PEOPLE OF MI V RANDALL WILLIAM MANN
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STATE OF MICHIGAN
COURT OF APPEALS
PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN,
UNPUBLISHED
January 20, 2004
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v
No. 242583
Kalkaska Circuit Court
LC No. 01-002139-FH
RANDALL WILLIAM MANN,
Defendant-Appellant.
Before: O’Connell, P.J., and Wilder and Murray, JJ.
PER CURIAM.
Defendant appeals as of right his conviction of third-degree fleeing and eluding, in
violation of MCL 257.602a(3). We affirm.
This case arises out of a high speed chase that ensued after Deputy Randolph Snyder
observed defendant speeding past in a green Corvette. Snyder pursued defendant at speeds
exceeding 115 miles per hour across the Kalkaska County line into Antrim County. Snyder lost
sight of defendant when he entered the loop-shaped Alden Meadows subdivision. Snyder wisely
blockaded the subdivision and radioed for backup rather than continuing the car chase through
the residential area. When local backup arrived, one of the officers, Trooper David Kaiser,
recalled issuing defendant a ticket for speeding in the Corvette the week before. The officers
determined the location of defendant’s residence by running a LEIN check on the earlier ticket.
They discovered the defendant’s residence was in the subdivision and quickly surrounded it. A
neighbor confirmed that a person who matched defendant’s description and drove a green
Corvette lived at the address. A set of yawing skid marks led into defendant’s driveway.
Although the house appeared recently occupied, the police did not receive a response when they
shouted for defendant to come out.
About a half-an-hour after the search began, Deputy Jonathan Wheatley tugged at a towel
that draped over a window on a side door to defendant’s garage. Wheatley’s tug lifted a portion
of the towel inside the door, revealing the Corvette.
Approximately an hour and a half after the search began, a neighbor called to defendant,
and he emerged from the basement. Snyder and Kaiser immediately identified defendant
through a window from defendant’s deck. Despite defendant’s orders to stay out, the police
went into the house and arrested him. In a motion to suppress, defendant argued that the police
illegally obtained the car as a result of a warrantless and unreasonable search of his garage, and
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that his subsequent identification stemmed from that illegal discovery and his illegal arrest. The
trial court denied defendant’s motion, and defendant was found guilty following a jury trial.
Defendant first argues that the trial court clearly erred in determining that exigent
circumstances, namely “hot pursuit,” justified the warrantless search of his garage. We disagree
with defendant. We review a trial court’s findings of fact regarding a motion to suppress for
clear error, but we review the trial court’s ultimate decision de novo. People v Williams, 240
Mich App 316, 319; 614 NW2d 647 (2000).
“Both the United States and Michigan Constitutions guarantee the right against
unreasonable searches and seizures.” People v Beuschlein, 245 Mich App 744, 749; 630 NW2d
921 (2001)(citing US Const, Am IV; Const 1963, art 1, § 11). “A warrantless search is
unreasonable per se unless there exists both probable cause and circumstances establishing one
of the delineated exceptions to the warrant requirement.” People v Anthony, 120 Mich App 207,
210-211; 327 NW2d 441 (1982). “Probable cause has been defined as a state of mind which
stems from some fact, circumstance or information which would create an honest belief in the
mind of a reasonably prudent person.” Id., at 211. “Exigent circumstances are present where
immediate action is necessary to: (1) protect the police officers or other persons, (2) prevent the
loss or destruction of evidence, or (3) prevent the escape of the suspect.” Id. “Hot pursuit” of a
felon usually qualifies as an “exigent circumstance.” People v Raybon, 125 Mich App 295, 301;
336 NW2d 782 (1983).
In the instant case, the police had probable cause to search defendant’s home because the
facts the police had gathered at the time of the garage’s search indicated a very strong likelihood
that defendant and his car were at the location. The issue then becomes whether the trial court
clearly erred in determining that the exigent circumstance of “hot pursuit” existed to justify a
warrantless search of defendant’s garage.
In People v Joyner, 93 Mich App 554, 559-560; 287 NW2d 286 (1979), we determined
that tracking-dog evidence which culminated in a warrantless entry into the defendant’s home fit
the “hot pursuit” exception to the warrant requirement because “there was no break in the chain
of immediate pursuit.” Here, Snyder’s pause to await backup did not mean that police had
broken off their pursuit. Rather, Snyder’s delay prevented defendant from doubling back and
preserved an eventual arrest from jurisdictional entanglements. With the serendipitous discovery
that defendant resided nearby, the officers soon resumed their pursuit. While reasonably certain
that defendant had arrived at the house and remained inside, the officers would have risked
defendant’s escape if they immediately focused on sealing off the house without first verifying
his presence there. This need for immediate verification provided ample exigency to justify
Wheatley’s peek into defendant’s garage. If the garage contained a different vehicle, or nothing
at all, the continuing pursuit would have resumed elsewhere. Therefore, this was not the kind of
cold, “planned warrantless search” decried in People v Heard, 65 Mich App 494, 499; 237
NW2d 525 (1975), and the trial court did not clearly err when it applied the “hot pursuit”
exception to the warrant requirement.1
1
We also note, however, that police already knew that defendant owned the Corvette and had
(continued…)
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Defendant next argues that the trial court clearly erred when it allowed the prosecutor to
introduce evidence of his identification by Snyder and Kaiser who spotted him through a
window. Defendant argues that the illegal discovery of his car in the garage identified him as the
felon and led to his arrest. We disagree. The minimally invasive search of defendant’s garage
was justified by the exigent circumstances created by defendant’s flight. Moreover, the officers
did not identify defendant because of his car, but because they had seen him before. It was the
LEIN search, skid marks, and information from a neighbor that pointed to the house as the likely
place where defendant took refuge. Without any relationship between Wheatley’s detection of
the car and defendant’s identification through the window, we would affirm the trial court even if
we found the search of the garage invalid. Because exigent circumstances justified Wheatley’s
search, the identification evidence was completely untainted by illegal police conduct.2
Affirmed.
/s/ Peter D. O’Connell
/s/ Kurtis T. Wilder
/s/ Christopher M. Murray
(…continued)
positively identified him as its driver, so any error in admitting this evidence was harmless. The
police would have eventually discovered the Corvette even without Wheatley’s search.
2
While defendant also questions the validity of his arrest, the prosecutor did not use any
evidence at trial that followed from defendant’s arrest and defendant does not argue any related
error on appeal. Therefore, defendant’s conviction stands.
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