Court Opinion

ID: 9686600
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 15:57:49.631021+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:20.819082
License: Public Domain

Edwards, J.
(concurring). The freedoms which we cherish for ourselves from our American heritage frequently require an uncomfortable amount of consideration for the rights of others whom we deem unworthy of them. Mr. Justice Holmes, in a First Amendment case, stated the matter in its most dramatic form:
“If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other it is the principle of free thought — not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate.” United States v. Schwimmer, 279 US 644, 654, 655 (49 S Ct 448, 73 Led 889).
And in a recent Fourth Amendment case, Mr. Justice Douglas said:
“It is better, so the Fourth Amendment teaches,, that the guilty sometimes go free than that citizens-be subject to easy arrest.” Henry v. United States, 361 US 98 (80 S Ct 168, 4 L ed 2d 134).
Our concern in this case is with the freedoms described in the latter constitutional amendment,, particularly as they are re-enacted in the Constitution of the State of Michigan:
“The person, houses, papers and possessions of every person shall be secure from unreasonable searches and seizures. No warrant to search any place or to seize any person or things shall issue without describing them, nor without probable cause, *375supported by oath or affirmation.” Mich Const (1908), art 2, § 10.
Thus, in every search and seizure case, the basic ■question to be answered is whether or not the search was “unreasonable” in constitutional terms.
The courts are unanimous in holding that this ■determination must be made as of the time the ■search is to occur, and not in the light of knowledge gained thereby.*
In the recent decision in People v. Gonzales, 356 Mich 247, the sole justification for the search upon which that case hinged was the arrest of the driver for issuance of a traffic ticket for driving with 1 headlight out. This Court there held, for reasons .adequately stated in the majority opinion:
“The fact of a lawful arrest does not, in our view, automatically render constitutional any contemporaneous search and seizure. The constitutional test Is still whether or not under all the circumstances the search is ‘unreasonable.’ ” People v. Gonzales, supra, p 253.
Gonzales did decide that a lawful traffic arrest ■did not by itself authorize a contemporaneous search of the automobile as a matter of routine police policy. Certainly it may not be read as suggesting that the fact of a lawful traffic arrest creates for the arrested party an immunity from search which would not otherwise be his.
In the instant case, we again deal with a search following the arrest of the driver of an automobile, this time for his failure to observe a stop sign. The search in this instance is the search of the person of defendant.
*376What appears to divide this Court in the present matter, however, is a dispute about whether or not (over and above the traffic ticket aspect) this record afforded ground for the searching officers to have probable cause to believe a felony was being committed.
This determination should, of course, be made on the basis of what “reasonable and prudent men, not legal technicians” would think from the facts presented at the time. Brinegar v. United States, 338 US 160, 175 (69 S Ct 1302, 93 L ed 1879).
See, also, Carroll v. United States, 267 US 132, 149 (45 S Ct 280, 69 L ed 543, 39 ALR 790); Draper v. United States, 358 US 307, 313 (79 S Ct 329, 3 L ed 2d 327).
In the instant ease, the facts within personal knowledge of the police officers at the time of the-traffic arrest certainly did not constitute probable-cause to believe that defendant was committing a felony.
The dissenting- opinion finds probable cause by citing- police testimony as to claimed facts supplied by anonymous information. This Court has previously held that unconfirmed anonymous information-is not a basis for “reasonable belief” that a crime-was being committed. People v. Guertins, 224 Mich 8, 10.
See, also, People v. Miller, 245 Mich 115.
Presumably for this reason, the attorney general’s brief did not argue the issue of probable cause.
It is obvious that if we abandon the anonymous-information rule of the Guertins Case, we make available to the searching officer an unchallengeable-answer to any complaint about violation of the-Fourth Amendment.
Such a change would place the enforcement of the-Fourth Amendment entirely on the conscience of the-*377individual policeman and beyond tbe review of the Court.
I concur in and sign the opinion of the Chief Justice for the reasons given therein and herein.
Dethmers, C. J., and Kelly, Black, Voelker, and Kavanagh, JJ., concurred with Edwards, J.

 Henry v. United States, 361 US 98 (80 S Ct 168, 4 L ed 2d 134); Johnson v. United States, 333 US 10 (68 S Ct 367, 92 L ed 436); Byars v. United States, 273 US 28 (47 S Ct 248, 71 L ed 520).