Case Title: PEOPLE OF MI V SEAN HARRIS (Opinion - Leave Granted)

Citation: 

Docket Number: 149872, 149873

State: michigan

Court: Michigan Supreme Court

Date: 2016-06-22T00:00:00Z

Document:
PEOPLE v HARRIS 
PEOPLE v LITTLE 
PEOPLE v HUGHES 
 
Docket Nos. 149872, 149873, and 150042.  Argued November 4, 2015 (Calendar No. 2).  
Decided June 22, 2016. 
 
 
Nevin Hughes, a Detroit police officer, assaulted a person while on duty.  The victim 
filed a complaint, resulting in an internal investigation by the Detroit Police Department’s Office 
of the Chief Investigator (OCI).  Hughes made statements during the investigation, under the 
threat of dismissal from his job, in which he denied the allegations.  After a video recording of 
the incident came to light, Hughes was charged in the 36th District Court with felony misconduct 
in office, misdemeanor assault and battery, and obstruction of justice.  Two other Detroit police 
officers, Sean Harris and William Little, who had been standing nearby during the incident and 
had made statements denying the allegations against Hughes during the OCI investigation under 
the threat of dismissal from their jobs, were also charged in the 36th District Court with 
obstruction of justice.  The court, Katherine L. Hansen, J., relying on the Fifth Amendment of the 
United States Constitution and the disclosures by law enforcement officers act (DLEOA), 
MCL 15.391 et seq. (which states that an involuntary statement made by a law enforcement 
officer, and any information derived from that statement, may not be used against the officer in a 
criminal proceeding), determined that defendants’ statements during the investigation could not 
be used against them.  Because the obstruction-of-justice charges could not be sustained without 
using defendants’ statements, the court dismissed those charges.  The prosecution appealed.  The 
Wayne Circuit Court, Bruce U. Morrow, J., affirmed the dismissal of the obstruction-of-justice 
charges.  The Court of Appeals granted applications by the prosecution for leave to appeal with 
regard to each defendant and consolidated the appeals.  The Court of Appeals, METER, P.J., and 
JANSEN, J. (WILDER, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part), reversed and remanded the 
cases to the district court for reinstatement of the obstruction-of-justice charges, concluding that 
neither the Fifth Amendment nor the DLEOA barred the use of defendants’ false statements in 
the criminal proceedings.  People v Hughes, 306 Mich App 116 (2014).  The Supreme Court 
granted defendants’ applications for leave to appeal.  People v Harris, 497 Mich 958 (2015). 
 
 
In an opinion by Justice ZAHRA, joined by Chief Justice YOUNG and Justices 
MCCORMACK, BERNSTEIN, and LARSEN, the Supreme Court held: 
 
 
Michigan Supreme Court 
Lansing, Michigan 
Syllabus 
 
Chief Justice: 
Robert P. Young, Jr. 
 
Justices: 
Stephen J. Markman 
Brian K. Zahra 
Bridget M. McCormack 
David F. Viviano 
Richard H. Bernstein 
Joan L. Larsen 
This syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been  
prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. 
Reporter of Decisions: 
Corbin R. Davis 
 
Under the DLEOA, any information provided by a law enforcement officer, if compelled 
under threat of any employment sanction by the officer’s employer, cannot be used against the 
officer in subsequent criminal proceedings.  The act does not distinguish between true and false 
statements.  Therefore, even if false, the officer’s statements cannot be used against the officer in 
a subsequent prosecution. 
 
 
1.  In People v Allen, 15 Mich App 387 (1968), the Court of Appeals held that the Fifth 
and Fourteenth Amendments’ benefits of freedom from a coerced waiver of the right to remain 
silent had to be respected even in a subsequent perjury prosecution.  But as the Court of Appeals 
correctly observed, after Allen was decided, Michigan caselaw failed to keep pace with federal 
developments in this area of the law, including United States Supreme Court decisions clarifying 
that the Fifth Amendment only applies to truthful statements.  Accordingly, the Court of Appeals 
repudiated its prior decision in Allen and held that the Fifth Amendment did not bar the use of 
defendants’ false statements.  The parties did not challenge the repudiation of Allen on appeal in 
the Michigan Supreme Court and, given the developments in the law in the time since Allen was 
decided, there was no reason to disturb that repudiation. 
 
 
2.  MCL 15.393 states that an involuntary statement made by a law enforcement officer, 
and any information derived from that involuntary statement, shall not be used against the law 
enforcement officer in a criminal proceeding.  MCL 15.391(a) defines the term “involuntary 
statement” as information provided by a law enforcement officer, if compelled under threat of 
dismissal from employment or any other employment sanction, by the law enforcement agency 
that employs the law enforcement officer.  The Legislature chose to use broad language in the 
DLEOA.  The act does not expressly limit its protections to true statements, nor does it contain 
any express exception for perjury, lying, providing misinformation, or similar dishonesty.  The 
word “information” does not connote only truthful information.  In common usage, the word 
“information” is regularly used in conjunction with adjectives suggesting “information” may be 
true or false.  The Court of Appeals erred when it concluded that the Legislature, by merely 
using the word “information,” intended to impose an inherent requirement of veracity for 
involuntary statements to be covered under the DLEOA.  Examination of the Legislature’s use of 
“information” in other statutes leaves no doubt that in the DLEOA the unmodified term is 
properly construed to apply to all “information,” whether true or false.  Several statutes related to 
immunity and compulsory statements refer to “truthful information.”  The presence of the word 
“truthful” in these statutes is linked to this Court’s ruling in People v McIntire, 461 Mich 147 
(1999).  At issue in McIntire was the proper interpretation of transactional immunity for 
witnesses compelled to answer potentially incriminating questions under MCL 767.6.  In light of 
the statute’s plain language at the time, the McIntire Court rejected the notion that a grant of 
immunity under MCL 767.6 extended only to truthful answers, reasoning that the text of the 
statute was clear and unambiguous and did not condition immunity on truthful testimony.  The 
Legislature subsequently amended MCL 767.6 and other statutes to add “truthful” to terms such 
as “testimony” and “information” when the Legislature sought to add that limitation.  The 
Legislature clearly knows how to limit information based on its veracity when such a limitation 
is important to conveying the Legislature’s intent, but it chose not to do so in the DLEOA.  
Given the plain language of the act, the Legislature intended the word “information,” as used in 
MCL 15.391, to include no inherent requirement of veracity, but instead to include statements 
that may be true or false. 
 
3.  Applying this interpretation of the DLEOA’s plain language, the obstruction-of-justice 
charges brought against defendants had to be dismissed.  Defendants provided statements 
regarding their encounter with the victim under threat of termination; these statements, though 
false, were protected by the DLEOA and, therefore, could not be used against defendants in a 
criminal proceeding.  There was no dispute that defendants’ statements provided the only basis 
for charging them with obstruction of justice and that the charges had to be dismissed if the 
officers’ statements were inadmissible.  While the result might be unpalatable, the Court could 
not substitute its own policy judgment in the face of the text of the statute. 
 
 
Court of Appeals judgment reversed to the extent it held that under the DLEOA a law 
enforcement officer’s involuntary statement could be used against the officer in a criminal 
proceeding if the statement was false.  District court orders dismissing the obstruction-of-justice 
charges brought against defendants reinstated. 
 
