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Home > Journals > Michigan Law Review > MLR > Volume 21 > Issue 6 (1923)

 

Abstract

Prohibition has rendered more than ever acute the problem of law .enforcement. Search for and seizure of contraband liquor as forfeited to the state is a very essential part of enforcement, and there is immediately raised the question: What constitutes a legal search and seizure?

The recent decision of the Michigan Supreme Court in People v. Case (Mich., 1922), 190 N. W. 289, may well serve as a starting point. There, officers without permission and without warrant entered defendant's automobile truck as it stood upon a public fair-ground, searched and found liquor therein, and arrested defendant when he appeared and admitted ownership of the machine and goods. By a five-to-three decision it was held the search was not unreasonable and the liquor seized was admissible in evidence. The pertinent part of the Michigan Constitution reads: "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 persons or things shall issue without describing them, nor without probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation." This is a substantial restatement of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Michigan Prohibition Law declares in effect that no property rights shall exist in intoxicating liquors had or transported contrary to law, that such liquors shall be forfeited to the state, and shall be seized, that an officer may arrest without a warrant any person violating the act in the presence of such officer, and that an officer making such arrest may seize all evidence of such violation. See Sec. 31 of Michigan Prohibition Law as amended by Act 336, Public Acts, 1921. The act is of the same tenor as the Volstead Act in this regard. The constitutions and acts of the various states are practically to the same effect, so the decisions of both federal and state courts bear equally on the problem.

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