Blog Article
Read legal insights from Ryan Maesen Attorney at Law.
If you have been arrested in Michigan, the first question worth asking is what the officer actually had when they took you into custody. The answer is called probable cause, and it is the legal standard that separates a lawful arrest from an unlawful one.
Most people have never heard the term before the moment they are handcuffed. That is normal, and it is also the moment when having a lawyer matters most.
You may be wondering:
Probable cause is not the same thing as proof. Nobody has to prove you committed anything before an officer can arrest you. But the officer does have to point to facts that would lead a reasonable person to believe a crime was committed and that you were the one who committed it.
👉 Michigan courts describe the test as the totality of the circumstances. That phrase matters. It means an officer does not need one piece of evidence that proves guilt beyond doubt. What matters is whether everything the officer knew, taken together, was enough to justify an arrest at that moment. Michigan applies the same reasoning at the first stage of a Michigan criminal case.
The law is decided by courts, not by how the arrest felt in the moment. A calm, respectful arrest and a rough one are both legal if probable cause existed. An aggressive arrest with no probable cause behind it is still unlawful. The facts decide, not the manner.
If the arrest was made without a warrant and the facts do not add up to probable cause, there is a real legal argument to be made. That argument usually gets made in front of a judge, at an arraignment, through a motion to suppress.
Michigan law treats reasonable cause and probable cause as the same standard. The 1989 Staff Comment to Michigan Court Rule 6.102 makes that point directly and notes that probable cause is the preferred term. So when a police report says the officer had reasonable cause, it is describing the same threshold.
What is different between the two ideas is how much the officer has to know. Reasonable suspicion is enough to stop someone and ask questions. Probable cause is what an officer needs before an arrest, and it requires more.
Michigan courts have set the bar this way: an officer has probable cause when the facts and circumstances within the officer’s knowledge are sufficient to warrant a reasonable person in believing that an offense has been or is being committed. Probable cause requires only a probability or a substantial chance of criminal activity, not an actual showing of criminal activity.
👉 Probable cause is judged from the totality of the circumstances, and it is a practical, nontechnical standard rather than a formula. That is why the same facts can produce a lawful arrest in one case and an unlawful one in another.
Michigan law is specific about the situations in which an officer may arrest without a warrant. MCL 764.15 lists them. The general rule is that a warrant is required, and each exception is narrow.
Here are the most common situations that come up in criminal cases in West Michigan:
An officer may arrest without a warrant when a felony, misdemeanor or ordinance violation is committed in the officer’s presence. That is MCL 764.15(1)(a), and it covers the ordinary traffic stop where the officer watches the violation happen.
An officer may also arrest without a warrant when a person has committed a felony outside the officer’s presence, when a felony has in fact been committed and the officer has reasonable cause to believe the person committed it, and when the officer has reasonable cause to believe that a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment for more than 92 days or a felony has been committed and that the person committed it. Michigan also grants separate warrantless arrest authority for operating a vehicle while intoxicated or visibly impaired under MCL 764.15(1)(h) through (l), and for retail fraud under MCL 764.15(1)(m).
An officer’s own observations are the strongest foundation for probable cause, because the officer can testify to them directly and the court can evaluate them against video evidence, witness accounts and the physical scene.
Examples of direct observations that support probable cause include seeing a person drive through a stop sign, observing broken glass and an open case on a car seat after a crash, or watching someone place an item inside a vehicle during a search they were lawfully conducting. The observation has to connect to a specific crime.
Probable cause can also rest on information from other people. This is where cases most often turn on the reliability of what the officer was told.
MCL 764.15(1)(e) and (1)(f) cover two specific channels: positive information from an authoritative source that another officer or a court holds a warrant for the person’s arrest, and positive information broadcast from a recognized police or governmental radio station. These channels come with their own limits on how stale the information may be.
What matters is whether the information was reasonably trustworthy at the moment of the arrest. Michigan courts have treated a warrantless arrest in public upon probable cause as consistent with the Fourth Amendment, and they have held that the same standard applies when probable cause exists for a misdemeanor.
Physical evidence at the scene is a third category. It tends to matter because it is hard for the person arrested to explain away later.
Examples include drugs found in plain view during a lawful search, property matching a description of what was reported stolen, damage to property consistent with the reported offense, or a weapon in plain view during a lawful protective frisk. The key requirement is that the evidence was visible or lawfully obtained, not that the officer had a hunch that evidence would be found.
Reasonable suspicion is the lower standard that lets an officer stop and investigate. It does not authorize an arrest. Conflating the two is one of the most common problems in Michigan arrest cases, and it is frequently the basis for a suppression motion.
An officer needs reasonable suspicion to pull you over, and probable cause to arrest you. If the information never rose above reasonable suspicion, the arrest was not supported.
Probable cause for arrest and probable cause at a preliminary examination are related, but they are not the same question, and they happen at different times.
Arrest probable cause is a Fourth Amendment question. It asks whether the arrest itself was lawful. Preliminary examination probable cause is a state statutory question under MCL 766.1 and MCR 6.110. It asks whether there is enough evidence for the case to proceed. A person can pass one and fail the other.