 
Justice MARKMAN, joined by Justice VIVIANO, concurring in part and dissenting in part, 
agreed with the majority opinion to the extent it held that the Fifth Amendment does not preclude 
the use of false statements by a law enforcement officer in a prosecution for obstruction of 
justice, but disagreed with it to the extent it held that the DLEOA precludes the use of false 
statements by a law enforcement officer in a prosecution for obstruction of justice.  That is, 
contrary to the majority, Justice MARKMAN agreed with the Court of Appeals that false 
statements do not constitute “information” and therefore are not protected by the DLEOA.  Lies 
do not constitute “information” as that term is commonly defined and understood.  “Information” 
is commonly defined as knowledge.  Lies do not impart knowledge.  Indeed, one becomes 
increasingly less informed as a result of lies.  A number of Michigan statutes refer to 
“inaccurate” or “misleading” information, supporting the Court of Appeals majority’s conclusion 
that “information” signifies truthful information because in those unusual circumstances in 
which the Legislature is intending to refer to untruthful information, the Legislature recognizes 
that it needs to supply a modifier to precede “information” because, when unmodified, 
“information” signifies truthful information.  Although the Legislature added “truthful” before 
“information” in a handful of statutes in the wake of McIntire, the Legislature likely did not 
believe it needed to add “truthful” before “information” when it enacted the DLEOA seven years 
later because (a) the DLEOA was viewed as a codification of United States Supreme Court 
decisions, which held that the Fifth Amendment did not protect false statements, and (b) the 
Legislature almost certainly perceived the word “information” as only connoting truthful 
information and simply did not feel obligated in perpetuity to add “truthful” every time it used 
the word “information.”  Nothing within McIntire can be read to suggest that false statements 
constitute “information.”  Rather, what most obviously can be drawn from the Legislature’s 
response to McIntire is that McIntire’s equivalent treatment of truthful and false statements was 
squarely repudiated, an equivalency that is exactly repeated in the majority’s interpretation in the 
instant case.  Additionally, MCL 15.391 defines the term “involuntary statement” as information 
provided by a law enforcement officer, if compelled.  Not only are lies not “information,” but 
they are also not “compelled.”   That is why the Fifth Amendment prohibition against compelled 
self-incrimination does not protect perjury.  The government did not compel defendants to lie; it 
sought only to “compel” defendants to tell the truth.  That defendants chose to provide 
exculpatory falsehoods, rather than inculpatory truths, resulted in their loss of protection under 
the Fifth Amendment and the DLEOA.  Moreover, the DLEOA is based on an obvious theory of 
quid pro quo: police officers provide information to the government about police misconduct and 
in exchange the government agrees not to use the information against the officers.  However, 
when the officers proceed to lie to the government, the government is deprived of that to which it 
was entitled in exchange for the grant of immunity—information.  No Legislature, and no 
legislator, could conceivably have intended such a result.  Construing the DLEOA in light of its 
purpose—assisting in the discovery of police misconduct—strongly supports the conclusion that 
“information” presupposes “truthful information.”  Simply put, there is no reason to enact an 
immunity statute if it cannot produce “information” that is helpful in uncovering police 
misconduct.  Justice MARKMAN would have affirmed the judgment of the Court of Appeals. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
©2016 State of Michigan 
FILED  June 22, 2016 
 
 
 
S T A T E  O F  M I C H I G A N 
 
SUPREME COURT 
 
 
PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN, 
 
 
Plaintiff-Appellee, 
 
 
v 
No. 149872 
 
SEAN HARRIS, 
 
 
 
Defendant-Appellant. 
 
 
 
 
 
PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN, 
 
 
Plaintiff-Appellee, 
 
 
v 
No. 149873 
 
WILLIAM LITTLE, 
 
 
 
Defendant-Appellant. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Michigan Supreme Court 
Lansing, Michigan 
OPINION 
 
Chief Justice: 
Robert P. Young, Jr. 
 
 
Justices: 
Stephen J. Markman 
Brian K. Zahra 
Bridget M. McCormack 
David F. Viviano 
Richard H. Bernstein 
Joan L. Larsen 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
2 
PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN, 
 
 
Plaintiff-Appellee, 
 
v 
No. 150042 
 
NEVIN HUGHES, 
 
 
 
Defendant-Appellant. 
 
 
 
BEFORE THE ENTIRE BENCH  
 
ZAHRA, J.  
In these three consolidated cases, we address the difficult question of whether 
defendants’ false statements made while serving as law enforcement officers during an 
internal affairs investigation can be used against them in criminal proceedings.  We 
conclude that under the disclosures by law enforcement officers act (DLEOA), 
MCL 15.391 et seq., false or inaccurate information cannot be used against a law 
enforcement officer in subsequent criminal proceedings.  To hold otherwise would defeat 
the Legislature’s stated intent to preclude the use of “any information,” MCL 15.393, a 
law enforcement officer is compelled to provide “under threat of . . . any . . . employment 
sanction,”1 MCL 15.391(a).  And while we agree with the Court of Appeals that the Fifth 
 
                                              
1 The DLEOA does not provide law enforcement officers with immunity.  It only 
prevents a law enforcement officer’s “involuntary” statements from being used against 
the officer in a criminal prosecution.  MCL 15.391(a); MCL 15.393.  A law enforcement 
officer may be prosecuted for criminal conduct based on evidence other than involuntary 
statements provided by the officer during an internal inquiry.  In the present cases, 
defendant Hughes is subject to charges independent of the obstruction-of-justice charge 
that stems from his statement.  And while we express no opinion regarding the validity of 
other charges that could have been asserted against defendants Harris and Little, we note 
 
 
 
 
 
 
3 
Amendment of the United States Constitution as interpreted in Garrity v New Jersey2 
does not compel this result, states may provide protections greater than those secured 
under the United States Constitution, and that is exactly what the Michigan Legislature 
did when it enacted the DLEOA in 2006.  Simply stated, the DLEOA bars the use in a 
subsequent criminal proceeding of all information provided by a law enforcement officer 
under threat of any employment sanction.  The act does not distinguish between true and 
false statements.  Although the Legislature is free to amend the DLEOA to change the 
policy enacted, we are not.  No matter how we view the policy, we must follow the 
language chosen by the Legislature.  We reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals 
and reinstate the orders of dismissal entered in the district court. 
I.  BASIC FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS 
This case arises out of a disturbing encounter between Dajuan Hodges-Lamar and 
defendants, who at the time were police officers for the city of Detroit.  While on duty in 
November 2009, defendant Hughes approached Hodges-Lamar while he was seated in a 
 
                                              
the Michigan Legislature has made it unlawful for a public official to willfully neglect 
one’s duty.  MCL 750.478. 
2 The Supreme Court of the United States held in Garrity v New Jersey, 385 US 493, 500; 
87 S Ct 616; 17 L Ed 2d 562 (1967), that “the protection of the individual under the 
Fourteenth Amendment against coerced statements prohibits use in subsequent criminal 
proceedings of statements obtained under threat of removal from office . . . .”  A hearing 
in which a law enforcement officer is called on to make a statement under threat of an 
employment sanction has become known as a “Garrity hearing,” and the statement 
provided under that threat, a “Garrity statement.”  It was at a Garrity hearing that each 
defendant provided the Garrity statements that led to the common-law obstruction-of-
justice charges at issue here. 
 
 
 
 
 
4 
car at a gas station.  Hughes initially appeared to question Hodges-Lamar, but quickly 
proceeded to assault him while defendants Harris and Little, who were also on duty, 
stood by and did nothing to stop the assault.  Hodges-Lamar filed a complaint with the 
Detroit Police Department, which spurred an internal investigation by the Detroit Police 
Department’s Office of the Chief Investigator (OCI).  All three defendants were called to 
testify at a Garrity hearing. 
The OCI presented defendants with an advice-of-rights form drafted by the Detroit 
Police Department.  In relevant part, the form broadly stated:  
4.  If I refuse . . . to answer questions . . . I will be subject to 
departmental charges which could result in my dismissal from the police 
department.   
5.  If I do answer . . . neither my statements or any information or 
evidence which is gained by reason of such statements can be used against 
my [sic] in any subsequent criminal proceeding.   
The language of this form, like the language of DLEOA, did not expressly require 
truthful answers or truthful statements.3  Defendants also received a reservation-of-rights 
form drafted by the Detroit Police Department, which provided, in relevant part, as 
follows: 
 
                                              
3 Recognizing that the rights granted defendants by the Detroit Police Department in its 
advice-of-rights form are extremely broad, this Court asked the parties to brief a question 
not previously raised by either party: “whether the [advice-of-rights form] signed by the 
defendants bar[s] the use of their statements in a criminal prosecution as violative of state 
or federal rights against self-incrimination.”  People v Harris, 497 Mich 958 (2015).  We 
need not address this issue because the case is fully resolved under the DLEOA. 
 
