Court Opinion

ID: 9740520
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:36:48.44042+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:16.830214
License: Public Domain

Brickley, J.
I respectfully dissent from the majority opinion.
For a period of five hours following the crime, the police painstakingly gathered evidence that led them to conclude that the perpetrator was in the motel room in question. On the basis of the probable cause they had established, the police entered the room, apprehended the occupants, and seized the evidence that was ultimately admitted by the trial court.
The majority opinion holds that the long-held view that the police have authority to arrest based on probable cause without a warrant is not applicable here because of an exception established in Payton v New York, 445 US 573, 576; 100 S Ct 1371; 63 L Ed 2d 639 (1980). There, the Supreme Court of the United States, in a split decision, held that the Fourth Amendment prohibits "the police from making a warrantless and nonconsensual entry into a suspect’s home in order to make a routine felony arrest”.
The rationale for Payton is the preservation of "the sanctity of the home” against such an official *391invasion. The Court described a nonconsensual entry without a warrant to arrest for a routine felony as a "breach of the entrance to an individual’s home”. Id., p 589. The Court noted:
"The Fourth Amendment protects the individual’s privacy in a variety of settings. In none is the zone of the 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 constitutional 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.’ Silverman v United States, 365 US 505, 511; 81 S Ct 679; 5 L Ed 2d 734 (1961). 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.” Id., pp 589-590.
The majority opinion would extend Payton to motel rooms even though the Supreme Court spoke throughout Payton in terms of the "home— a zone that finds its roots in clear and specific constitutional terms”. The majority reasons that Fourth Amendment protection has been applied to hotel rooms in the past, that hotel and motel rooms are indistinguishable for Fourth Amendment purposes, and, therefore, that Fourth Amendment protection applies to motel rooms. This disarmingly simple syllogism is seriously flawed. It assumes, without analysis, that the rule of Payton would escape a traditional balancing analysis with respect to an individual’s reasonable expectation of privacy once it is transported out of the home and into a temporary lodging. It further *392assumes, without analysis, that dated hotel room search cases articulate a proper (and transposable) analysis of the Fourth Amendment interest involved in this motel room arrest case.1
For authority, the majority draws on three federal cases. I agree that the decision in United States v Bulman, 667 F2d 1374 (CA 11, 1982), clearly established for that circuit that Payton applies to a motel. Interestingly, the Bulman Court stated, in my opinion, the proper analytical framework for resolution of this issue and then proceeded to a result without following it. The Court stated:
"A mere recitation of the difference between the places in which an arrest occurred does not, of course, pronounce relevant Fourth Amendment distinctions. The Supreme Court in Katz v United States, 389 US 347, 349-350; 88 S Ct 507; 19 L Ed 2d 576 (1967), rejected a formulation of the scope of Fourth Amendment safeguards that would depend merely upon the place in which an alleged violation of a defendant’s constitutional rights occurred. The Supreme Court has, indeed, several times specifically stated that an individual does not forfeit his Fourth Amendment protections merely because he is residing in a hotel room. * * * The appropriate approach, rather, is to determine Howard’s legitimate expectation of privacy in the motel room. See Katz, supra; Rakas v Illinois, 439 US 128; 99 S Ct 421; 58 L Ed 2d 387 (1978). If we find that expectation identical to that which he would have in *393his home, then we must hold Payton applicable here.” 667 F2d 1383.
The Court then distinguished the former Fifth Circuit cases, Marullo v United States, 328 F2d 361 (CA 5, 1964) (search without a warrant of crawl space under motel cabin upheld), and United States v Jackson, 588 F2d 1046 (CA 5, 1979) (evidence of conversations overheard by government agents in an adjoining motel room admissible at trial), on the grounds that the arrest of the defendant in his motel room "did not occur in any public part of the motel or arise as a result of actions on his part that extended beyond the walls of his room”. Id., p 1383. Since the defendant in Bulman had at least some privacy interest in his motel room, the Court concluded that Payton must apply. This conclusion ignores the question the Court had framed:
"If we find * * * [Howard’s legitimate] expectation [of privacy in the motel room] identical to that which he would have in his home, then we must hold Payton applicable”. Id., p 1383.
The majority also relies on United States v Jones, 696 F2d 479 (CA 7, 1982), and United States v Roper, 681 F2d 1354 (CA 11, 1982). Neither decides the point that the rule in Payton applies to motel rooms. In Jones the arrest issue was whether or not the federal narcotics agents had probable cause to arrest. The Court concluded that there was probable cause. The arrest was based on outstanding Illinois arrest warrants. In Roper, the defendant assigned as error, inter alia, both an improper seizure of a pistol and an invalid search of a shoulder bag. The Court declined to address the defendant’s claim of constitutional violations *394under authority of theWong Sun doctrine of inevitable discovery. Wong Sun v United States, 371 US 471; 83 S Ct 407; 9 L Ed 2d 441 (1963). The Court dropped a footnote in which it commented on the district court’s resolution of the issue of probable cause and the legality of the arrest without a warrant. Citation was made to Bulman, supra. The Court noted that the record demonstrated exigent circumstances. Thus, the Court concluded that even under Payton, the arrest was proper.
