From General Warrants to Digital Precision:
People v Carson and Michigan’s New Particularity Standard for Cell-Phone Search Warrants

1. Introduction

People of Michigan v. Michael Georgie Carson (2025) is the Supreme Court of Michigan’s most consequential Fourth-Amendment decision since People v Hughes (2020). The Court confronted two intertwined questions:

1. Was the cell-phone warrant used against Michael Carson unconstitutionally broad under the Fourth Amendment’s particularity clause?
2. If so, did defense counsel render ineffective assistance by failing to raise that defect?

Although the Court ultimately affirmed Carson’s convictions because it found no ineffective assistance, a five-justice majority (Cavanagh C.J., Welch, Thomas, Bolden) squarely held the warrant facially invalid. That holding announces a new, more demanding standard for digital-device warrants in Michigan: “Specifying the crime under investigation is necessary, but not usually sufficient, to satisfy particularity on a cell-phone search.”

Equally notable is the Court’s refusal—over two concurrences—to treat the constitutional analysis as dicta. The majority insists that examining the underlying Fourth-Amendment issue was essential to evaluating counsel’s performance, thereby giving the particularity ruling precedential force.

2. Summary of the Judgment

The litigation history is complex:

• Carson and his girlfriend, Brandie DeGroff, were convicted of multiple theft-related offenses after police discovered incriminating text messages on Carson’s seized cell phone.
• The Court of Appeals reversed, holding the warrant “an unconstitutional general warrant,” applied no good-faith exception, and found counsel ineffective.
• The Supreme Court granted review.
  • Particularity: A majority agreed with the Court of Appeals that the warrant’s “any and all data” language, unmoored to categories, time limits, or probable-cause nexus, violated the Fourth Amendment.
  • Ineffective assistance: Yet the Court split 3-3-1 on performance and prejudice. The lead opinion (Cavanagh C.J.) found counsel’s omission objectively reasonable given the unsettled state of the law in 2020, thus no reversal. Justice Bolden dissented on this point; Justice Zahra agreed in result on prejudice grounds; Justice Bernstein concurred in the result but criticized reaching the Fourth-Amendment issue.

The Court therefore:

1. Affirmed the substantive Fourth-Amendment holding (invalid warrant).
2. Reversed the Court of Appeals on ineffective assistance; Carson’s convictions stand, but the case returns to the Court of Appeals on issues it had left undecided (e.g., sentencing, remaining evidentiary challenges).

3. Analysis

3.1 Precedents Cited

• Riley v California, 573 U.S. 373 (2014) – Recognized the “vast quantities of personal data” in phones; warrants required for searches incident to arrest.
• People v Hughes, 506 Mich 512 (2020) – First Michigan case applying particularity to digital data; limited searches to evidence “reasonably directed” at the crime named in the warrant.
• United States v Leon, 468 U.S. 897 (1984) – Good-faith exception framework; invoked but held inapplicable by Justice Bolden and the Court of Appeals.
• Strickland v Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984) – Two-prong ineffective-assistance test; dispositive on counsel-performance question.
• Out-of-state and federal circuit decisions on cell-phone warrants: Snow (Mass.), Short (Neb.), Coke (Colo.), Wilson (Ga.), Tompkins (2d Cir.), Palms (10th Cir.), etc. The majority leans on state authority; the Zahra concurrence stresses federal circuits.

3.2 Legal Reasoning

a. Particularity Doctrine Reinforced and Refined

The Court reiterates that the Fourth Amendment’s ban on “general warrants” requires two layers of specificity for digital devices:

1. Nexus to the offenses. The warrant must name the specific crime, but that alone is “not usually sufficient.”
2. Reasonable limiting techniques. Absent technological or investigative necessity, the warrant should also narrow
   • the category of data (e.g., SMS, e-mails, location logs) and
   • the time frame when probable-cause activity occurred.
   Where such information exists, failure to include it violates particularity.

Because the Carson warrant authorized “any and all data” on the phone, with no categorical or temporal guardrails, it effectively delegated limitless discretion to executing officers—exactly the evil the Framers sought to prevent.

b. Ineffective Assistance Analysis

Although the search warrant was unconstitutional, the majority deemed counsel’s omission reasonable at the time because:

• Michigan had not yet decided Hughes when counsel filed the motion.
• National caselaw on cell-phone warrant particularity was “rapidly evolving.”
• Counsel did file a suppression motion—though on seizure grounds—showing some attention to Fourth-Amendment issues.

Justice Bolden’s dissent argues the opposite: the particularity defect was apparent from the warrant’s face; failure to raise it showed a misunderstanding of settled constitutional doctrine and prejudiced the defense because the texts were “essentially definitive.”

c. Good-Faith and Severance (Issues Reserved)

Because the Court affirmed the convictions on Sixth-Amendment grounds, it did not decide whether officers could rely on the warrant in good faith or whether valid portions could be severed. Justice Bolden would have rejected both arguments: the warrant was so facially deficient that no officer could rely on it, and nothing remained to sever once particularity failed.

3.3 Potential Impact

Short-term effects

• Michigan magistrates must draft cell-phone warrants with category and time restrictions whenever feasible.
• Prosecutors will likely train officers to include forensic-search protocols in affidavits (e.g., “SMS between 6/1/24–9/1/24,” “media files showing interior of victim’s home”).
• Defense counsel have a clearer roadmap to challenge overbroad digital warrants; failure to do so post-Carson could indeed be deficient performance.

Long-term effects

• Carson positions Michigan among states, like Massachusetts and Colorado, that require enhanced particularity for digital searches, nudging federal circuits toward uniform higher standards.
• Raises the specter of conflict with circuits (e.g., 6th, 7th, 8th) that deem crime-specific language alone sufficient. A future U.S. Supreme Court resolution is more likely.
• Encourages “two-step” warrant practice (initial imaging + later targeted search) and use-restriction orders to protect nonresponsive data.
• May interact with the 2020 amendment to Mich. Const. art. 1, § 11 (explicit protection for “electronic data or electronic communications”), an issue still undeveloped in appellate caselaw.

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

Particularity Requirement

The constitutional rule that a warrant must say exactly what place may be searched and what evidence may be seized, so police cannot rummage at will.

General Warrant

A broad warrant that lets police search anywhere for anything; outlawed since the founding era.

Good-Faith Exception

Evidence obtained with a defective warrant may still be used if officers reasonably relied on it—unless the defect is so obvious no reasonable officer would.

Severance Doctrine

If part of a warrant is invalid, courts can “sever” it and admit evidence from valid parts—only if distinct, constitutionally adequate portions remain.

Forensic Extraction Software

Tools (e.g., Cellebrite) that copy all phone data but allow investigators to filter by date, type, keyword, etc., ideally limiting exposure to irrelevant private information.

5. Conclusion

People v Carson does two things at once: it tightens Fourth-Amendment limits on digital searches while simultaneously denying relief for ineffective assistance. The controlling plurality signals that Michigan courts will no longer tolerate “any-and-all-data” warrants; officers must craft targeted, time-bound, category-specific requests. At the same time, the decision warns defense lawyers that constitutional law evolves quickly: what was reasonable strategy in 2020 may become unreasonable post-Carson. Future litigation will test the good-faith exception, the severance doctrine, and the Michigan Constitution’s explicit digital-privacy language. For now, Carson stands as a landmark: Michigan has moved the particularity goalposts closer to the privacy interests embodied in the smartphones we carry every day.