 
 
 
 
5 
It is my belief . . . that this Statement and the Preliminary Complaint 
Report will not and cannot be used against me in any subsequent 
proceedings other than disciplinary proceedings within the confines of the 
Department itself.  For any and all other purposes, I hereby reserve my 
Constitutional 
rights 
to 
remain 
silent 
under 
the 
FIFTH 
and 
FOURTEENTH AMMENDMENTS [sic] to the UNITED STATES 
CONSTITUTION, and Article I, Section 17 of the MICHIGAN 
CONSTITUTION. 
All three defendants made false statements at the Garrity hearing.  Defendants 
Harris and Little denied that Hughes had any physical contact with Hodges-Lamar.  
Hughes admitted that he removed Hodges-Lamar from Hodges-Lamar’s car during 
questioning, but Hughes maintained that he did not use any unnecessary force against 
Hodges-Lamar.  A video recording of the incident surfaced after defendants had made 
their statements.  The video recording was provided to the OCI.4 
The video recording is wholly at odds with the statements provided by defendants.  
The prosecutor charged Hughes with common-law felony misconduct in office, 
MCL 750.505, misdemeanor assault and battery, MCL 750.81, and obstruction of justice, 
also under MCL 750.505.  Defendants Harris and Little were each charged with one 
 
                                              
4 The video showed defendant Hughes approach Hodges-Lamar’s vehicle while 
defendants Harris and Little assumed positions at the rear of the vehicle and the 
passenger door.  Hughes pulled Hodges-Lamar out of the vehicle by his collar, slammed 
him against the car, and searched him.  Meanwhile, Harris and Little had moved closer to 
Hughes and Hodges-Lamar.  Hughes pushed Hodges-Lamar toward Harris and Little.  
Finally, Hughes can be seen striking Hodges-Lamar with an open hand in the throat, 
punching him again, pushing him to the ground, picking him up by the collar several 
times, slamming him onto the car, and pushing him back toward Harris and Little.  
Afterward, Hodges-Lamar was issued a citation for driving without proof of insurance. 
 
 
 
 
 
6 
count of common-law obstruction of justice, MCL 750.505.  The obstruction-of-justice 
charges were based on allegations that the officers lied during the initial investigation. 
Defendants brought motions in district court to dismiss the obstruction-of-justice 
charges.5  The district court concluded that defendants’ statements were protected by the 
DLEOA, even if the information provided was false or misleading.  The court determined 
that without defendants’ statements the obstruction-of-justice charges could not be 
sustained and dismissed those charges.  The prosecution appealed in the circuit court, 
which concluded that the district court had not abused its discretion by dismissing the 
obstruction-of-justice charges. 
The prosecution filed applications for leave to appeal in the Court of Appeals with 
regard to all three defendants.  In a published opinion, a divided panel reversed the lower 
courts and reinstated the obstruction-of-justice charges.6  The majority recognized that its 
holding conflicted with People v Allen,7 which held that “the Fifth and Fourteenth 
Amendments’ benefits of freedom from [a] coerced waiver of the right to remain 
silent . . . must be respected,” even in a subsequent perjury prosecution.  After noting that 
Allen was not binding precedent under MCR 7.215(J)(1), the majority concluded that “in 
light of the post-Garrity caselaw permitting a witness’s statements to be used against him 
 
                                              
5 Defendant Hughes did not challenge the bindover regarding his common-law felony 
misconduct in office and misdemeanor assault and battery charges.  As a result, those 
charges are not at issue on appeal. 
6 People v Hughes, 306 Mich App 116; 855 NW2d 209 (2014). 
7 People v Allen, 15 Mich App 387, 396; 166 NW2d 664 (1968). 
 
 
 
 
 
7 
or her in a subsequent criminal prosecution for a collateral offense such as perjury or 
obstruction of justice, we expressly disavow Allen’s reasoning.”8  The majority further 
concluded that “[t]he district court . . . abused its discretion by excluding defendants’ 
false statements under MCL 15.393 . . . .”9  The majority reasoned that “the statute 
internally limits the phrase ‘involuntary statement’ to include true statements only, and 
that false statements and lies therefore fall outside the scope of the statute’s protection.”10 
Judge WILDER dissented from the majority’s determination that false statements 
fall outside the DLEOA’s scope of protection.  Relying on the plain meaning of the 
words of the act, Judge WILDER reasoned that the protection granted law enforcement 
officers under the DLEOA applies to all information garnered from an officer during a 
compulsory internal police investigation. 
Defendants filed separate applications for leave to appeal in this Court, each 
arguing that the Court of Appeals majority erred by concluding that the DLEOA’s scope 
of protection did not encompass defendants’ false statements.  On February 4, 2015, we 
granted the applications, directing the parties to brief “whether the Disclosures by Law 
Enforcement Officers Act, MCL 15.391, et seq., precludes the use of false statements by 
a law enforcement officer in a prosecution for obstruction of justice[.]”11 
 
                                              
8 Hughes, 306 Mich App at 128.   
9 Id.  
10 Id. at 129.  
11 Harris, 497 Mich 958. 
 
 
 
 
 
8 
II.  STANDARD OF REVIEW 
We review de novo constitutional issues and matters of statutory interpretation.12 
III.  ANALYSIS 
We must determine whether Michigan law provides these defendants with more 
protections than those provided under the Fifth Amendment of the United States 
Constitution.13  While we touch on the constitutional right against self-incrimination 
found in the Fifth Amendment and the corresponding provision of the Michigan 
Constitution, this case does not turn on those constitutional provisions.  Defendants do 
not maintain the protection they seek comes from Garrity or its progeny under federal or 
Michigan caselaw.14  Rather, defendants argue that the Legislature, in enacting the 
DLEOA, chose to afford law enforcement officers greater protection than that available 
 
                                              
12 People v McKinley, 496 Mich 410, 414-415; 852 NW2d 770 (2014). 
13 See Malloy v Hogan, 378 US 1; 84 S Ct 1489; 12 L Ed 2d 653 (1964), which applied 
the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination to the states through the 
Fourteenth Amendment. 
14 Many cases have developed Garrity into the rule as it is understood today.  As is 
particularly relevant to this opinion, the Supreme Court of the United States has clarified, 
since Garrity, that its interpretation of the Fifth Amendment only applies to truthful 
statements.  See, e.g., United States v Wong, 431 US 174; 97 S Ct 1823; 52 L Ed 2d 231 
(1977); United States v Apfelbaum, 445 US 115; 100 S Ct 948; 63 L Ed 2d 250 (1980). 
As the Court of Appeals correctly observed, however, Michigan caselaw has not 
expressly kept pace with this federal development of the Garrity rule.  The last published 
authority on the topic came from Allen, 15 Mich App 387, which concluded that Garrity 
applies to false statements; Allen was not directly repudiated by a Michigan court until 
the Court of Appeals’ opinion in this case.  The parties do not challenge this repudiation 
and, given the developments in Garrity jurisprudence in the time since Allen was issued, 
we see no reason to disturb it. 
 
