Michigan Supreme Court Blog

Today, the United States Supreme Court issued an interesting decision in a 4th Amendment case in Kansas v. Glover , 589 U.S. ____ (2020) (Docket No. 18-556).  The fact scenario centered around a common, yet oft litigated, circumstance.  A sheriff's deputy randomly ran the license plate of a truck he was behind.  The computer showed the truck belonged to Glover and also showed that Glover's license was revoked.  Assuming that Glover was driving, he stopped the truck.  Glover was driving and he was charged. The trial court granted Glover's motion to suppress any evidence discovered after the stop and dismissed the charges.  The Kansas Court of Appeals reversed. The Kansas Supreme Court reversed, finding that the stop violated the Fourth Amendment. The USSC, Justice Thomas writing for the majority, held: When the officer lacks information negating the inference that the owner is driving the vehicle, an investigative stop made after running the vehicle'...

Can a defendant, charged with felony murder, argue duress as an affirmative defense to the crime? Yesterday, the Michigan Supreme Court answered in the affirmative, overruling two Court of Appeals decisions from the 1990's.  In People v Tiffany Reichard , ___ Mich ___ (Docket No 157688) , March 30, 2020, Justice Viviano authored the opinion on behalf of a unanimous court, concluding that the defendant, who wished to present evidence that her boyfriend had physically abused her, could argue in her trial that she committed the underlying felony under duress and, therefore, was not guilty of felony murder. After bindover on the felony murder charge, Reichard moved the lower court to allow her to present the defense.  The trial court, Judge Thomas Wilson from Jackson County, agreed.  The prosecution filed an interlocutory application to the Court of Appeals which reversed the trial court. At common law, courts banned the use of duress as a defense to murder.  When ...

Yesterday, the Michigan Supreme Court reversed the conviction of a Saginaw County man whom a jury had convicted of conspiracy to commit murder. In People v Sammons , ____ Mich ____, Decided March 16, 2020 ( Docket No. 156189) , Justice Cavanagh, joined by Chief Justice McCormack and Justices Viviano, Bernstein, and Clement, concluded that a show up of the defendant to a witness was unduly suggestive because it implied that the defendant was a suspect in the murder. The show up was unnecessary, except for police convenience, because the defendant was in custody at the time. The show up was unreliable utilizing the factors identified in Neil v Biggers , 409 US 188 (1972), and, finally, the prosecution's use of evidence of the identification was not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. A show up is unlike a corporeal lineup, because in a show up the police show the suspect to the witness singly.   It is interesting to note from the facts that the 16-year-old witness, who saw t...

On February 13, 2020, the Court of Appeals ruled that the smell of marijuana, even in light of a driver's possession of a valid medical marijuana card, can give rise to probable cause to search a lawfully stopped vehicle.  Provided, however, some additional suspicious fact gives rise to reasonably believe that driver may be possessing marijuana outside of the restrictions imposed by the MMMA.   In People v Moorman, Docket No. 349282 (2/13/2020) , the defendant was stopped for speeding in Alger County.  Upon approaching the car, the state trooper smelled the strong odor of "a good quantity" of fresh marijuana.  He asked Moorman if he had any marijuana in the vehicle, and Moorman said that he did not, though he had harvested marijuana earlier that day.  He then produced his caregiver card and told the trooper that he was a caregiver for five patients.  Nonetheless, the trooper searched the vehicle because simply, in his mind, he had noted the "odor of ma...

Yesterday, the Michigan Supreme Court reversed the trial court and the Court of Appeals in its decision in People v Beck , Docket No.  152934 (July 29, 2019) , a case out of the Saginaw Circuit Court dealing with a significant sentencing issue.  The syllabus of the opinion follows. Eric Beck was convicted as a fourth-offense habitual offender of being a felon in possession of a firearm (felon-in-possession) and carrying a firearm during the commission of a felony (felony-firearm), second offense, after a jury trial in the Saginaw Circuit Court. He was acquitted of open murder, carrying a firearm with unlawful intent, and two additional counts of felony-firearm attendant to those charges. The applicable guidelines minimum sentence range for the felon-in-possession conviction was 22 to 76 months in prison, but the court imposed a sentence of 240 to 400 months (20 to 331⁄3 years), to run consecutively to the mandatory five-year term for second-offense felony-firearm. The c...

Yesterday, the Michigan Court of Appeals decided that a retroactive application of the Michigan Supreme Court's decision in People v Lockeridge,   498 Mich 358; 870 NW2d 502 (2015), did not violate the ex post facto  clauses  of the state and federal constitutions, even though the defendant was sentenced to a lengthier term of incarceration when his case was remanded for resentencing. In People v Steven Aderrick Odom , Docket  No. 339027, March 12, 2019 (Meter, PJ), the defendant had previously appealed his 210 to 420-month sentence for armed robbery, claiming that the trial court engaged in judicial fact-finding to increase the then mandatory sentencing guideline range.  The Supreme Court ultimately agreed and ordered the defendant to be resentenced pursuant the reasoning followed in  United States v Crosby , 397 F3d 103, 117-118 (CA 2, 2005).  Back in the trial court, the judge determined that he had been constrained by the mandatory nature of ...

Yesterday, the Michigan Court of Appeals reversed the conviction of Farrin Lee Felton after the Court determined that the trial court in Kalkaska County had impermissibly allowed the introduction of MRE 404(b) evidence in Felton's drug delivery trial. After the defendant and two others were pulled over by the the police, the officers arrested the driver, Johnson, for driving on a suspended license. Upon searching him, the officers discovered a quantity of cocaine and heroin secreted in his underwear.  Johnson was charged with two counts of possession with intent to deliver less than 50 grams.  He worked out a deal with the prosecution where his two 20-year felonies would be reduced to simple possession with a sentence agreement of probation under Sec. 7411, in exchange for his testimony that Felton, the back seat passenger, was the person actually guilty of possessing with intent to deliver the drugs and that he had given them to Johnson to hide when the trio was pulle...