Court upholds secret hall camera in drug bust

PARCHMENT, Mich. (AP) — A secret camera outside an apartment in southwestern Michigan didn’t violate the rights of a man who was sentenced to 16 years in federal prison for a drug crime, an appeals court said.

Police got a warrant to search the apartment of Raheim Trice after the camera recorded him going in and out of the unit. The camera, which looked like a smoke detector, was placed on a wall in the building in Parchment.

“The hallway was effectively a common area, open to all, in which Trice had taken no steps to maintain his privacy. He therefore did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the unlocked common hallway,” a federal appeals court said in a 3-0 opinion last week.

Trice pleaded guilty to a methamphetamine crime under an agreement that allowed him to challenge the search of the apartment and use of the camera. Police in 2018 also discovered cocaine, heroin, and digital scales.