 
 
 
 
9 
under the Fifth Amendment and that statutory protection requires dismissal of the 
obstruction-of-justice charges brought against them.  This protection, defendants argue, is 
found in the plain language of the DLEOA, specifically MCL 15.393, which provides: 
An involuntary statement made by a law enforcement officer, and 
any information derived from that involuntary statement, shall not be used 
against the law enforcement officer in a criminal proceeding. 
The DLEOA defines the term “involuntary statement” as follows: 
“Involuntary statement” means information provided by a law 
enforcement officer, if compelled under threat of dismissal from 
employment or any other employment sanction, by the law enforcement 
agency that employs the law enforcement officer.[15] 
The prosecution argues this language does not preclude the use in later criminal 
proceedings of false or misleading information obtained through a Garrity hearing.  The 
prosecution characterizes the language as nothing more than a codification of the Garrity 
rule as it has been developed through federal caselaw.  Thus, the prosecution argues that 
the DLEOA only provides the protection afforded under the Fifth Amendment.  Because 
the Supreme Court of the United States has made it clear that the Fifth Amendment 
grants a privilege to remain silent without consequence, but “does not endow the person 
who testifies with a license to commit perjury,”16 the prosecution maintains that the 
DLEOA does not protect from subsequent criminal prosecution a law enforcement officer 
who provides false or misleading statements in a Garrity hearing.  
 
                                              
15 MCL 15.391(a). 
16 Wong, 431 US at 178 (citation and quotation marks omitted). 
 
 
 
 
 
10 
The plain language of the DLEOA controls our resolution of this dispute and 
compels us to agree with defendants.  Applying traditional principles of statutory 
construction to the language of the DLEOA, we must conclude that the act sweeps within 
its scope the false statements offered by defendants.  While we may question the 
Legislature’s decision to offer such unqualified protections, we are obligated to respect 
that decision and interpret the statute in accordance with its plain language. 
A.  THE DLEOA’S PROTECTIONS REACH  
BOTH TRUE AND FALSE STATEMENTS 
Our primary focus in this case—and all cases in which we are called upon to 
interpret a statute—is the language of the statute under review.  The words of the statute 
provide the best evidence of legislative intent and the policy choices made by the 
Legislature.17  Our role as members of the judiciary is not to second-guess those policy 
decisions or to change the words of a statute in order to reach a different result.  In fact, a 
“clear and unambiguous statute leaves no room for judicial construction or 
interpretation.”18  Therefore, we start by examining the words of the statute, which 
“should be interpreted on the basis of their ordinary meaning and the context within 
which they are used in the statute.”19 
 
                                              
17 White v Ann Arbor, 406 Mich 554, 562; 281 NW2d 283 (1979). 
18 Coleman v Gurwin, 443 Mich 59, 65; 503 NW2d 435 (1993). 
19 People v Zajaczkowski, 493 Mich 6, 13; 825 NW2d 554 (2012).   
 
 
 
 
 
11 
The Legislature chose to use broad language in the DLEOA.  The act prohibits any 
information derived from an involuntary statement from being used against the officer in 
a criminal proceeding,20 and also prohibits public access to and disclosure of an 
involuntary statement, except under certain, statutorily enumerated circumstances.21  The 
act does not expressly limit the statute’s protections to true statements, nor does it contain 
any express exception for perjury, lying, providing misinformation, or similar dishonesty.  
In contrast, numerous statutes concerning the use of compelled testimony contain express 
exceptions to allow the use of such dishonest testimony for impeachment purposes and in 
prosecutions for perjury.22  The Court of Appeals inferred the existence of such a 
limitation in the DLEOA from the Legislature’s use of the term “information.”  While we 
agree that “information” comprises statements that are true, the word does not exclude 
statements that are false. 
The word “information” is not defined in the statute, but dictionaries define the 
word broadly as “knowledge communicated or received concerning a particular fact or 
circumstance”;23 “[k]nowledge or facts communicated about a particular subject, event, 
etc.; intelligence, news”;24 and “the communication or reception of knowledge or 
 
                                              
20 MCL 15.393. 
21 MCL 15.395.   
22 See, e.g., MCL 780.702(3); MCL 750.157; MCL 750.453. 
23 Random House Webster’s College Dictionary (2003). 
24 1 Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (6th ed). 
 
 
 
 
 
12 
intelligence[.]”25  The dissent focuses its attention on “knowledge,” but “intelligence” 
and “news,” both of which are used in dictionaries to describe “information,” can be 
false.26  Even “knowledge” can be defined to include “the sum of what is known,”27 
which does not foreclose the possibility of including something that is false.   
We may even conclude that “knowledge” in its primary sense encompasses 
something that is true.  But the statute nowhere uses the term “knowledge.”  Instead, it 
protects “statements,” which no one disputes may be false and are statutorily defined as 
“information.”  The critical inquiry is not whether “knowledge” equals “truth,” but 
whether “information” connotes only truth.  Dictionaries, which define “information” as 
“knowledge,” “intelligence,” or “news,” do not yield a dispositive answer. 
Keeping in mind that we must interpret the word “information” as used in the 
DLEOA “according to the common and approved usage of the language,”28 we apply a 
tool that can aid in the discovery of “how particular words or phrases are actually used in  
 
 
 
                                              
25 Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed). 
26 See Random House Webster’s College Dictionary (2003) (defining “intelligence” as 
“information received or imparted; news,” and defining “news” as “a report of a recent 
event; information”).   
27 Id. 
28 MCL 8.3a. 
 
 
 
 
 
13 
written or spoken English.”29  The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA)30 
allows users to “analyze[] ordinary meaning through a method that is quantifiable and 
verifiable.”31 
The dissent claims that, in ordinary usage, “we should not think of someone who 
provided inaccurate statements as having imparted ‘knowledge’ or ‘information’ . . . .”32  
Empirical data from the COCA, however, demonstrates the opposite.  In common usage, 
“information” is regularly used in conjunction with adjectives suggesting it may be both 
true and false.33  This strongly suggests that the unmodified word “information,” can 
 
                                              
29 State v Rasabout, 2015 Utah 72, ¶ 57; 356 P3d 1258 (2015) (Lee, A.C.J., concurring in 
part).  Linguists call this type of analysis corpus linguistics, but the idea is consistent with 
how courts have understood statutory interpretation.  For instance, the United States 
Supreme Court has looked to Westlaw and Lexis databases to examine how words are 
used in ordinary English when examining how Congress intended a particular word or 
phrase.  See Texas Dep’t of Housing & Community Affairs v Inclusive Communities 
Project, Inc, 576 US ___, ___; 135 S Ct 2507, 2534; 192 L Ed 2d 514 (2015) (Alito, J., 
dissenting); Muscarello v United States, 524 US 125, 129; 118 S Ct 1911; 141 L Ed 2d 
111 (1998). 
30 The Corpus of Contemporary American English contains over 520 million words from 
220,225 texts, spread evenly among a 25-year period, 1990-2015.  The texts include 
transcripts of live television broadcasts, newspapers, magazines, academic journals,  
and 
fiction. 
Corpus 
of 
Contemporary 
American 
English, 
Texts 
 
(accessed 
June 
6, 
2016) 
[https://perma.cc//E77D-97XR]. 
31 Mouritsen, Hard Cases and Hard Data: Assessing Corpus Linguistics as an Empirical 
Path to Plain Meaning, 13 Colum Sci & Tech L Rev 156, 202 (2012). 
32 Post at 9 n 11. 
33 In conducting a COCA search, the word “accurate” is the most common adjective 
collocated with “information” to bear a meaning that refers to truth or falsity.  The words 
“false” and “inaccurate” are also commonly collocated with “information.”  The 
 
 
 
 
 
