Opinion ID: 1708952
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: effect of 1927 pa 175

Text: We have found that under Michigan common law a private citizen had legal justification to arrest another: (1) when, at the time of the arrest, (a) a felony had in fact been committed, and (b) the private citizen had probable cause to believe that the person he arrested had committed the felony; or (2) when he responded to a person whom he knew to be a peace officer and acted in accordance with the officer's requests or commands. However, in 1927, the Legislature enacted the following simple, yet potentially confusing, statute: A private person may make an arrest  (a) For a felony committed in his presence; (b) When the person to be arrested has committed a felony although not in his presence; (c) When summoned by any peace officer to assist said officer in making an arrest. MCL 764.16; MSA 28.875. As under the common law, this act indicates that a private citizen has no authority to make an arrest unless a felony was actually committed or unless directed to do so by a peace officer. However, no mention is made in the statute of the necessity of probable cause to establish legal justification for the arrest. This has led at least one writer to observe that probable cause is totally immaterial in an action for false arrest against a private citizen: The Michigan statute requires [the private citizen] to show that the very person arrested has in fact committed a felony, but exempts him from showing also that he had reason to know this fact. In other words, under the statute the private person is liable if he arrests an innocent person, no matter how reasonable his action may be, but he is protected, without inquiry as to his reasonableness, if the person he arrests is in fact guilty. Waite, Some Inadequacies in the Law of Arrest, 29 Mich L Rev 448, 458 (1931). However, other interpretations of the statute may be possible. We find no case law interpreting the effect of this statute on the common-law rule concerning a private citizen's legal authority to arrest. Neither party briefed or argued the effect of 1927 PA 175 upon the common-law rule of justification by a showing of probable cause before the trial court, the Court of Appeals, or this Court. [9] As a consequence, this Court is not in a proper position to make its own interpretation, and we shall not do so.