As per michigan v. tyler, seizure of evidence of arson that is in plain view:

On January 21, 1970, a fire broke in a furniture store, and firefighters arrived to put the flames out. The fire chief found remnants of flammable liquid containers in the building and called in the police. Having retrieved the pieces as evidence and taken some photographs of the site, the police charged the owners with conspiring to burn the building. They were convicted based on the produced evidence but appealed to the Michigan Supreme Court, which reversed the decision.

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Issues

The defendants’ principal claim was that the searches were conducted without a warrant or the owners’ consent. Hence, they would violate the Fourth Amendment, and the evidence produced as a result would not be admissible in court. However, the state authorities contended that the situation fell under a category that would permit a warrantless search. The two parties went to the Supreme Court to obtain its verdict on the matter.

Decisions

The Supreme Court ultimately ruled mostly in favor of Michigan, ruling that the entry during the fire was reasonable. The evidence was in plain view, and, therefore, its seizure was also lawful, as was the repeated visit in the morning, which was considered a continuation of the first entry (Michigan v. Tyler, 1978). However, entries that happened after January 22 were deemed to violate the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, and evidence from them was determined to be inadmissible.

Effect on Fire Investigators

Fire investigators can enter the building while it is still on fire to put it out and retrieve any evidence that is in plain view. However, a further search of the building without a warrant or the owners’ consent is forbidden by law. The same requirements apply for any entry or search by a fire investigator after the fire has been put out.

Case Facts 2

A fire damaged a private home while the owners were out of town. The fire was extinguished, at which time all firefighters and police officers left the premises. However, a team of fire investigators arrived later, entering the house and searching it. They found a device used to set the fire deliberately in the basement and extended the search to the upper floors, where they found additional evidence. In the resulting court case, the Michigan Court of Appeals suppressed the evidence produced in the investigation as warrantless.

Issues

The investigators entered the premises without a warrant or exigent circumstances, as the fire had already been put out. However, the search was administrative rather than criminal, which put its relationship with the Fourth Amendment into question. With that said, the examination of the upper floors took place because of the suspicion that the fire was caused by arson and was, therefore, criminal in nature.

Decisions

The Supreme Court determined that, while an administrative warrant would be a valid reason to enter the premises, the entry was unlawful because the investigators did not have one, nor were there exigent circumstances or consent. Moreover, even if they did, the search of the upper floors would be criminal in nature and beyond the scope of the warrant (Michigan v. Clifford, 1984). The final condition for reasonableness, advance notice, was not observed either, and the Supreme Court decided that the evidence has to be suppressed.

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Effect on Fire Investigators

Fire investigators have to obtain a warrant if they intend to search a building for reasons why a fire started, especially when private homes and their privacy requirements are taken into consideration. Failing this and without exigent circumstances, they have to provide the owner with fair advance notice to be present at the location before entering. Further, they have to be aware of the limitations of the administrative warrant, which does not permit gathering evidence beyond the area where the cause was determined to be located.

Microsoft has responded to a list of concerns regarding its ongoing $68bn attempt to buy Activision Blizzard, as raised by the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), and come up with an interesting statistic.

In response to continued questions over whether Microsoft owning Call of Duty would unfairly hobble PlayStation, Microsoft claimed that every COD player on PlayStation could move over to Xbox, and Sony's playerbase would still remain "significantly larger" than its own.

Microsoft does not go into detail on its mental arithmetic here, but does note elswhere in its comments that PlayStation currently has a console install base of 150 million, compared to Xbox's install base of 63.7 million.

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That claim is part of a range of comments given to Eurogamer sister site GamesIndustry.biz in response to the CMA's latest report, which otherwise mostly repeats many of the same concerns raised by the UK regulator - and others around the world - already.

For those following the case, the CMA's latest intervention will not come as a surprise - it is the next step on the regulator's recent roadmap for how and when it will weigh in with its final ruling. This month, we were due the CMA's October "issues statement" - and it seems that this is the document to which Microsoft has now publicly responded.

The usual topics are covered - surrounding the potential for the deal to harm competitors should Microsoft gain too much of an advantage owning Activision Blizzard franchises (mainly, Call of Duty) and therefore being able to leverage their brand power to become a dominant market leader in the console market and cloud streaming.

Specifically, the CMA sees potential for the deal to harm Sony but also other streaming services such as Google (perhaps a moot point now), Amazon and Nvidia.

"Having full control over this powerful catalogue, especially in light of Microsoft's already strong position in gaming consoles, operating systems, and cloud infrastructure, could result in Microsoft harming consumers by impairing Sony's – Microsoft's closest gaming rival – ability to compete," the CMA wrote, "as well as that of other existing rivals and potential new entrants who could otherwise bring healthy competition through innovative multi-game subscriptions and cloud gaming services."

In response, Microsoft said such "unsupported theories of harm" were not enough to even warrant the CMA's current Phase 2 investigation - which was triggered on 1st September.

"The suggestion that the incumbent market leader, with clear and enduring market power, could be foreclosed by the third largest provider as a result of losing access to one title is not credible," Microsoft told GamesIndustry.biz.

"While Sony may not welcome increased competition, it has the ability to adapt and compete. Gamers will ultimately benefit from this increased competition and choice.

"Should any consumers decide to switch from a gaming platform that does not give them a choice as to how to pay for new games (PlayStation) to one that does (Xbox), then that is the sort of consumer switching behavior that the CMA should consider welfare enhancing and indeed encourage. It is not something that the CMA should be trying to prevent."

The CMA is due to notify Microsoft of its provisional findings in January 2023, at which point it can seek possible remedies to any sticking points raised. The regulator's final report - and overall ruling - will then be published no later than 1st March next year.

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What was the Michigan v Tyler case?

What is the significance of Michigan v Clifford?

Who is responsible for conducting the fire cause investigation?