Page 130
Chief
Justice: Bridget M. McCormack. Chief Justice Pro Tem: David
F. Viviano. Justices: Stephen J. Markman, Brian K. Zahra,
Richard H. Bernstein, Elizabeth T. Clement, Megan K.
Cavanagh.
OPINION
Page 131
[504
Mich. 446] BEFORE THE ENTIRE BENCH
Megan
K. Cavanagh, J.
In
this case we must decide whether defendant's
constitutional right to be free from unreasonable seizures
was violated when a police officer entered her home to
complete her arrest for a misdemeanor offense. The Court of
Appeals concluded that defendant exposed herself to public
arrest when she reached out her doorway to retrieve her
identification and that when
Page 132
she pulled her arm back into her home the officer's entry
was lawful as a " hot pursuit." We disagree.
Defendant did not surrender her Fourth Amendment
rights when she interacted with law enforcement at her
doorway because she consistently maintained her reasonable
expectation of privacy throughout the encounter, and further,
the entry was not justified under the " hot
pursuit" exception to the warrant requirement. The
warrantless arrest was unreasonable under Payton v New
York, 445 U.S. 573, 100 S.Ct. 1371, 63 L.Ed.2d 639
(1980). We reverse the Court of Appeals judgment and remand
this case to the trial court for further proceedings not
inconsistent with this opinion.
I.
BACKGROUND
Defendant, Jennifer Marie Hammerlund, was involved in a
single-vehicle accident in the early morning hours of
September 30, 2015, on a highway exit ramp in Wyoming,
Michigan. According to defendant, another driver cut her off,
causing her to overcorrect and lose control of her car. Her
vehicle scraped a cement barrier and left a dent on a metal
guardrail. Defendant suffered only minor injuries; however,
the car was no [504 Mich. 447] longer drivable. She attempted
to call her insurance company and then used a rideshare
service to get home. She did not report the accident to
police.
Soon
after, Officer Erich Staman of the Wyoming Police Department
was dispatched to the scene of a reported abandoned vehicle
on the shoulder of the highway off-ramp. After observing the
damage to the vehicle, as well as the guardrail and cement
barrier, Officer Staman requested a tow truck and conducted
an inventory search. He discovered that the vehicle was
registered to defendant and that it contained paperwork
bearing defendant's name, so he requested that officers
from the Kentwood Police Department go to defendant's
home to perform a welfare check.
In the
meantime, according to defendant, she returned home, found
that she was " really shaken up," and drank some
alcohol. She then went into her room and went to bed. Only a
few minutes later, the Kentwood officers arrived and told her
roommate that they wished to speak with defendant. Defendant
initially declined to leave her room; however, after her
roommate spoke to the officers and reported back to defendant
that the police would take her into custody and arrest the
roommate for harboring a fugitive if she did not appear,
defendant came to the door. After that, Officer Staman
arrived at the home to " make contact" with
defendant.
Officer Staman testified that when he arrived at
defendant's home, he stood on her porch while she
remained inside, approximately 15 to 20 feet away from the
front door. He acknowledged that it " didn't appear
that [defendant] wanted to come to the door . . . ."
And, when asked whether defendant " made it pretty clear
that she wasn't coming out of the home," he agreed,
stating, " It seemed that she wasn't going to [504
Mich. 448] come out." During their short conversation,
defendant admitted to driving the car that caused the damage.
When he asked defendant to produce her identification she was
" reluctant" to give it to him so she passed it to
him through a third party in the home. Officer Staman
testified that defendant told him that she " thought
[Officer Staman] might be trying to coax her out of the
house."
After
verifying her information, Officer Staman offered the
identification card back to defendant. He explained:
And then I had to give the I.D. back to her, so I made sure I
gave it back to Ms. Hammerlund. In doing that she came to the
door where I was standing
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and reached out to get the I.D. as I gave it back to her, at
which point I grabbed her by the arm and attempted to take
her into custody . . . [f]or the hit and run that she just
admitted to.
He
said that when defendant pulled away he grabbed her again and
" the momentum" took him inside the home two to
three steps where he handcuffed defendant and completed the
arrest.
Following the arrest, Officer Staman placed defendant into
the back of his patrol car. After she was advised of and
waived her Miranda [1] rights, defendant
provided further details about the crash, which she described
to the officer as possibly a " road rage
situation." Officer Staman detected a smell of
intoxicants that was " moderate at best" and asked
defendant if alcohol played a role in the crash. She opined
that it had not, but did acknowledge drinking alcohol earlier
in the night after finishing her shift as a bartender and
later indicated that she thought her blood alcohol level may
have been over the legal limit. When asked if she [504 Mich.
449] had any alcohol to drink after the accident,
defendant replied, " Absolutely not." Once
transported to the county jail, defendant was given two
successive breath tests, which indicated a blood alcohol
content over the legal limit at .22 and .21, respectively.
Consequently, defendant was charged with operating while
intoxicated (OWI), third offense, MCL 257.625, and failing to
report an accident resulting in damage to fixtures, MCL
257.621.
Defendant filed a pretrial motion to suppress evidence and
dismiss the charges. In the motion, she argued that Officer
Staman had violated her Fourth Amendment rights by
arresting her inside her home without a warrant and that all
the evidence gathered following that arrest was subject to
the exclusionary rule. The trial court denied the suppression
motion, concluding that the arrest was constitutionally valid
pursuant to United States v Santana, 427 U.S. 38, 96
S.Ct. 2406, 49 L.Ed.2d 300 (1976). Specifically, it found
that defendant was " in the middle of a consensual
discussion with Officer Staman" when she "
voluntarily approached him" and " voluntarily
reached out of her door." Therefore, the court concluded
that Officer Staman " was legitimately in that area and
it did not violate the constitution for him to effectuate an
arrest by grabbing her arm when she reached out of her
doorway." The fact that the officer stepped inside
defendant's home to complete the arrest did not change
the result, according to the trial court, because the officer
was " clearly in pursuit for the arrest at that point .
