Michigan Court Curbs Car Searches Over Low-Level Marijuana

Michigan drivers can no longer have their cars searched by police based only on the smell of marijuana or a suspected minor pot violation, after the state’s highest court ruled that low-level cannabis offenses no longer clear the legal threshold for a warrantless search.

In a 5-2 decision issued July 22, 2026, the Michigan Supreme Court held that a state trooper who smelled marijuana and heard a passenger admit to a small amount had reason to suspect only a civil infraction, not a crime. And a civil infraction, the majority ruled, is not enough to justify searching a vehicle without a warrant.

The decision narrows one of the most heavily used tools in roadside policing. For roughly a century, courts have let officers search a car without a warrant when they have a strong basis to believe it holds contraband or evidence of a crime, a carve-out known as the automobile exception and justified by the fact that a car can be driven off before a judge can sign a warrant. The court left that power intact for actual crimes. What it refused to do was stretch it to cover conduct Michigan voters have downgraded to a civil ticket. “The people of Michigan demonstrated a reduced state interest in enforcement of laws prohibiting marijuana possession and use when they took the offense out of the realm of criminal law,” Justice Kimberly Thomas wrote for the majority.

The traffic stop behind the ruling

The case, People v. Wilkins, began with a January 2023 speeding stop in Kent County. A Michigan State Police trooper pulled over a vehicle driven by Freddie Wilkins III and smelled marijuana through the open passenger window. He saw no marijuana and observed no signs that either occupant was smoking or intoxicated. Both were under 21, an age at which possessing any amount of marijuana is prohibited in Michigan.

After both occupants first denied having marijuana, the passenger acknowledged she had “some shake,” a small quantity of loose flower. Treating that as evidence that a minor was holding marijuana, the trooper searched the car and found a loaded handgun in a backpack. Wilkins, who admitted the gun was his, was charged with carrying a concealed weapon in a vehicle, a felony.

A trial court and the Michigan Court of Appeals both allowed the search to stand. The Supreme Court reversed them and sent the case back to Kent County Circuit Court, which will now decide whether to keep pursuing the charge given that the gun was found through a search the justices have declared unconstitutional.

What the ruling changes

Under the Michigan Regulation and Taxation of Marihuana Act, the 2018 voter initiative that legalized adult use, possession of up to 2.5 ounces by someone under 21 is a civil infraction for a first or second offense, while larger amounts and other conduct remain criminal. Because the quantity of marijuana is what separates a ticket from a crime, the majority reasoned, an officer needs a substantial basis to believe a criminal amount is present, not merely that some marijuana might be in the car. Substances banned only under civil law, the court held, are not “contraband” for the purpose of a warrantless vehicle search. The justices warned that the opposite rule would let routine traffic stops routinely escalate into full searches, since so many everyday violations are civil rather than criminal.

The ruling builds directly on the court’s 2025 decision in People v. Armstrong, which ended the older rule that the smell of marijuana alone gives police probable cause to search. Wilkins resolves the question Armstrong left open: whether suspicion of a civil-level violation, rather than odor by itself, can support a search. The answer is no.

The decision does not shield every driver who has marijuana in the car. Police can still search when they have reason to believe a criminal quantity is present or that another offense has occurred; signs of impaired driving, marijuana visible in the car, drifting smoke, or evidence of illegal sales all remain fair grounds. In its own guidance to officers, the Michigan State Police noted the holding reaches beyond cannabis: police may not search a vehicle based solely on evidence of any civil infraction. Michigan is among the states redrawing the line between legalized cannabis and police authority, even as cannabis arrests remain common where the drug is still banned.

A divided court

The two dissenting justices warned that the majority had rewritten settled law. Marijuana that no one in the car can legally possess is still contraband, they argued, and officers should not have to pin down the exact amount before searching. In holding otherwise, Justice Brian Zahra wrote, joined by Justice Richard Bernstein, the court “ignores over 100 years of precedent from the Supreme Court of the United States.” Justice Elizabeth Welch, though she joined the majority, wrote separately to say she would have grounded the outcome in Michigan’s own constitution rather than the Fourth Amendment, since marijuana’s continued illegality under federal law has left federal courts with little occasion to address the question.

The decision is the Michigan Supreme Court’s second in favor of cannabis users in July 2026, following an earlier ruling that barred judges from banning marijuana use as a probation condition on the basis of federal law alone. For now, the practical effect is immediate: a whiff of marijuana and a hunch about a small amount no longer open the door to a roadside search in Michigan.