 
14 
describe either true or false statements.  Moreover, by reading each identified use of the 
word “information” in its surrounding context,34 it is clear that “information” is often 
used to describe false statements.35  Quite simply, “information” in common parlance 
describes perceptions conveyed about the world around us, which may be true or false.36   
The Court of Appeals failed to account for the breadth and scope of the word 
“information.”  We therefore cannot agree that the lay definitions of “information” 
exclude the falsehoods offered by defendants, or that the Legislature, by merely using 
 
                                              
collocation search for “information” is available at Corpus of Contemporary American 
English, “Information” Frequency  
(accessed June 6, 2016). 
34 See Hard Cases and Hard Data, 13 Colum Sci & Tech L Rev at 197.  This is known as 
a concordance search.  After running a collocation search, a user can retrieve the results 
of a concordance search by navigating to a collocated word and examining each listing in 
its full context.   
35 For example, news stories from 2006—the year the Legislature enacted the DLEOA—
describe “heightened publicity about false information on” the Internet and market 
analysts “who say they witnessed fellow employees allowing hedge fund clients . . . to 
add false or misleading information” to investment reports.  Hafner, Growing Wikipedia 
Refines Its ‘Anyone Can Edit’ Policy, New York Times (June 17, 2006); Masters, 2 
Firms Claim Conspiracy in Analyst Reports, The Washington Post (April 26, 2006). 
36 The fact that “information” is often used without a modifying adjective to distinguish 
its veracity does not, as argued by the dissent, indicate that the word “information” 
connotes the conveyance of only truthful information.  The absence of a modifying 
adjective around the word is immaterial; the word is used to describe perceptions about 
the world around us, which may be “true, false, and in-between.”  Schieffer, CBS News, 
The Spread of Measles—And of Lies on the Internet  (posted February 8, 2015) (accessed June 
6, 2016) [https://perma.cc/F4XK-9PAE]. 
 
 
 
 
 
15 
that word, intended to impose an inherent requirement of veracity for involuntary 
statements to be covered under the DLEOA.37 
To the contrary, examination of the Legislature’s use of “information” in other 
statutes that existed at the time the DLEOA was enacted leaves no doubt that the 
unmodified term is properly construed to apply to all “information,” whether  true or 
false.  In the years leading up to enactment of the DLEOA, the Legislature frequently 
modified the word “information” with the word “truthful” when it intended to reach only 
truthful information.  Such an express limitation, found in a number of other statutes, 
including in statutes involving immunity or compelled statements,38 is not present here.39  
 
                                              
37 We see little interpretive import in comparing “information” with “misinformation” 
and, in light of the definitions discussed in this opinion, are inclined to agree with Judge 
WILDER’s dissent that the latter is merely a subset of the former.  Indeed, as already 
explained, a collocation and concordance search on COCA demonstrates that the word 
“information” is often modified by words connoting veracity, such as “accurate.” 
38 In addition to MCL 780.702 and MCL 750.157, discussed subsequently in the main 
text of this opinion, see, e.g., MCL 750.453 (“Truthful testimony, evidence, or other 
truthful information compelled under this section and any information derived directly or 
indirectly from that truthful testimony, evidence, or other truthful information shall not be 
used against the witness in a criminal case, except for impeachment purposes or in a 
prosecution for perjury or otherwise failing to testify or produce evidence as required.”); 
MCL 29.7(4) (expressly protecting only “truthful testimony” and “truthful information” 
from being used against a witness); MCL 780.702a(6) (stating that “truthful information” 
compelled under an order granting immunity may not be used against a witness); MCL 
750.125(5) (expressly protecting “truthful information” from being used against a 
witness); MCL 750.122(2) (stating that paying a witness’s reasonable costs to “testify 
truthfully or provide truthful information” is not a crime). 
39 See also MCL 333.17014 (stating that certain informed consent statutes are designed to 
provide “objective, truthful information”); MCL 400.111b(20) (requiring certain 
professionals to provide “truthful information” about their qualifications).   
 
 
 
 
 
 
16 
Of particular relevance is MCL 780.702(3), which governs orders granting immunity to 
witnesses.  The statute expressly limits immunity to “[t]ruthful testimony or other truthful 
information compelled under the order granting immunity . . . .”40  Although the statute 
was first enacted into law in 1968, its limitation of immunity to only truthful information 
was not present in the statute until 1999—seven years before the Legislature enacted the 
 
                                              
Other statutes do not modify the word “information” with “truthful,” but still 
suggest that “information” has no inherent connotation of veracity.  See, e.g., MCL 
423.452(b) (denying a presumption of actions in good faith to employers who disclose 
employee information “with a reckless disregard for the truth”); MCL 380.1230b (same 
quoted language as MCL 423.452(b)); MCL 750.411s(8)(i) (“ ‘Post a message’ 
means . . . communicating or attempting to . . . communicate information, whether 
truthful or untruthful, about the victim.”); MCL 449.20 (requiring that “[p]artners shall 
render on demand true and full information of all things affecting the partnership to any 
partner or the legal representative of any deceased partner or partner under legal 
disability”); MCL 449.1305(2) (setting forth the right of limited partners to “[o]btain 
from the general partners, from time to time, upon reasonable demand . . . true and full 
information regarding the state of the business and financial condition of the limited 
partnership”); MCL 324.5507(1)(e) (requiring that a certain application be accompanied 
by a certification “stat[ing] that, based on information and belief formed after reasonable 
inquiry, the statements and information in the application are true, accurate, and 
complete”); MCL 460.1093(9) (requiring that a certain report “shall be accompanied by 
an affidavit from a knowledgeable official of the customer that the information in the 
report is true and correct to the best of the official’s knowledge and belief”). 
Correspondingly, as Judge WILDER observed in dissent, the Legislature has 
frequently modified “information” with the adjectives “misleading” or “inaccurate” when 
the Legislature only intended to reach false information.  See, e.g., MCL 769.34(10); 
MCL 750.492a(1); MCL 791.235(1)(b).  We agree with Justice MARKMAN that the use of 
such modifiers in other statutes does not alone lead to the conclusion that the word 
“information,” as used in the DLEOA, includes both true and false statements.  But the 
Legislature’s use of these modifiers elsewhere supports our understanding that the word 
“information” itself connotes nothing with respect to veracity. 
40 MCL 780.702(3) (emphasis added). 
 
 
 
 
 
17 
DLEOA.41  Similarly, MCL 750.157 prevents certain compelled “[t]ruthful testimony, 
evidence, or other truthful information” from being used against the person “in a criminal 
case, except for impeachment purposes or in a prosecution for perjury . . . .”42 
The presence of the word “truthful” in these statutes is linked to this Court’s ruling 
in People v McIntire43—a 1999 opinion we find instructive and supportive of our analysis 
here.  At issue in McIntire was the proper interpretation of transactional immunity for 
witnesses compelled to answer potentially incriminating questions under MCL 767.6.  
The statute at the time provided, in relevant part, that “[n]o person required to answer 
such questions shall thereafter be prosecuted for any offense concerning which such 
answers may have tended to incriminate him.”44  In light of this plain language, the 
McIntire Court rejected the notion that a grant of immunity under MCL 767.6 extended 
only to truthful answers, reasoning that the text of the statute was “clear and 
unambiguous” and “simply [did] not condition . . . immunity on truthful testimony.”45  In 
so holding, this Court stressed that it was bound—as we are here—by “traditional 
principles of statutory construction,” which require courts to “respect the constitutional 
role of the Legislature as the policy-making branch of government and constrain the 
 
                                              
41 Compare 1968 PA 289, § 2, with 1999 PA 249, § 2. 
42 Emphasis added. 
43 People v McIntire, 461 Mich 147; 599 NW2d 102 (1999). 
44 MCL 767.6, as amended by 1951 PA 276. 
45 McIntire, 461 Mich at 154 (citation and quotation marks omitted). 
 
