Providing summaries of opinions as they are released from the Michigan Supreme Court, Michigan Court of Appeals (published & unpublished), and selected U.S. Sixth Circuit. Over 60,000 cases summarized to date.
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Search & seizure; Motion to suppress evidence found during a pat-down search; People v Champion; Sufficient evidence for a resisting or obstructing a police officer conviction; People v Quinn; People v Moreno; Jail credit; MCL 769.11b
The court held that (1) the trial court did not err in denying defendant’s motion to suppress, (2) there was sufficient evidence to support his resisting or obstructing conviction, and (3) he was not entitled to further jail time credit. He was also convicted of possession of meth. During a pat-down search, a meth pipe was found in his pocket. The court noted that officers knew him from prior “encounters as a meth user and seller. Based on their extensive police experience, they knew that meth users and sellers tend to harbor paranoid tendencies and carry weapons. Further, [they] saw that defendant was holding a Leatherman tool that contained at least one knife and other sharp objects.” He defied their multiple requests “to place his hands on the car, and he instead reached into his pockets and moved in an agitated manner.” Based on this evidence, the trial court was correct that his “behavior escalated the traffic stop and that he posed a risk of harm” justifying the pat-down “search to protect the [officers] and others at the scene.” The trial court also determined the “seizure of the meth pipe was permissible based on the ‘plain feel’ exception to the warrant requirement[.]” The officer (H) here “knew that he felt a meth pipe in defendant’s pocket because it had a distinct size and shape. An officer may reach into a suspect’s clothing if the officer feels an object, ‘the identity of the object is immediately apparent’ to the officer, and ‘the officer has probable cause to believe that the object is contraband . . . .’” The court added that video footage from another officer’s “body camera showed that defendant told the officers that he had ‘a little bit of meth’ on him. For these reasons, [H] was justified in removing the pipe from defendant’s clothing.” As to the sufficiency of the evidence, “viewed in a light most favorable to the prosecutor, the evidence established that the officers’ actions were lawful.” The record showed that they “performed a valid traffic stop of the vehicle in which defendant was a passenger, that the police had valid reasons to order defendant to exit the car and to perform a pat down, and that [they] lawfully removed the meth pipe from [his] clothing. Therefore, [the] prosecution presented sufficient evidence that defendant resisted lawful police actions and commands.” Finally, he was not entitled to credit for a “period during which he was serving a sentence for another crime.” Affirmed.
Sentencing; Proportionality
Holding that the record supported defendant’s sentence, and he failed to overcome the presumption that his within-guidelines sentence for AWIM was proportionate, the court affirmed. He was convicted of AWIM, felony-firearm, FIP, and tampering with an electronic monitoring device. He was sentenced as a fourth-offense habitual offender to serve concurrent prison terms of 40 to 50 years for AWIM; 4 to 20 years for FIP; and 2 to 15 years for tampering with an electronic monitoring device. Defendant was also sentenced to serve 5 years’ imprisonment for each felony-firearm conviction, to be served consecutively to the underlying felonies. He argued “that the 40-year minimum sentence he was given for his AWIM conviction was disproportionate to the offense and offender.” The court held that “the trial court’s decision to impose a sentence in the middle of the recommended guidelines range was supported by the significant number of serious aggravating circumstances in the case.” Given the facts, the court held that the trial court “was wholly justified in determining that a lower minimum sentence was not warranted.” Defendant suggested that the trial “court ‘had no real guidance’ when it sentenced defendant because the guidelines range—225 to 750 months—was too broad. However, this critique of the . . . guidelines range does not actually address whether defendant’s sentence was proportionate to him and his offense.”
