Background
David Henry Serges was tried for the first-degree murder of an elderly woman who was found dead in her home from multiple blunt-force injuries. Serges had previously performed household and yard work for the victim, and witnesses reported seeing him in the neighborhood during the period in which she might have been killed. His first trial ended in a hung jury; a second jury convicted him, and he received life imprisonment without parole.
After Serges was arrested and arraigned on an unrelated misdemeanor charge, a detective removed his pants and other belongings from the jail property room. More than a month later, police submitted the pants for DNA testing without obtaining Serges’s consent or a warrant. Testing revealed a small bloodstain consistent with the victim’s DNA. Defense counsel did not move to suppress that evidence at either trial.
Serges later argued that the testing was an unconstitutional search and that counsel was ineffective for failing to seek suppression. The trial court rejected those claims, and the Michigan Court of Appeals affirmed his conviction and sentence.
The Court’s Holding
The Michigan Supreme Court held that forensic DNA testing of Serges’s pants was a search under the trespass-based approach to Article 1, § 11 of the Michigan Constitution. The pants were a constitutionally protected possession, and police physically examined them to obtain information. Because this approach independently established a search, the Court did not need to decide whether Serges had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the pants or the blood on them.
The warrantless testing was unreasonable because neither asserted exception to the warrant requirement applied. DNA analysis was not a standardized inventory procedure and did not serve the administrative or safety purposes of an inventory search. Nor was it justified as a search incident to arrest: the trial court found that Serges had initially been arrested on the unrelated misdemeanor, while police tested his property to investigate the murder.
The Court further held that trial counsel performed deficiently by failing to seek suppression when existing Michigan precedent supported such a motion. The omission prejudiced Serges because the DNA result was the only physical evidence connecting him to the crime. The Court reversed the Court of Appeals’ judgment and remanded the case to the trial court for further proceedings.
Key Takeaways
- Police custody of an arrestee’s clothing does not itself authorize later warrantless forensic testing for investigative purposes.
- DNA testing is not an inventory search when it is neither standardized nor directed toward protecting property, preventing claims, or maintaining safety.
- A search incident to an arrest for one offense does not justify examining an arrestee’s property for evidence of an unrelated offense under the Michigan Constitution.
- Failure to pursue a supported suppression motion can constitute ineffective assistance when the resulting evidence is central to the prosecution’s case.
Why It Matters
The decision distinguishes the lawful seizure and inventorying of an arrestee’s belongings from a later investigative examination of those belongings. Michigan police generally must obtain a warrant or consent before subjecting lawfully held property to unrelated forensic DNA analysis unless another recognized exception applies.
The ruling also underscores that defense counsel must evaluate potentially dispositive suppression issues. When unlawfully obtained evidence supplies the prosecution’s principal physical link between a defendant and a crime, failure to challenge it may satisfy both deficient performance and prejudice under the ineffective-assistance standard.