Jury instructions; Request for a special jury instruction; Right to a properly instructed jury; People v. Dobek; Model jury instructions; MCR 2.512(D)(2); The trial court’s discretion to modify the model instructions; MCR 2.512(D)(4); Bouverette v. Westinghouse Elec. Corp.; Standard home invasion instruction; M Crim JI 25.2a (formerly CJI2d 25.2a); First-degree home invasion; MCL 750.110a(2); People v. Wilder; People v. Mosher (Unpub.); “Dwelling” defined; MCL 750.110a(1)(a); “Structure,” “shelter,” & “abode” defined; A breaking of an inner portion of a building; People v. Toole; People v. Brownfield (After Remand); Bowie v. State (TX App.); Cartey v. State (FL App.); State v. Cookson (ME); People v. Clark; Statutory construction; People v. Loper; People v. Armstrong; People v. Giovannini; Principle that Court of Appeals decisions published before 11/01/90 are not binding; MCR 7.215(J)(1); Principle that unpublished opinions are not binding; MCR 7.215(C)(1); People v. Green

The court held that “a factual scenario in which a person lawfully enters a home, but then breaks and enters or enters without permission an interior room within the home,” does not “fall within proscribed conduct under the plain language of MCL 750.110a(2).” Thus, the trial court erred by granting the prosecution’s request to provide a special home invasion jury instruction because the instruction did not properly inform the jury of the applicable law. Defendant was charged with first-degree home invasion, felonious assault, and resisting or obstructing a police officer arising out of his assault of a woman who had allegedly barricaded herself in a bedroom in a house they apparently shared at times. Because he had permission to be in the house, the prosecution believed the standard home invasion jury instruction was insufficient and instead requested the following instruction: “‘Where a [d]efendant [g]ains access to a building without breaking, but has no right to enter an inner portion of that building, the defendant’s use of force to gain entry into that inner portion is a breaking.’” The trial court granted the request. The court denied his appeal. The Supreme Court then remanded the matter to the court for consideration of the jury instruction issue. On remand, the court found that the home invasion statute does not allow “the prosecution of a person who, while lawfully inside a dwelling, accesses an inner portion of the dwelling that he or she does not have permission to enter.” It noted it is “evident that the term ‘dwelling’ . . . refers to the whole structure or shelter used as a place of residence.” Once a defendant “enters a dwelling with permission, he cannot unlawfully enter the same dwelling where he is already lawfully present. This becomes clear when one considers that a ‘dwelling,’ under the definition of the term the Legislature supplied, includes a ‘structure,’ used as a ‘place of abode.’ Nowhere did the Legislature define this term to include the component parts of the structure. If instead the Legislature wanted to include interior rooms within ‘a structure or shelter that is used permanently or temporarily as a place of abode’ . . . as ‘dwellings’” it “could have done so,” but “thus far has not.” Reversed and remanded.