MI remands for an evidentiary hearing on actual or apparent authority

The court of appeals is reversed and the case remanded to the trial court for a hearing on actual and apparent authority and the reasonableness of the officer’s belief there was any authority at all, actual or apparent. People v. Colville, 2019 Mich. LEXIS 2363 (Dec. 20, 2019)*:

[W]e VACATE Part II of the Court of Appeals judgment addressing the defendant’s motion to suppress, and we REMAND this case to the Oakland Circuit Court for further proceedings. The circuit court shall conduct an evidentiary hearing to determine: (1) whether, at the time that Officer Proulx initially searched the property at 695 Livernois, he had been advised that he had consent to search the property; (2) if so, whether Treasury employee Jill Robinson had actual authority to consent to that search; and (3) if not, whether Officer Proulx reasonably relied on apparent authority for consent to search, i.e., whether it was reasonable for him to rely on the apparent consent without making any effort to verify the authority to consent, in light of the citation posted on the front door. The circuit court shall then decide whether to grant the defendant a new trial.

This entry was posted in Apparent authority, Consent. Bookmark the permalink.

Comments are closed.