Court Opinion

ID: 9685264
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 14:27:24.628742+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:03.798171
License: Public Domain

T. M. Burns, J.
(dissenting). I cannot agree that the search of defendant and the seizure of heroin from his person was proper and would therefore conclude that his trial counsel made a serious mistake in failing to move to suppress the heroin, depriving defendant of a fair trial. The people admit that if this evidence were suppressed, there would be no case against defendant.
There is no doubt that defendant was an identifiable person and that the police could have secured a warrant to search his person, if he was found on the premises or otherwise. All the information used to secure the warrant pointed not only to the premises, but to defendant personally. In my view, the issue is whether the warrant, as it was actu*483ally written, was broad enough to cover the search of defendant’s person. I would hold that it was not.
As stated by the majority of another panel in People v Summers, 68 Mich App 571, 579; 243 NW2d 689 (1976), lv granted, 399 Mich 828 (1977):
"Once a warrant has actually been issued, it cannot be broadly interpreted. A search warrant must describe the premises to be searched and the property to be seized with particularity, and the executing officers must narrowly follow that description. Marron v United States, 275 US 192, 196; 48 S Ct 74, 76; 72 L Ed 231, 237 (1927), People v Franks, 54 Mich App 729; 221 NW2d 441 (1974). It is true that the magistrate could have issued a warrant to search any individual found on the premises, but he did not do so. The "particularity” requirement prevented the police officers from legally extending the scope of the warrant so as to authorize a search of defendant’s-person.” (Emphasis in original.)
Not only would it have been "the better procedure * * * to set forth specifically that defendant was a person to be searched”, majority opinion, supra, in my opinion it was constitutionally required. Since defendant was not mentioned specifically in the warrant, the search of his person must be considered a warrantless search. Warrantless searches are per se unreasonable and violate the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution and art 1, § 11 of our state constitution unless shown to be within one of the recognized exceptions to the rule. People v Reed, 393 Mich 342, 362; 224 NW2d 867 (1975). The people have not argued that any exception to the warrant requirement applies here. I would order the heroin suppressed, the conviction reversed and defendant discharged.