Background
David Henry Serges was charged with first-degree murder after an elderly woman was found beaten to death in her home. Although the crime scene initially yielded no evidence identifying Serges, witnesses reported seeing him in the neighborhood during the possible time of death, and he had previously performed work for the victim. Police arrested him in November 2017; the trial court later found that the arrest was for an unrelated misdemeanor.
After Serges was jailed, a detective took his pants from the jail property room. More than a month later, police submitted them for DNA testing without obtaining a warrant or Serges’s consent. Testing identified a small bloodstain consistent with the victim’s DNA. Serges’s first murder trial ended in a hung jury, but a second jury convicted him and he received life imprisonment without parole. His attorney did not seek suppression of the DNA evidence. The trial court rejected Serges’s later ineffective-assistance claim, and the Court of Appeals affirmed.
The Court’s Holding
The Michigan Supreme Court held that the forensic testing of Serges’s pants was a search under the property-based trespass approach and was unreasonable under Article 1, § 11 of the Michigan Constitution. Serges’s clothing was a constitutionally protected possession, and police physically examined it to obtain information. Because that analysis established a search, the Court did not need to decide whether Serges also had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the pants or the bloodstain.
Neither asserted warrant exception applied. DNA testing was an investigative measure, not a standardized inventory procedure serving property-protection or institutional-safety interests. Nor was it a valid search incident to arrest: the trial court found that Serges had been arrested for the unrelated misdemeanor, while police tested his clothing for evidence of murder. Existing Michigan precedent therefore supported suppression, and counsel performed deficiently by failing to seek it. The failure was prejudicial because the DNA result was the only physical evidence connecting Serges to the crime scene.
The Court reversed the Court of Appeals’ judgment and remanded to the trial court for further proceedings; it did not expressly reverse or vacate Serges’s conviction. Justice Brian K. Zahra dissented, reasoning that police lawfully possessed the inventoried pants, Serges had no reasonable expectation of privacy in them, no constitutional search occurred, and counsel was not ineffective for declining to make a futile suppression motion.
Key Takeaways
- Police custody of an arrestee’s clothing does not itself authorize later warrantless forensic testing for investigative purposes.
- DNA testing falls outside the inventory-search exception when it is not a standardized administrative procedure and does not protect property or institutional safety.
- Under Michigan law, the search-incident-to-arrest exception did not permit testing property for evidence of a crime unrelated to the offense for which the defendant was arrested.
- Counsel’s failure to pursue a supported suppression motion was prejudicial where the resulting DNA evidence supplied the prosecution’s only physical link between the defendant and the crime scene.
Why It Matters
The decision distinguishes the government’s authority to inventory and hold an arrestee’s belongings from its authority to subject those belongings to later forensic investigation. Lawful possession, the majority explained, does not eliminate the warrant requirement when police examine protected property to obtain evidence.
The ruling also illustrates how an unfiled suppression motion can satisfy both elements of an ineffective-assistance claim when existing precedent supports the motion and the challenged evidence is central to the prosecution’s case.