People v. McKendrick

People v. McKendrick, 188 Mich. App. 128, 468 N.W.2d 903 (Mich. Ct. App. 1991) concerned a city ordinance that gave the city the right to enter upon any unfenced private property to cut down overgrown weeds, as long as advanced warnings and notices were given. When the defendant failed to respond to the notices, grass cutters hired by the city entered the defendant's property to cut down overgrown weeds. Once there, the grass cutters discovered marijuana plants and informed police. The court rejected the defendant's argument that the Fourth Amendment applied, concluding that there was no "state action" because the grass cutters were not on the property to aid the municipality for any investigative purposes. Id. at 911. In sum, a lawn service was hired by the city to cut defendant's lawn because it was overgrown in violation of a city ordinance. During the cutting, the workers found marijuana plants in buckets placed out in the lawn. Although the court found that the workers were employees or agents of the city when they uncovered the marijuana, it did not find a Fourth Amendment search primarily because the workers did not enter the property with the intent to conduct a search or to aid the city in its law enforcement investigation efforts. McKendrick, 468 N.W.2d at 910-11. The Court set forth the relevant test for whether a private search constitutes state action triggering the Fourth Amendment: To determine whether a given search is the type proscribed by the Fourth Amendment, two initial factors must be shown. First, the police must have instigated, encouraged, or participated in the search. Second, the individual must have engaged in the search with the intent of assisting the police in their investigative efforts. A person will not be deemed a police agent merely because there was some antecedent contact between that person and the police, and there is no seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment when an object discovered in a private search is voluntarily turned over to the government.