Motion to quash the information; Bindover; People v Anderson; Failure to allow defendant to complete his cross-examination of the victim; Probable cause
The court affirmed the circuit court’s order denying defendant’s motion to quash the information. The case arose from attempted armed robbery and attempted murder. Defendant argued “that the district court erred by binding him over for trial without allowing him to complete his cross-examination of the victim at the preliminary examination.” The court held that given all the circumstances, it could not “conclude that the district court abused its discretion by ending the preliminary examination when it did and binding defendant over for trial. While defendant had a right to cross-examine the victim, he has not shown that the [district] court committed reversible error in its handling of that right in this case.” This was “not to say that the [district] court would have necessarily erred had it decided to manage this rather unusual and challenging situation differently; ‘[a]t its core, an abuse of discretion standard acknowledges that there will be circumstances in which there will be no single correct outcome[.]’” Nor was “it to at all diminish the import of a defendant’s right to cross-examination at the preliminary-examination stage, or to suggest that courts should do anything but tread very carefully in limiting the exercise of that right—both for the sake of the right itself, and in light of the downstream consequences that may attend its limitation. Given the law and the record before us, however, we do not see adequate grounds to disrupt the district court’s bindover decision in this case or, correspondingly, the circuit court’s denial of defendant’s motion to quash.”
Custody; Whether the clear-&-convincing-evidence standard applied; MCL 722.1006 (part of the Acknowledgment of Parentage Act); Established custodial environment (ECE); Physical custody; Best-interest factors findings; Change of domicile; Parenting-time
The court found no merit in plaintiff-father’s “claim that the trial court committed clear legal error by not applying the clear-and-convincing-evidence standard as part of” its custody and domicile determinations. It also concluded the trial court’s findings on best-interest “factors (b), (c), (d), (e), (h), and (j) were not against the great weight of the evidence.” Thus, it did not abuse its discretion in awarding primary physical custody of the parties’ child (AJC) to defendant-mother. Further, its findings on “change-of-domicile factors (b) and (c) were not against the great weight of the evidence,” and it did not commit clear legal error in awarding parenting time. Plaintiff claimed that because the trial court found that an ECE existed with both parties, it “was required, as part of its custody and change-of-domicile determinations, to consider the best-interests factors set forth in MCL 722.23 under” the clear and convincing evidentiary standard. The court concluded he misconstrued MCL 722.1006 “and its proper interaction with the trial court’s analysis in this case. The purpose of MCL 722.1006, as signaled by the phrase ‘without prejudice,’ is to ensure ‘that the initial grant of custody [under the statute] creates no impediment should either parent wish to seek a judicial determination of custodial rights.’” The court noted that he was “no way impeded from seeking a judicial determination of custodial rights at any point and, as evidenced by his motion seeking custody and parenting time, he eventually did, in fact, seek out such a determination.” He also failed “to meaningfully explain why MCL 722.1006 should be read to require the [trial] court to apply a clear-and-convincing-evidence standard when making that determination, regardless of what the child’s caregiving realities at the time may be. A trial court is required to consider a child’s relationship with each parent ‘at the time of [its] custody determination’ to determine whether an [ECE] with one or both parents ‘exists at the time [it] is rendering its decision.’” The trial court did so here. The court did “not read MCL 722.1006’s ‘without prejudice’ language to be in conflict with this legal principle or to require the trial court to effectively ignore it and the actual circumstances of AJC’s caregiving relationships at the time of its determination, as plaintiff seems to suggest.” The court held that he did not show a reversible error in the trial court’s assessment or in its “application of it to the legal frameworks governing its custody and change-of-domicile determinations.” Affirmed.
