The Michigan Supreme Court recently was asked in Long Lake Township v Todd and Heather Maxon whether the use of an unmanned drone by the Township to take photos of the Maxon’s property was a violation of the Maxon’s constitutional rights, and thus, whether the photographs yielded by the search should be excluded from evidence under the exclusionary rule.
The Township used a drone to take photographs and video of the Maxon’s property to determine whether they were complying with a previous agreement with the Township under which the Maxons would remove certain salvaged items that were stored on their property. The Township had received complaints from neighbors that the Maxon’s had begun storing items on their property again.
There are two sources of protection from unreasonable searches by law enforcement, the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution and Article 1, § 11 of the Michigan Constitution. Through a series of Supreme Court decisions, the exclusionary rule has developed, which excludes evidence in certain proceedings if the evidence is obtained in violation of the individual’s constitutional rights. In civil cases, the exclusionary rule is very rarely applied.
The Michigan Supreme Court declined to apply the exclusionary rule in this case. The rule requires the court to weigh the costs and benefits of application in each specific case. The Court found that the costs outweighed the benefits. The costs of applying the exclusionary rule included the difficulty of obtaining the evidence by other means due to the heavy woods and the suppression of evidence of continuing violations of the law.
Courts continue to decline to apply the exclusionary rule outside of criminal cases and narrow categories of civil cases, such as civil asset-forfeiture cases and cases involving evidence from a warrantless blood draw.
