People v. Marxhausen

171 N.W. 557, 204 Mich. 559, 3 A.L.R. 1505, 1919 Mich. LEXIS 728
CourtMichigan Supreme Court
DecidedFebruary 18, 1919
DocketDocket No. 128
StatusPublished
Cited by132 cases

This text of 171 N.W. 557 (People v. Marxhausen) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Michigan Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Marxhausen, 171 N.W. 557, 204 Mich. 559, 3 A.L.R. 1505, 1919 Mich. LEXIS 728 (Mich. 1919).

Opinions

Fellows, J.

Defendant is the owner of Calf Island, consisting of about 10 acres. It is located in the Detroit river within the confines of Wayne county. It is defendant’s home. On August 1, 1918, while defendant was in the State of South Carolina, and was known by the officers to be absent, five inspectors of the food and drug department, the marshal of the village of Trenton, a deputy sheriff of the county, and the justice of the peace, who afterwards conducted the examination of defendant, went to the island. Some of the party effected an entrance to the dwelling house without breaking locks or doors, searched the house, found some liquor there, and also found some liquor in an improvised cellar and at other points on the premises. All the liquor was seized, conveyed to the mainland and from there to the county building in Detroit where it was stored. All this was done without a search warrant and without consent of defendant. Two days later a complaint was filed charging defendant with the violation of Act No. 161, Pub. Acts 1917. Upon his return he was arrested, and after a preliminary examination before the justice of the peace who was one of the party on August 1st, was bound over for trial. In the circuit court, the information was quashed and the liquor ordered returned to him. To review this judgment the prose-[562]*562cuting attorney sues out this writ of error under the provisions of Act No. 159, Pub. Acts 1917. The following are the errors assigned:

“1. The court erred in deciding that Act No. 161 of the Public Acts of the State of Michigan for the year 1917 was superseded and repealed by Act No. 338 of the Public Acts of the State of Michigan for year 1917.
“2. The court erred in entering an order quashing the information.
“3. The court erred in directing the liquor seized to be restored to the defendant.”

We shall consider these assignments of error in their inverse order.

1. Section 10, art. 2, of the Constitution of the State provides:

“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, supported by oath or affirmation.”

This provision is the same as found in the Constitution of 1850 (art. 6, § 26), and with the exception of the use of the word “person” in place of the word “individual” the same as found in the Constitution of 1835. It is in effect the same provision found in the Fourth Amendment to the Federal Constitution.

Section 16, art. 2, of the State Constitution provides :

“No person shall be compelled, in any criminal case to be_ a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law.”

Like provisions are found in the Fifth Amendment to the Federal Constitution. Similar provisions are found in the constitutions of the various States of the Union. By these provisions the rights of the individual are secured; the provisions of the Federal Con[563]*563stitution securing the citizen from arbitrary, unlawful conduct on the part of the Federal government and its officers, and the provisions of the State constitutions securing the citizen from arbitrary, unlawful conduct on the part of the State and its officers. These provisions not only secure the individual in his person, his home, and his property from invasion through unbridled legislation, but they also secure the individual in his person, his home, and his property from invasion through unbridled and unrestrained executive or administrative will. It ought not to be necessary to recall the fact that it is of the essence of a free government that the individual shall be secure in his person, his home and his property from unlawful invasion, from unlawful search, from unlawful seizure. The writing of these provisions into the Federal Constitution, into every constitution of every State in the Union was not an idle ceremony. With a clearness of vision our forefathers provided for a lawful search and seizure, one supported by oath or affirmation, describing the place to be searched and the person or things to be seized; and in the same section safeguarded the rights of the individual by inhibiting unreasonable and unlawful search. They provided an orderly manner for search and seizure and prohibited all others.

The substance of the provision found in the Fourth Amendment to the Federal Constitution was proposed by Mr. Madison in the seventh subdivision of his first amendment. Others proposed a similar provision, and the final result was the language found in this amendment. That we may better understand this provision it is well we consider some of the events leading up to its adoption. Obviously we cannot within the compass of this opinion detail at length all that preceded and finally culminated in far reaching decisions by the courts of England. Attention is directed to a [564]*564foot-note which will be found in Cooley’s Constitutional Limitations (7th Ed.), beginning at page 426. It will suffice to say that a practice had grown up .in England of issuing so-called writs of assistance, originally by the Star Chamber and later by the secretary of state, under color of which messengers of the king entered any and all places agreeable to themselves, searched and seized such papers and evidences as their will dictated. These writs were general in their character, described no premises and named no persons to be searched. Their justification at that time was the publication of seditious libels and the end sought the suppression of these seditious utterances. The practice of issuing and serving these writs was of long standing; and the right to issue them was unassailed for many years; indeed, this was one of the reasons assigned to sustain their validity in the case to which we shall presently refer. But Lord Camden disposed of this claim in the following language:

“But still it is insisted, that there has been a general submission, and no action brought to try the right.
“I answer, there has been a submission of guilt and poverty to power and the terror of punishment. But it would be strange doctrine to assert that all the people of this land are bound to acknowledge that to be universal law which a few criminal booksellers have been afraid to dispute.”

The infraction of individual rights tolerated then as now under the claim of necessity in order to enforce the law finally came before the courts for decision. In the case of Entick v. Carrington, 19 Howell’s State Trials, 1029, Lord Camden, pronouncing the judgment of the court, laid broad and deep the principles which were afterwards crystallized in the Fourth Amendment. Of Lord Camden’s decision Mr. Justice Bradley, speaking for the court in Boyd v. United States, 116 U. S. 616 (6 Sup. Ct. 524), said:

[565]*565“The law as expounded by him has been regarded as settled from that time to this, and his great judgment on that occasion is considered as one of the landmarks of English liberty. It was welcomed and applauded by the lovers of liberty in the colonies as well as in the mother country.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
171 N.W. 557, 204 Mich. 559, 3 A.L.R. 1505, 1919 Mich. LEXIS 728, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-marxhausen-mich-1919.