 
 
 
 
18 
judiciary from encroaching on this dedicated sphere of constitutional responsibility.”46  
The Legislature received this message and subsequently amended MCL 767.6 and other 
statutes accordingly, adding “truthful” to terms such as “testimony” and “information” 
when the Legislature sought to add that limitation.   
The Legislature clearly knows how to limit information based on its veracity when 
such a limitation is important to conveying its intent.  It did so in a number of other 
statutes it enacted or amended after McIntire, but it chose not to do so in the DLEOA, 
even though the Legislature had the benefit of McIntire when it enacted the DLEOA in 
2006.  We cannot overlook this choice, or refuse to give it effect.47  Accordingly, we 
 
                                              
46 Id. at 153 (citation and quotation marks omitted). 
47 See, e.g., Farrington v Total Petroleum, Inc, 442 Mich 201, 210; 501 NW2d 76 (1993) 
(“Courts cannot assume that the Legislature inadvertently omitted from one statute the 
language that it placed in another statute, and then, on the basis of that assumption, apply 
what is not there.”); Paselli v Utley, 286 Mich 638, 643; 282 NW 849 (1938) (“This court 
cannot write into the statutes provisions that the legislature has not seen fit to enact.”). 
In his dissent, Justice MARKMAN questions our reliance on McIntire by suggesting 
that McIntire has since been rendered moot.  We find no support for that suggestion.  To 
the contrary, McIntire guides our decision by interpreting a similar statute.  The McIntire 
Court recognized—as we do here—that a court is not free to rewrite a statute because the 
end result may be subjectively unpalatable, and that “the object of judicial statutory 
construction is not to determine whether there are valid alternative policy choices that the 
Legislature may or should have chosen, but to determine from the text of the statute the 
policy choice the Legislature actually made.”  McIntire, 461 Mich at 157 (citation and 
quotation marks omitted).  The McIntire Court concluded that the statutory language at 
issue in that case unambiguously stated the Legislature’s actual policy choice and that 
there was no basis to disregard that choice “to further policy concerns that [a court], but 
apparently not the Legislature, prefers.”  Id. at 160 (citation and quotation marks 
omitted).  We are still obligated to give weight to the Legislature’s decision not to modify 
“information” in the DLEOA with “truthful” or to impose any other veracity-based 
limitation on the scope of the statute’s protections. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
19 
conclude that the Legislature intended the word “information,” as used in MCL 15.391, 
to include no inherent requirement of veracity, but instead to include statements that may 
be true or false.48 
 
                                              
This Court’s decision in McIntire coupled with the unique history of immunity 
statutes in Michigan leads us to the conclusion that the DLEOA protects both true and 
false statements.  The dissent would have us abandon McIntire in favor of the federal rule 
articulated in Glickstein v United States, 222 US 139, 142; 32 S Ct 71; 56 L Ed 128 
(1911).  Whatever the merits of that rule, the existence of McIntire at the time the 
DLEOA was enacted provides us great insight into the intent of the Legislature.  
Accordingly, we see no reason to abandon McIntire now.  See Robinson v Detroit, 462 
Mich 439; 613 NW2d 307 (2000).  We nonetheless recognize that McIntire guides us in 
the limited and unique area of immunity-related statutes and we express no opinion 
whether other statutes that incorporate the word “information” in an entirely different 
context outside that of immunity and compulsory statements might be interpreted 
differently. 
48 In urging against this result, the prosecution contends that the DLEOA’s legislative 
history makes clear that MCL 15.393 was meant to codify nothing more than the Fifth 
Amendment protections recognized by Garrity and its federal progeny—a contention 
Justice MARKMAN also notes.  We find this line of argument unavailing for several 
reasons.  First, for the reasons already discussed, the plain language of MCL 15.393 
controls our analysis and belies this interpretation, making clear that the statute’s 
protections extend beyond those presently guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment.  We see 
no need or place for legislative history in this analysis.  Second, the materials offered by 
the prosecution are legislative analyses, which this Court has recognized to be of little use 
in discerning the intent of the Legislature.  See Johnson v Recca, 492 Mich 169, 188; 821 
NW2d 520 (2012) (stating that a house legislative analysis, which is a staff-prepared 
summary of the law, is entitled to little judicial consideration in the construction of 
statutes); Frank W Lynch & Co v Flex Technologies, Inc, 463 Mich 578, 587; 624 NW2d 
180 (2001) (“[A] legislative analysis is a feeble indicator of legislative intent . . . .”); In re 
Certified Question from the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, 468 
Mich 109, 115 n 5; 659 NW2d 597 (2003) (“In no way can a ‘legislative analysis’ be said 
to officially summarize the intentions of those who have been designated by the 
Constitution to be participants in this legislative process, the members of the House and 
Senate and the Governor.  For that reason, legislative analyses should be accorded very 
little significance by courts when construing a statute.”).  And third, these analyses offer 
no direct insight into the precise scope of the intended codification of Garrity, or whether 
 
 
 
 
 
 
20 
 
 
 
                                              
MCL 15.393 was meant to afford protection beyond it.  Indeed, it is not even clear 
whether the drafters of the analyses believed the statute was meant to codify Garrity as 
its rule had been interpreted by the Michigan Court of Appeals in Allen—which would 
render defendants’ statements constitutionally protected—or instead to codify Garrity as 
its rule had been developed by subsequent federal caselaw—which would afford no 
constitutional protection to those statements.  Simply put, we see nothing of interpretive 
use in these materials, or of persuasive value in the prosecution’s arguments based on 
them. 
Although the parties did not address the question, Justice MARKMAN also offers 
another interpretive avenue for constraining the scope of the DLEOA’s protections to 
those constitutionally provided under Garrity and its federal progeny: he suggests that 
“truthful” need not be included with “information” in the DLEOA because, as federal 
Fifth Amendment jurisprudence has held, an individual cannot be compelled to lie; 
accordingly, even if a lie can be deemed “information,” lies cannot be considered an 
“involuntary statement” or “compelled” within the meaning of the DLEOA.  While we 
recognize the intuitive appeal of this reasoning, we find ourselves unable to square it with 
McIntire and the numerous instances, previously cited in this opinion, in which the 
Legislature has described “information” as both “truthful” and “compelled.”  See MCL 
780.702(3) (referring to “[t]ruthful testimony or other truthful information compelled 
under the order granting immunity”); MCL 750.157 (referring to “[t]ruthful testimony, 
evidence, or other truthful information compelled under this section”).  If nothing else, 
these instances make clear that, by the time the DLEOA was enacted, the Legislature was 
not assuming that the term “compelled” would be inherently limited to its Fifth 
Amendment meaning, or would express an intent to reach only truthful statements.  Nor 
do we discern such a limitation in the term itself, or view false statements as necessarily 
voluntary.  Indeed, in Allen, the Court of Appeals rejected the contention that a false 
statement cannot be voluntary by observing that “what one reveals as a result of a waiver 
is of no import in determining whether the waiver was voluntary or coerced.”  Allen, 15 
Mich App at 393.  In this case, there is no question that, but for the threat of termination, 
defendants in this case would have remained silent.  Again, the advice of rights form 
presented to defendants by the Detroit Police Department stated, “If I refuse . . . to 
answer questions . . . , I will be subject to departmental charges which could result in my 
dismissal from the police department,” and “[i]f I do answer . . . , neither my statements 
or any information or evidence which is gained by reason of such statements can be used 
against my [sic] in any subsequent criminal proceeding.” 
 
