Staff Reports
Michigan’s highest court is set to decide whether the use of a drone for surveillance by a local government violated a family’s constitutional rights. The case revolves around Todd Maxon and Long Lake Township. Maxon ran into trouble with the township over his car-repair hobby, which the township claimed was an illegal junkyard. A settlement in 2008 resulted in an agreement where Maxon would not add any more vehicles to his property. However, in 2017, town officials alleged that Maxon was breaking the agreement. To gather evidence, the town hired a drone operator who took photos and videos of Maxon’s property. The evidence was then used to charge Maxon with a zoning violation.
Michigan Supreme Court hears arguments on township's drone surveillance of couple's property.https://t.co/OTWA1XhauV
— News Channel 3 WWMT-TV (@wwmtnews) October 19, 2023
Maxon is arguing that the surveillance violated his Fourth Amendment rights. His attorney, Robert Frommer from the Institute for Justice, stated that “runaway drone surveillance is pretty much the start of every dystopian science fiction novel.” The Maxon family is prepared to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court if they lose the case at the state level. Maxon believes that the surveillance was intrusive and that nobody would want a drone watching them.
On the other hand, the township argues that it did what it had to do because Maxon was breaking his word. They claim that the drone was never on Maxon’s property and that there was no law in place to ban such surveillance. The township’s attorney, William Henn, states that all the material gathered by the drone was visible from adjacent properties. The Institute for Justice attorney Mike Greenberg argues that the drone’s spying went beyond casual observation and crossed into trespassing.
The Michigan Supreme Court has already seen the case and sent it back to the Michigan Court of Appeals to decide whether the exclusionary rule applies. The court ruled that in a civil matter, violating Fourth Amendment rights was not a concern. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has intervened on the side of the Maxon family, claiming that the aerial surveillance violates the Fourth Amendment and that the unlawfully collected evidence should not be used in the zoning proceeding. The ACLU believes that if the township’s argument is accepted, it will open the door for other local governments to deploy surveillance drones for even the smallest infractions.