Yes. A warrantless arrest that is not supported by probable cause can be challenged, and when the court agrees, the evidence gathered as a result of that arrest is often suppressed. That can end a case before it ever reaches trial. Our guide to the probable cause hearing explains the next step in the process.
The mechanism is a motion to suppress evidence, brought under Michigan Court Rule 6.102. In a warrantless arrest case, the prosecution carries the burden of establishing that the arrest was supported by probable cause.
The timing of the question is fixed. The constitutional validity of an arrest depends on whether, at the moment the arrest was made, the officers had probable cause to make it, judged by the facts and circumstances then within their knowledge. Information the officer gathered afterward cannot retroactively supply probable cause.
Michigan law requires that an arrestee be taken before a magistrate or judicial officer without unnecessary delay. For a felony, MCL 764.26 requires the same. Under Michigan Court Rule 6.104(A), unless released beforehand, an arrested person must be taken without unnecessary delay before a court for arraignment.
A warrantless arrest must also be presented to the magistrate with a complaint stating the charge, and MCR 6.104(A) entitles an arrested person to the assistance of an attorney at arraignment unless the person makes an informed waiver of counsel or the court issues a personal bond and will not accept a plea of guilty or no contest.
The suppression motion is decided before trial, usually at a separate hearing on the motion itself. Where the arrest was not supported by probable cause, the motion is regularly granted and the case ends before it ever reaches a jury. That is why the facts of the arrest matter from the first hour.
Two questions come up constantly about Michigan arrest law.
The first is how strong the standard is. The second is how long the police can hold someone before a judge has to decide whether the arrest was justified.
For a felony, the standard is that a felony has in fact been committed and the officer has probable cause to believe the person committed it. A person may be arrested without a warrant if a felony has been committed and the officer has probable cause to believe that individual committed the felony. It is a probability standard, not a proof standard, but it does have to be tied to you and not merely to the fact that some crime happened somewhere.
No. An arrest is a seizure, not a conviction. It means the officer had probable cause to believe you committed a crime, and it means the case now belongs to the court. Guilt is determined at trial, and until then the charge is an allegation.
Being arrested does not mean the charge is accurate. It also does not mean it is permanent. Charges get reduced, dismissed and negotiated constantly, and the earlier a defense lawyer gets involved, the more options you have before anything becomes fixed.
A weak probable cause foundation is leverage. A defense attorney uses the arrest facts in negotiation, and in practice that is often the difference between a dismissed case, a reduced charge and a conviction.
Michigan law requires an arrestee be taken before a magistrate or judicial officer without unnecessary delay. For a person arrested without a warrant, in all but the most extraordinary situations, there is a 48 hour limit before a judicial determination of probable cause. You can read more about what comes next in our guide to what happens at an arraignment in Michigan.
That 48 hour rule comes from the United States Supreme Court and the Michigan Court of Appeals. A delay of more than 48 hours between a warrantless arrest and the probable cause hearing is presumptively unreasonable, and the government must show that the delay was caused by extraordinary circumstances.
A delay of less than 48 hours can still be unreasonable in some situations. Examples courts have identified include a delay for the purpose of gathering additional evidence to justify the arrest, a delay motivated by ill will against the arrested person, or delay for delay’s sake.
Several things people do in the first hours of an arrest make their case worse, and all of them are avoidable.
Speaking to the officer without a lawyer present is the most common one. Explaining your side of the story, because it seems reasonable or because the officer is being polite, is the second. Both are avoidable, and both are hard to undo. Get a lawyer first, and let the lawyer decide what happens next.
👉 If you have been arrested in Michigan, the strongest move you can make is talking to a criminal defense lawyer as soon as possible. The facts of the arrest decide what happens to the evidence, and those facts are usually easier to preserve early than later.
A defense attorney can obtain the police report, test the facts the officer had against the facts available, and file a motion to suppress where the arrest was not supported by probable cause. That work is far harder once memories fade, footage is overwritten, or witnesses have scattered.
Maesen Law represents clients in criminal matters across Grand Rapids and West Michigan, including DUI, drug charges, weapons charges, violent felonies and sex offenses. If you are facing an arrest or an investigation, we will tell you what the arrest means in your case and what your options are. Start with our criminal defense practice area, and read what past clients say in our client reviews.
Contact our office to arrange a confidential consultation. If you have already been arrested, call as soon as you are able to do so, and do not discuss the facts of the arrest with anyone except your attorney.
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(616) 821-7691It is the reasonable belief, based on facts the officer already had, that a crime was committed and that you committed it. It is enough to justify an arrest, and it is not the same as proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
Yes, in the specific situations listed in MCL 764.15. These include when the offense is committed in the officer’s presence, when a felony has been committed and the officer has probable cause to believe you committed it, and when information comes from an authoritative source or a recognized police radio broadcast.
Michigan law requires an arrestee be taken before a court without unnecessary delay. For a warrantless arrest, a person generally cannot be detained more than 48 hours without a judicial determination of probable cause.
Yes. A motion to suppress evidence under MCR 6.102 can challenge the arrest. The prosecution carries the burden of showing the warrantless arrest was supported by probable cause, and if it cannot, evidence gathered after the arrest is often excluded.
