(Source: MIRS.news, Published 07/26/2024) Police officers who suspect someone is doing something criminal, but do not give them an avenue to leave the encounter are violating the suspect's constitutional rights, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled Friday in three different but related cases. 

The three decisions all deal with police officers who somehow blocked any means of escape of somebody who may or may not be doing something wrong. The Democratic-nominated justices ruled this was violating a person's right against illegal search and seizure. 

However, Republican-nominated Justice David Viviano, disagreed, noting the majority’s conclusion continues the court’s “recent trend of mischaracterizing routine interactions between law enforcement and citizens.” 

Viviano, joined by Justice Brian Zahra, wrote: “Michigan now will be the only jurisdiction in the United States where police officers are not permitted to approach suspects sitting in vehicles at night to investigate suspected criminal activity.” 

In one case from 2018, two Oakland County sheriff’s deputies saw Matthew S. Duff sitting in a legally parked car, with the engine running, in an empty elementary school parking lot around 10 p.m. on a Sunday. They parked their marked patrol vehicle in a way to keep Duff from leaving. 

The deputies subsequently arrested Duff and he was charged with third-offense operating a vehicle while intoxicated. The Supreme Court ruled the seizure was invalid and granted the motion to suppress. 

In the court’s People v. Lucynski opinion, the court held the defendant was “seized” when the officer blocked his car. 

In the third case, People v. Hicks, the court also held the defendant was “seized” when the officer blocked the mini van he was in. 

The majority’s opinion in Duff, from Justice Richard Bernstein, holds that Duff’s situation was slightly different because the officers hadn’t completely blocked him in. However, Bernstein noted, impeding the vehicle’s path is a factor that “a reasonable person would take into consideration when deciding whether they were free to leave the scene or otherwise decline to interact with police.” 

That detail, combined with the record, including a deputy’s testimony, dash cam, and the officers placing themselves on each side of Duff’s vehicle, were completed before the officers observed signs of possible intoxication, Bernstein noted. 

Viviano’s sharp dissent says the majority turned the “‘free to leave’ test on its head,” and today’s decision will make policing “more dangerous” and the public “less safe from criminal activity.” 

Viviano would have followed the U.S. Supreme Court’s and the Michigan high court’s precedents that clearly hold a defendant is not seized when police officers position their “patrol vehicle behind defendant’s vehicle, partially obstructing his egress.” 

Justice Elizabeth Welch concurred with the majority, but wrote separately to raise concerns about whether current federal standard for determining seizure under the Fourth Amendment “is workable or consistent” with Michigan’s 1963 Constitution. 

Friday’s opinion partially reverses People v. Anthony, which held a defendant is only seized when the police have completely blocked in a parked vehicle. 

Chief Justice Elizabeth Clement, who wrote a separate opinion, agreed that Anthony had to be overruled as it was, but Viviano and Zahra disagreed.