. 2
September Term 1972,
Docket No. 53,824.)
Decided November 29, 1972.
Rehearing denied January 30, 1973.
37 Mich App 115 affirmed.
Henry Robinson was convicted of unarmed robbery. Defendant appealed to the Court of Appeals.
Affirmed. Defendant appeals. Affirmed.
Frank J. Kelley, Attorney General, Robert A. Derengoski, Solicitor General, William L. Cahalan, Prosecuting Attorney, Dominick R. Carnovale, Chief, Appellate Department, and Leonard Meyers, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for the people.
State Appellate Defender Office (by Daniel S. Seikaly), for defendant.

Opinion:
Black, J.
(for affirmance). I agree with the reasoning of both opinions below (37 Mich App 115, 119) and therefore vote to affirm. In particular I adopt as level-headed common sense the first two paragraphs of the concurring opinion Presiding Judge Levin prepared. They read:
"When a person is arrested and jailed it is a customary procedure to require him to remove and deposit his personal belongings with the jailer.
"Information obtained by a police officer through the exercise of his senses as he observes articles being removed by a prisoner from his pockets and transferred to a receptacle for safekeeping is not information obtained as a result of a search."
T. E. Brennan, Swainson and Williams, JJ., concurred with Black, J.