Circuit Court Judge Paul Stutesman heard arguments Wednesday on the admissibility of evidence during a motion hearing for Wade Allen of Sturgis, who is accused of the murder and dismemberment of Kelly-Jien Warner-Miller and has been in custody since last year. The hearing was ultimately continued to allow Stutesman to review materials and transcripts pertaining to the case before issuing a decision.
Officers with the Sturgis Police Department responded on May 22, 2019 to a report by a person who knew Allen and who said he had shared details about the murder with him. After showing up at his apartment, the officers allegedly detained Allen before obtaining his permission to conduct a search of his residence. During their search, officers discovered parts of the victim’s dismembered body hidden beneath other material inside coolers.
At issue is whether the search was conducted illegally in violation of Allen’s constitutional rights under the 4thAmendment, which protects citizens against unreasonable searches and seizures. Defense attorney Dave Marvin argued on Wednesday that verbal permission and the warrant used in justifying the search were obtained illegally, thus invalidating the evidence.
Because constitutional language is often somewhat open, attorneys and judges rely on previous state and federal supreme court decisions to interpret the constitution’s language and advance legal arguments. The specific cases that establish these arguments are called precedents, and a collection of related precedents is called case law. The most common arguments attorneys use to make legal cases are called doctrines.
Both Marvin and Acting Prosecutor Joshua Robare cited several doctrines and precedents in making their arguments for and against the dismissal of the cooler evidence.
Knock and talk is a form of evidence-gathering in which officers knock on a suspect’s door and seek verbal permission to search the premises. If conducted according to specific procedures, such a search does not require a warrant, because they involve consent acquired while approaching a house in the same way a salesperson or delivery worker would. Such a person can approach a house under implied license, which means permission to use designated walkways and knock on the door is implied under normal circumstances.
However, in a 2017 appeals case, Michigan v. Frederick, the Michigan Supreme Court held that a knock and talk search conducted in predawn hours is unreasonable, because implied license does not apply at night, and as such, a nighttime approach constitutes a trespass and is therefore a 4th Amendment violation.
Marvin argued the search was illegal under the Frederick precedent, but also because Allen was in custody when he gave his consent, and therefore under duress. Further, he said, discovery of the remains was also invalid because Allen revoked permission before officers discovered the evidence in the coolers.
Robare said the officers in question were unaware of the Frederick ruling, while Marvin maintained ignorance of the law in general is not the same as a good faith exception for a specific warrant, and therefore does not show legality for the search.
Good faith doctrine provides that evidence can be admitted at trial if the officers who collected it acted in good faith and unknowingly conducted a search with a defective search warrant.
In the absence of Allen’s consent to continue their search with respect to the coolers, officers instead obtained a warrant. Marvin said good faith doctrine does not apply because of the way officers obtained that warrant. In question is whether or not officers smelled evidence of a decomposing body that would have led them to the evidence in the coolers either before or after opening them.
Marvin argued that the officers’ recorded body-cam statements during the investigation contradicted statements in the warrant affidavit about whether they smelled anything. Stutesman also said the officer who swore the affidavit was not involved in the search. Robare said the officers who conducted the search nevertheless believed the warrant was legitimate.
In the event that the officers lied about the presence of a specific odor, or otherwise misrepresented the reasons for the warrant in their affidavit, the warrant could be illegal. Marvin maintained there was deliberate intent to mislead on the part of the officers on scene during the search.
“It’s not possible that there was an objectively reasonable belief (that the warrant was valid) because the very officer who did the illegal knock and talk and then, under duress, claimed he had consent to search and illegally searched him, that’s the same officer who, after all that happened then used what he found in the house illegally to justify a warrant,” Marvin said.
Also in question is the inevitable discovery doctrine, in which illegally gathered evidence can remain admissible in court if it inevitably would have surfaced anyway. Robare argued the remains would have produced an odor, and the initial witness and neighbors’ testimonies directed reasonable suspicion at Allen, so the remains would have eventually surfaced anyway, thus maintaining their legality as evidence in court.
Based on the initial witness account, Robare said police had reason to follow inevitable discovery doctrine. “It’s not a valid argument to (say) that, ‘well if he’s given more time, it wouldn’t have been discovered because he would have had time to dispose of the coolers when the body is already in there.’
“So, he has a decaying body in his apartment, the police have been told about this, and during their investigation they talked to other people in the apartment building who had been told similar things, who had interactions with (Allen) where they talked about him being physically abusive with the victim in this case. So, all of those things together show that their investigation would have led to the discovery of this body. Other case, not binding but hoping informative, case where body will eventually smell, will eventually be discovered,” Robare said.
Marvin said the inevitable discovery doctrine did not apply because there was no independent process in place to discover additional evidence.
Regarding the initial witness statement, Stutesman told Robare, “unfortunately, the affidavit of probable cause didn’t include any of those things. It would have been a different matter if they had, but they didn’t include any of those things. It was only after this motion was brought that those things were even transcribed. I don’t even know if they were put into a report. If they were, I don’t get the reports.” Robare said the witness evidence was in both the body cam transcripts and the police reports.
Prior to Wednesday’s hearing, the body cam footage, warrant affidavit, and police reports were presented in previous hearings, when County Prosecutor John McDonough was still actively covering the case. In a February 12 suppression hearing, Stutesman questioned the legality of the evidence based on Marvin’s arguments at that time. Wednesday’s hearing was meant to continue presentation of arguments about the admissibility of said evidence.
In his statements Wednesday, Marvin said, “any evidence from the minute that officer knocked on that door, the illegal knock and talk, to this day, as Wade Allen sits in jail, indirect or direct evidence, is fruit of a poisoned tree, and it all has to be suppressed. None of it can be used against him. Your honor, we ask that (Allen) be released, because at this point, his constitutional rights have been violated. He’s being improperly held.”
In later comments, Marvin said, “Officers don’t go to verify or get advice from a judge or magistrate, ‘are we doing this right?’ The police are not entitled to do this, period. The state cannot violate somebody’s rights unless they have a really good reason.
“The police go to a magistrate or judge for permission, not to run it by them. And, when you ask for permission, it’s just like a child. You go and you ask for permission from the authority figure, you better say it straight. You tell them exactly the facts. You follow the rules, and if you start misleading and you start advocating, it’s no longer good faith. You have removed yourself from that exception.”
Stutesman did not issue a decision in Wednesday’s hearing. He said a backlog of work prevented him from viewing briefings Marvin and Robare submitted in the last week. Reviewing the material, he said, would permit him to review the case law being cited. In addition, he said he wanted to review transcripts from two previous hearings. Robare encouraged him to do so, saying that it would show good faith on the officers’ part.
“Good, bad, or otherwise, you know, we all take an oath when we’re sworn in. We took oaths as attorneys. I took an oath as a judge that we will support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America and the State of Michigan. The officers take that same oath,” Stutesman said. “That means that as uncomfortable as something like this motion is, it is critical that we do our duties, and do it.”
Because Marvin is a candidate for County Prosecutor in the upcoming election, Stutesman said he would try to expedite obtaining those transcripts and reviewing them, along with other material, so the hearing could continue and conclude in a timely fashion without appearing to influence the election.
Dave Vago is a staff writer and columnist for Watershed Voice. A Philadelphia native with roots in Three Rivers, Vago is a planning consultant to history and community development organizations and is the former Executive Director of the Three Rivers DDA/Main Street program.