I believe that the majority opinion errs in its analysis because it ignores the precision with which the opinion in Payton was crafted. I read Payton to establish a core Fourth Amendment protection based on a privacy interest unique to the sanctity of the home as articulated in the constitution. I do not read it to establish a per se rule once the focus of the inquiry moves out of the home. Rather, in the latter situation, attention should be directed at the reasonableness of the individual’s privacy interest in avoiding an arrest without a warrant. Katz v United States, 389 US 347; 88 S Ct 507; 19 L Ed 2d 576 (1967); United States v Watson, 423 US 411; 96 S Ct 820; 46 L Ed 2d 598 (1976). To the extent that an individual’s privacy interest is lessened away from the home, I would balance the individual’s actual interest against the interest of the state. Payton very carefully does not suggest otherwise.
In the instant case, the defendant was apprehended without a warrant in a motel room. The majority concludes that this was unreasonable because the defendant had a privacy interest. This focus not only blurs the distinction between the circumstances required for a search warrant and those required for an arrest warrant, but it could lead to absurd results. Using the majority’s appar*395ent premise that any privacy interest that is sufficient to require a search warrant is sufficient to invoke the Payton warrant requirement, one might conclude that an arrest warrant would be required to arrest an individual in an office, in a dressing room at a local department store, in a phone booth, or in any other place where an individual has some privacy interest. Surely this has never been the law in this state or elsewhere!
The United States Supreme Court has addressed arrests without warrants in three contexts: public places, homes, and apartments. Following the well-settled common-law rule, the Court held that an arrest without a warrant for a routine felony was reasonable in a public place, United States v Watson, supra. The Court concluded that such an arrest was unreasonable in an apartment used as a home, Payton, supra, or in a home, Riddick v New York (companion case to Payton).
Motel rooms have both private and public aspects. Marullo v United States, 328 F2d 361 (CA 5, 1964). Motel rooms are intended as temporary lodgings. Maids clean the rooms daily. Passkeys abound. Lodgers are informed that they should store their valuables in motel safes. Lodgers are subject to summary eviction if they fail to pay for the rooms or if they fail to obey the "house rules”. Occupancy is frequently subject to a superior claim because of a prior reservation. Public hallways and open areas are the rule. Individual rooms are frequently interconnected. Walls are notoriously thin. Neighbors are only feet apart. It cannot be realistically maintained that the occupier of a motel room has the same Fourth Amendment interest in avoiding arrests without warrants as when at home. Arrayed against this Fourth Amendment interest is the interest of the state in *396ensuring that the now ubiquitous motel room for our transient society does not become a haven for the planning of and escape from criminal activity.
Although I do not doubt that an occupant of a motel room has a Fourth Amendment privacy interest, Hoffa v United States, 385 US 293; 87 S Ct 408; 17 L Ed 2d 374 (1966), I would not define it to include freedom from arrest without a warrant. I note that a motel room historically has been protected by the requirement of probable cause before it may be entered. As a result, I see no need to make a motel room an additional exception to the general rule that the police may arrest a person (who happens to occupy such temporary lodging) without a warrant on the basis of probable cause.
The majority, on the basis of the authority of one federal circuit, would anticipate that the Supreme Court would invalidate an otherwise valid, statutorily authorized motel arrest in this state. The majority would go even further and suggest that such an anticipation be the basis for holding that our own state constitution (Const 1963, art 1, § 11) would stand for the same principle. Using federal decisional rationale for interpreting Michigan’s Constitution is not necessarily unsound, but considering the fact that Payton itself, p 598, fn 46, cited Michigan as one of 24 states permitting "warrantless entry into the home to arrest even in the absence of exigent circumstances”, MCL 764.21; MSA 28.880, it is quite a leap for this Court to so interpret our own constitution.
Because the historically valid and frequently used authority to arrest for probable cause is such a linchpin in law enforcement and because motels have become so ubiquitous and figure so often in the planning of and escape from criminal activity, *397I think that this Court should not lightly extend Payton beyond the "sanctity of the home”. Since I do not agree that the facts in this case merit such an extension, I would have our state retain as a law enforcement tool the ability to make an arrest in a motel room without a warrant on the basis of probable cause.
I would affirm.

 Historically, the standard for determining the necessity for warrants in search vis-á-vis arrest situations has differed. See United States v Watson, 423 US 411, 426-433; 96 S Ct 820; 46 L Ed 2d 598 (1976) (Powell, J., concurring).
Just as the Supreme Court of the United States has moved the standard for a search away from the trespass doctrine to the expectation-of-privacy standard, Katz v United States, 389 US 347; 88 S Ct 507; 19 L Ed 2d 576 (1967), Payton nudges the standard for arrest away from a "probable cause only” standard to a "probable cause plus no trespass” test. While the tests for search and arrest warrants may be changing, they have certainly not converged.