 
 
 
 
21 
B.  THE PLAIN LANGUAGE OF THE DLEOA REQUIRES DISMISSAL OF THE 
OBSRUCTION-OF-JUSTICE CHARGES  
Applying this interpretation of the DLEOA’s plain language, the obstruction-of-
justice charges brought against defendants must be dismissed.  Defendants provided 
statements regarding their encounter with Mr. Hodges-Lamar under threat of termination; 
these statements, though false, are protected by the DLEOA and, therefore, cannot be 
used against defendants in a criminal proceeding.  There is no dispute that defendants’ 
statements provided the only basis for charging them with obstruction of justice and that 
if this evidence is inadmissible, the charges must be dismissed.  According to the Court 
of Appeals majority, however, this outcome must be rejected because it is “wholly 
contrary to the Legislature’s purpose in enacting the [DLEOA],” which “was to create a 
mechanism for facilitating internal police investigations and to provide an incentive for 
officers who cooperate by providing needed facts.”49  Justice MARKMAN now echoes this 
sentiment in dissent, concluding that “[n]o Legislature, and no legislator, could 
conceivably have intended such a result.”50 
We understand how this result may be viewed as unpalatable.  But as this Court 
has long made clear, our statutory analysis is controlled by principles of interpretation, 
not palatability of outcomes.  It is not our role to rewrite the law or substitute our own 
policy judgment in the face of the text of the statute, or “to create an ambiguity where 
 
                                              
49 Hughes, 306 Mich App at 130. 
50 Post at 28.  In so stating, Justice MARKMAN implicitly suggests that our interpretation 
of the DLEOA renders an absurd result.  A similar argument was raised in McIntire and 
was rejected by this Court. 
 
 
 
 
 
22 
none exists in order to reach a desired result, albeit one with which [we] might 
wholeheartedly agree [if we were legislators] authorized to enact policy.”51   
For the reasons discussed in this opinion, we discern from the plain language of 
the DLEOA a legislative intent to protect all Garrity statements, regardless of their 
veracity.  And while there may be ample room to question the wisdom of such 
unqualified statutory protections, we see no principled basis for this Court to ignore or 
reject the Legislature’s enactment of them.   
We do not view recognition of these unqualified protections as absurd or flatly at 
odds with the purpose of the DLEOA.  There is seemingly no dispute that the protections 
offered by the DLEOA are intended to encourage and facilitate officers’ participation in 
internal investigations, with the goal of rendering those investigations more fruitful and 
effective.  As the plain language of the DLEOA makes clear, the Legislature deemed this 
purpose best served by not limiting the statute’s protections only to statements that are 
true.  Regardless of whether we agree with this policy determination, we can conceive of 
reasons for it.  The Legislature may very well have viewed the benefit of such a 
limitation—namely, the ability to criminally prosecute officers for lies told during an 
internal investigation—as outweighed by its costs.  Not all statements, after all, are 
clearly true or entirely false, and the Legislature may have concluded that qualifying the 
DLEOA’s statutory protections based on veracity would unduly complicate the 
 
                                              
51 McIntire, 461 Mich at 153 (citation and quotation marks omitted; alterations in 
original). 
 
 
 
 
 
23 
implementation of those protections52 or undermine the certainty and effectiveness of the 
protections offered.  Indeed, the Allen court observed that the exception to protection for 
perjured statements is “more precisely stated” as an exception to protection “where the 
prosecuting authority charges perjury,”53 a broader scope encompassing prosecutorial 
discretion and requiring the jury to ultimately decide the falsity of a statement.  The 
Legislature may have reasoned—for better or worse—that it was more beneficial to 
punish the lies uncovered during the course of internal investigations with internal 
discipline.54  We fail to see the absurdity in such reasoning, particularly given that the 
Legislature knows how to, and does, modify the term “information” with “truthful” when 
it intends to bring only truthful information within the scope of its legislation.  And, as 
this Court stressed in McIntire,55 we need not be sure of the precise reasons for a 
statutory judgment or be convinced of the wisdom of the legislation. 
 
 
                                              
52 As noted earlier, the DLEOA not only prohibits the use of involuntary statements in 
criminal proceedings, but also restricts their public disclosure.  Complications could arise 
from a nondisclosure rule that turns on a determination of truth; who, for instance, would 
decide whether an officer’s statement was truthful?  The DLEOA provides no insight into 
how such a rule might be implemented.   
53 Allen, 15 Mich App at 393. 
54 We also note that the DLEOA does not purport to wholly foreclose criminal 
prosecution for an officer’s conduct that has been the subject of internal inquiry; it simply 
prohibits using in that prosecution the officer’s “involuntary statement” and “any 
information derived” therefrom.  MCL 15.393. 
55 McIntire, 461 Mich at 159. 
 
 
 
 
 
24 
[I]n our democracy, a legislature is free to make inefficacious or even 
unwise policy choices.  The correction of these policy choices is not a 
judicial function as long as the legislative choices do not offend the 
constitution. Instead, the correction must be left to the people and the tools 
of democracy: the ballot box, initiative, referendum, or constitutional 
amendment.[56] 
This statement applies with equal force in the present case.  The plain language of the 
DLEOA protects all statements given by officers under compulsion.  This choice may 
seem odd, or reflective of questionable or even bad public policy, but it was the 
Legislature’s choice to make. We are not empowered to displace what the law actually 
provides with a judicial preference for what we believe it should provide. 
IV.  CONCLUSION 
In sum, the Legislature chose not to protect only truthful information when it 
enacted the DLEOA.  This is demonstrated by the plain language of the statute when 
contrasted with the Legislature’s known capacity to expressly limit the word 
“information” based on veracity in other statutes when such a limitation is critical to the 
Legislature’s intent.  Accordingly, we must conclude that the DLEOA prohibits the use 
of an officer’s Garrity statement, even if false, in a criminal proceeding, including one 
for perjury or obstruction of justice.  The Court of Appeals erred by concluding 
otherwise.  We reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals to the extent it held  
that, under the DLEOA, a law enforcement officer’s involuntary statement could be used  
 
 
 
                                              
56 Id. (quotation marks and citations omitted). 
 
 
 
 
 
25 
against him or her in a criminal proceeding if the statement was false.  We reinstate the 
orders entered in the district court that dismissed the obstruction-of-justice charges 
brought against defendants. 
 
 
Brian K. Zahra 
 
Robert P. Young, Jr. 
 
Bridget M. McCormack 
 
Richard H. Bernstein 
 
Joan L. Larsen 
 
S T A T E  O F  M I C H I G A N 
 
SUPREME COURT 
 
 
PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN, 
 
 
Plaintiff-Appellee, 
 
 
v 
No. 149872 
 
SEAN HARRIS, 
 
 
 
Defendant-Appellant. 
 
 
 
 
PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN, 
 
 
Plaintiff-Appellee, 
 
 
v 
No. 149873 
 
WILLIAM LITTLE, 
 
 
 
Defendant-Appellant. 
 
 
 
 
PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN, 
 
 
Plaintiff-Appellee, 
 
 
v 
No. 150042 
 
NEVIN HUGHES, 
 
 
 
Defendant-Appellant. 
 
 
 
MARKMAN, J. (concurring in part and dissenting in part). 
 