Redacted information; FOIA exemptions contained in MCL 15.243(1)(a) & (b)(iii); Information of a personal nature that would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of privacy if disclosed; ESPN, Inc v Michigan State Univ; Michigan Fed’n of Teachers & Sch Related Pers, AFT, AFL-CIO v University of MI; Swickard v Wayne Cnty Med Exam’r; Information that was part of an investigative record for law enforcement purposes; Rataj v City of Romulus; Location of a crime; Privacy interest in an address; Attorney fees & costs; Effect of a partial victory
Holding that the trial court properly declined to order the disclosure of some of the redacted information at issue under MCL 15.243(1)(b)(iii) and (1)(a) but erred in declining to order disclosure of other redactions, the court affirmed in part and reversed in part. It also vacated the trial court’s decision as to attorney fees and costs, and remanded. Plaintiff’s FOIA request concerned a police report prepared during the investigation into a man’s (W) 2006 disappearance. “The statements in Redaction Nos. 1, 2, and 3 involve . . . ‘details of the [W’] home life and marital relationship.’” The court noted extensive case law reflects “a longstanding societal belief that the information at issue is considered personal, private, embarrassing, and confidential.” It found that because W’s “then-wife is still alive, and the information in Redaction Nos. 1, 2, and 3 would reveal intimate information about her, there is still a privacy interest in” it. While the issue of whether “disclosure would shed any light on the workings of government is a closer question[,]” the court determined based on the “marginal value of” the information “that its disclosure would be ‘unwarranted’ under MCL 15.243(1)(b)(iii).” As to Redaction Nos. 4 and 7, case law “holds that personal addresses of private citizens are generally the type of information ‘of a personal nature’ that may properly be withheld even under the stringent ‘clearly unwarranted’ invasion of privacy standard.” Plaintiff’s main argument was “that the address could easily be found electronically. However, the mere fact that information can be found elsewhere in the public sphere is irrelevant to whether it may be exempted from disclosure under one of the FOIA’s privacy exemptions.” The court concluded that “because the address belongs to someone who has a privacy interest in” it and there was “no suggestion that disclosure would shed light on the workings of government, Redaction Nos. 4 and 7 were proper under MCL 15.243(1)(a).” But the information “in Redaction Nos. 8 and 9 is subject to disclosure in part for the same reason that the trial court ordered partial disclosure of the information contained in Redaction Nos. 5 and 6: the same information was already provided in unredacted form elsewhere within the same document.” And because “plaintiff has now obtained a greater, albeit still partial, victory[,]” the trial court must reconsider whether this “warrants reasonable attorney fees.”
Trip & fall on an apartment complex sidewalk; Breach of statutory duties under MCL 554.139(1)(a) & (1)(b); Whether the sidewalk was unfit for its intended use; Estate of Trueblood v P&G Apts, LLC; Jeffrey-Moise v Williamsburg Towne Houses Coop, Inc; Allison v AEW Capital Mgmt; Premises liability; Hoffner v Lanctoe; Bertrand v Alan Ford, Inc; The Housing Law of Michigan (HLM); MCL 125.536(1); Applicability; MCL 125.401(2)
As to plaintiff-tenant’s claims under MCL 554.139, the court held that (1) as to subsection (1)(a), a “slight lip at a sidewalk joint” is insufficient to create a question of fact whether a sidewalk was fit for its intended use, and (2) because a sidewalk is a common area, defendant did not have a duty under subsection (1)(b). It further held that there was “no genuine issue of material fact whether” defendant-apartment complex owner breached its duty to plaintiff under a premises liability theory. Finally, her claim for violation of the HLM failed because the HLM did not apply. Thus, the court reversed the trial court’s denial of summary disposition to defendant and remanded with instructions to enter an order of summary disposition for defendant. The case arose after “plaintiff tripped and fell on an elevated sidewalk joint while walking from the parking lot to her apartment[.]” The court found that the uneven sidewalk joint here was “more akin to the patches of ice on the sidewalk in Jeffrey-Moise and the snow and ice in the parking lot of Allison than the sidewalk completely covered in ice in Estate of Trueblood.” It noted that “slight lips at sidewalks joints are exceedingly common and arguably expected. While an ideal sidewalk would be perfectly level at all its joints, that is not the condition that MCL 554.139(1)(a) requires.” While it was unclear from the complaint whether plaintiff “intended to allege a single claim sounding in premises liability or multiple claims sounding in premises liability and ordinary negligence,” the court determined that she alleged a single premises liability claim because she asserted “that she was injured by ‘a condition of the land’—the sidewalk lip.” The court concluded the record did not support her contention “that the sidewalk lip posed an unreasonable risk of harm caused by a dangerous condition of the land.” Like the steps in Bertrand, there was “nothing unusual about an imperfect sidewalk joint forming a slight lip. ‘Perfection is neither practicable nor required by the law,’ and the lip in the sidewalk here was not an unusual occurrence rising to the level of a dangerous condition on the land.” Finally, defendant was correct that the HLM did not apply because the city where the complex was located “has a population less than 10,000.”