. . ."
The
case proceeded to trial. Defendant's theory of the case
was that she became intoxicated only after the accident.
However, she acknowledged that she did not tell any of the
officers that she drank when she got home. Defendant's
statements made to Officer Staman [504 Mich. 450] in his
patrol car, as well as her blood-alcohol-content test
results, were admitted at trial. After a jury trial,
defendant was convicted as charged, and she was sentenced to
five years' probation and four months in jail for
violating MCL 257.625 and to a concurrent term of 60 days in
jail for violating MCL 257.621.
Defendant appealed, continuing to challenge the trial
court's denial of her motion to suppress. The Court of
Appeals, like the trial court, concluded that the arrest was
constitutional under Santana, 427 U.S. at 42, and
that the trial court had not erred by denying defendant's
motion. People v Hammerlund, unpublished per curiam
opinion of the Court of Appeals, issued October 17, 2017
(Docket No. 333827). Defendant
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sought leave to appeal in this Court, and we ordered oral
argument on the application.[2]
II.
STANDARD OF REVIEW
We
review a trial court's findings of fact at a suppression
hearing for clear error. People v Williams, 472
Mich. 308, 313, 696 N.W.2d 636 (2005). We examine the facts
as they were presented to the trial court at the time of the
suppression hearing, not as supplemented by evidence
presented at trial. People v Kaigler, [504 Mich.
451] 368 Mich. 281, 288, 118 N.W.2d 406 (1962). Our review of
the trial court's application of Fourth
Amendment principles, however, is de novo. People v
Slaughter, 489 Mich. 302, 310, 803 N.W.2d 171 (2011).
III.
LEGAL BACKGROUND
The
Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution
provides:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons,
houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches
and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall
issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or
affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be
searched, and the persons or things to be seized. [US
Const, Am IV .][3]
The
touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is
reasonableness. Brigham City, Utah v Stuart, 547
U.S. 398, 403; 126 S.Ct. 1943; 164 L.Ed.2d 650 (2006); see
also People v Mead, 503 Mich. 205, 212, 931 N.W.2d
557, Id. *6 (2019) (" The Fourth
Amendment demands nothing more or less than
reasonableness." ). In order to be reasonable, an arrest
must be justified by probable cause. Dunaway v New
York, 442 U.S. 200, 208; 99 S.Ct. 2248; 60 L.Ed.2d 824
(1979). " Probable cause to arrest exists where the
facts and circumstances within an officer's knowledge and
of which he has reasonably trustworthy information are
sufficient in themselves to warrant a man of reasonable
caution in the belief that an offense has been or is being
committed." People v Champion, 452 Mich. 92,
115; 549 N.W.2d 849 (1996).
[504
Mich. 452] Even when based on probable cause, however, a
warrantless search or seizure inside a suspect's home is
presumptively unreasonable. Payton, 445 U.S. at 586
. In fact, the United States Supreme Court has recognized
that " physical entry of the home is the chief evil
against which the wording of the Fourth Amendment is
directed." Id. at 585 (quotation marks and
citations omitted). To protect against unreasonable
intrusions into the home, a warrant is required to "
interpose the magistrate's determination of probable
cause between the zealous officer and the citizen."
Id. at 602 . In other words, " the Fourth
Amendment has drawn a firm line at the entrance to the
house,"
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which " [a]bsent exigent circumstances . . . may not be
reasonably crossed without a warrant." Id. at
590 ; see also Kirk v Louisiana, 536 U.S. 635, 638,
122 S.Ct. 2458, 153 L.Ed.2d 599 (2002) (" As
Payton makes plain, police officers need either a
warrant or probable cause plus exigent circumstances in order
to make a lawful entry into a home." ). The burden of
overcoming the presumption of unreasonableness attached to a
warrantless entry rests on the prosecution. People v
Oliver, 417 Mich. 366, 380, 338 N.W.2d 167 (1983).
Warrantless arrests that take place in public upon probable
cause do not violate the Fourth Amendment .
United States v Watson, 423 U.S. 411, 423-424, 96
S.Ct. 820, 46 L.Ed.2d 598 (1976). In Michigan, this standard
applies when probable cause exists for a misdemeanor. See
People v Hamilton, 465 Mich. 526, 533, 638 N.W.2d 92
(2002) (" [P]robable cause to arrest for a
felony is not required; rather, probable cause that
a crime (felony or misdemeanor) has been committed is the
constitutional requirement for an arrest." ), overruled
in part on other grounds by Bright v Ailshie, 465
Mich. 770, 641 N.W.2d 587 (2002).
[504
Mich. 453] IV. ANALYSIS
As
noted, the Fourth Amendment permits an arrest
without a warrant in a public place as long as the police
officer making the arrest possesses sufficient probable
cause. Watson, 423 U.S. at 423. The officer in this
case had probable cause to arrest defendant for failing to
report an accident that caused damage to fixtures. MCL
257.621(a). He personally observed damage to the guardrail
and cement barrier near defendant's abandoned vehicle.
Further, defendant admitted to him that she was driving the
car that caused the damage and that she did not report the
accident to law enforcement. This information was more ...