No more digital fishing expeditions.

The case, People v. Michael Georgie Carson, centered on a man convicted of safebreaking and theft after police used a broad search warrant to comb through his phone and retrieve incriminating texts. The high court agreed with Carson that the warrant – authorizing the search of “any and all data” – was too vague, effectively allowing a limitless digital fishing expedition with “no meaningful constraint.”

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“Given that cell phones carry a virtually unlimited amount of private information,” the majority opinion read, “the wide-ranging search of defendant’s cell phone pursuant to this warrant was constitutionally intolerable.”

Crime-specific searches now required.

The court said that future warrants must be as “particular as the circumstances presented permit and consistent with the nature of the item to be searched.” That includes naming the suspected crime, narrowing the data types to be searched (such as texts, photos, emails), and including a time window tied to the alleged criminal activity.

Simply mentioning the suspected crime, the court ruled, is not enough. The majority opinion stated, “(A) caveat that the search is limited to evidence of a particular crime…gives little or no clarity to an officer as to where to look, for what to look, or how to look for it.”

Divided bench, but clear warning.

The court was divided on some aspects – particularly whether Carson’s attorney had been ineffective in failing to raise the warrant issue at trial. While the court agreed the warrant was too broad, it ultimately concluded that Carson didn’t receive constitutionally deficient legal representation because the law on digital searches was still evolving at the time.

Still, the message to law enforcement was clear: vague warrants won’t cut it in the digital age.

What it means going forward.

This ruling builds on a growing body of case law, including People v. Hughes (2020), that emphasizes privacy protections in the digital realm. Michigan courts will now expect prosecutors and police to be far more precise when asking to search smartphones and other electronic devices – or risk having their evidence dismissed by the court on constitutional grounds.

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The Michigan Supreme Court is sending the People v. Carson case back to the Michigan Court of Appeals to consider the defendant’s remaining issues that were not addressed the first time around.