MI sustains a 4 am knock-and-talk; a depressing must read for practitioners there

This 4 a.m. knock-and-talk was reasonable. Seven police officers with vests and guns showed up to get a consent and got it. Defendant was dealing marijuana butter in a MMJ state. People v. Frederick, 2015 Mich. App. LEXIS 2289 (Dec. 8, 2015). [Note: In some states, like my own, this just could not happen because the common law and statutory aversion to nighttime searches factors (§ 55.13). The opinion reads like an apologia and rank justification for police overreaching finding it completely normal for the police to show up at your house and wake you up to conduct a knock-and-talk while you’re still in bed asleep. And, the opinion relies on a Michigan federal case finding a 4 a.m. knock-and-talk valid, so that’s not uncommon there. The opinion flirts with a discussion of societal norms by alluding to it, and then just ignores them. Societal norms are important in the Fourth Amendment, and they inform the reasonable expectation of privacy, reasonableness in general, guest standing, and was the basis for Katz, Bond, Jones, Riley, and Jardines, among other things. In short, a 4 a.m. knock-and-talk is unreasonable on its face unless this is a drug house open for business at that hour. But not in Michigan. This is just indefensible.]