 
 
 
2 
I agree with the majority opinion to the extent that it holds that the Fifth 
Amendment does not preclude the use of false statements by a law enforcement officer in 
a prosecution for obstruction of justice.  However, I respectfully disagree with it to the 
extent that it holds that the disclosures by law enforcement officers act (DLEOA), MCL 
15.391 et seq., precludes the use of false statements by a law enforcement officer in a 
prosecution for obstruction of justice.  That is, contrary to the majority, I agree with the 
Court of Appeals that false statements do not constitute “information” and therefore are 
not protected by the DLEOA, which only protects “information.”  Accordingly, I would 
affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals. 
I.  FACTS AND HISTORY 
The defendant police officers, Sean Harris, William Little, and Nevin Hughes, 
were charged with obstruction of justice for lying during an internal investigation of 
Hughes, who had assaulted Dajuan Hodges-Lamar.  The assault was video recorded by a 
security camera at a gas station.1  Defendants argued that the Fifth Amendment and the 
DLEOA prohibit the prosecutor from using the statements they made during the 
investigation.  Before defendants provided their statements, the investigating officer 
provided each with a standard departmental notification-of-constitutional-rights form.  
This form stated, in relevant part, “If I refuse . . . to answer questions . . . , I will be 
 
                                              
1 Defendants Harris and Little did nothing to aid the victim or to prevent the assault.  
Defendant Hughes was also charged with misconduct in office and assault and battery 
arising out of the assault on Hodges-Lamar, but those charges are not the subject of this 
appeal. 
 
 
 
3 
subject to departmental charges which could result in my dismissal from the police 
department,” and “[i]f I do answer . . . , neither my statements or any information or 
evidence which is gained by reason of such statements can be used against my [sic] in 
any subsequent criminal proceeding.”2  Each defendant signed the form and then 
proceeded to lie, stating that defendant Hughes did not have any physical contact with 
Hodges-Lamar apart from a pat-down search.  The video recording showed otherwise.   
The district court dismissed the obstruction-of-justice charges on the basis that 
defendants’ statements to the investigating officer could not be used against them under 
the DLEOA and the Fifth Amendment,3 and the circuit court affirmed.  In a published 
and split decision, the Court of Appeals reversed and reinstated the obstruction-of-justice 
charges against all three defendants, holding that neither the Fifth Amendment nor the 
DLEOA prohibits the prosecutor from using the statements made by defendants during 
the investigation.  People v Hughes, 306 Mich App 116; 855 NW2d 209 (2014).  Judge 
 
                                              
2 Defendants also signed a reservation-of-rights form, which was similar to the 
notification-of-constitutional-rights form.  Defendants now argue that the waivers they 
signed bar the use of their statements.  However, defendants never made this argument in 
the lower courts and this argument, therefore, was not addressed.  Because defendants did 
not preserve this argument below, I would hold that it has been waived.  Walters v 
Nadell, 481 Mich 377, 387; 751 NW2d 431 (2008) (“[A] failure to timely raise an issue 
waives review of that issue on appeal.”) (citation and quotation marks omitted). 
3 The district court was bound by People v Allen, 15 Mich App 387; 166 NW2d 664 
(1968), which held that the Fifth Amendment protects false statements.  The Court of 
Appeals subsequently observed in the instant case that “[g]iven the intervening 
developments in federal law, . . . the reasoning of Allen cannot stand.”  People v Hughes, 
306 Mich App 116, 127; 855 NW2d 209 (2014).  For the reasons discussed later, I agree. 
 
 
 
 
4 
WILDER concurred in part and dissented in part.  He agreed with the majority that the 
Fifth Amendment does not prohibit the prosecutor from using defendants’ statements, but 
concluded that the DLEOA does prohibit the prosecutor from using defendants’ 
statements.  This Court then granted defendants’ applications for leave to appeal.  People 
v Harris, 497 Mich 958 (2015). 
II.  ANALYSIS 
A.  THE FIFTH AMENDMENT 
The Fifth Amendment provides that no person “shall be compelled in any criminal 
case to be a witness against himself . . . .”  US Const, Am V (emphasis added); see also 
Const 1963, art 1, § 17.4  In Garrity v New Jersey, 385 US 493; 87 S Ct 616; 17 L Ed 2d 
562 (1967), several police officers were investigated by the New Jersey Attorney General 
for fixing traffic tickets.  After having been warned that if they refused to answer 
questions they would be subject to removal from office, the officers answered the 
questions asked of them during the investigation.  Id. at 494-495.  The Court held that 
 
                                              
4 The parties here do not argue that the Michigan Constitution should be interpreted 
differently than the United States Constitution.  Accordingly, I limit my constitutional 
analysis to the Fifth Amendment.  See People v Wyngaard, 462 Mich 659, 671 n 10; 614 
NW2d 143 (2000) (“We confine our analysis to the Fifth Amendment because defendant 
has not argued that art 1, § 17 provides broader protections.”); see also People v Tanner, 
496 Mich 199, 256; 853 NW2d 653 (2014) (“Although this Court need not interpret a 
provision of our Constitution in the same manner as a similar or identical federal 
constitutional provision, we are persuaded in the present instance, on the basis of our 
examination of Article 1, § 17, that the United States Supreme Court’s interpretation of 
the Self-Incrimination Clause of the Fifth Amendment in [Moran v Burbine, 475 US 412; 
106 S Ct 1135; 89 L Ed 2d 410 (1986)] constitutes the proper interpretation of Article I, 
§ 17 as well.”). 
 
 
 
5 
their answers were “compelled” within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment and 
therefore that the statements could not be used against them in subsequent prosecutions 
for conspiracy to obstruct the administration of the traffic laws.  Id. at 497-500.  The 
Court explained that “protection of the individual under the Fourteenth Amendment 
against coerced statements prohibits use in subsequent criminal proceedings of statements 
obtained under threat of removal from office, and that it extends to all, whether they are 
policemen or other members of our body politic.”  Id. at 500.5   
However, in United States v Wong, 431 US 174, 179; 97 S Ct 1823; 52 L Ed 2d 
231 (1977), the United States Supreme Court held that “the Fifth Amendment privilege 
does not protect perjury . . . .”  Instead, “[i]t grants a privilege to remain silent without 
risking contempt, but it ‘does not endow the person who testifies with a license to commit 
perjury.’ ”  Id. at 178 (citation omitted).  Therefore, the Court held that the defendant’s 
false testimony was admissible in a subsequent perjury trial even though the defendant 
had provided the false testimony without being informed of her Fifth Amendment right to 
remain silent.6  “[E]ven the predicament of being forced to choose between incriminatory 
 
                                              
5 However, “given adequate immunity, the State may plainly insist that employees either 
answer questions under oath about the performance of their job or suffer the loss of 
employment.”  Lefkowitz v Turley, 414 US 70, 84; 94 S Ct 316; 38 L Ed 2d 274 (1973).  
Such statements are now sometimes referred to as “Garrity statements.” 
6 More specifically, the Court held that “a witness who, while under investigation for 
possible criminal activity, is called to testify before a grand jury and who is later indicted 
for perjury committed before the grand jury, is [not] entitled to have the false testimony 
suppressed on the ground that no effective warning of the Fifth Amendment privilege to 
remain silent was given.”  Wong, 431 US at 174-175, 178. 
 
 
 
6 
truth and falsehood, as opposed to refusing to answer, does not justify perjury.”  Id. at 
178.  “[B]y answering falsely the [defendant] took ‘a course that the Fifth Amendment 
gave [defendant] no privilege to take.’ ”  Id. at 178-179 (citation omitted).  “Indeed, even 
if the Government could, on pain of criminal sanctions, compel an answer to its 
incriminating questions, a citizen is not at liberty to answer falsely.”  Id. at 180.  “If the 
citizen answers the question, the answer must be truthful.”  Id.  
Similarly, in United States v Apfelbaum, 445 US 115, 117, 131; 100 S Ct 948; 63 
L Ed 2d 250 (1980), the United States Supreme Court held that the “proper invocation of 
the Fifth Amendment privilege against compulsory self-incrimination allows a witness to 
remain silent, but not to swear falsely,” and thus “neither the [federal use-immunity] 
statute[7] nor the Fifth Amendment precludes the use of respondent’s immunized 
testimony at a subsequent prosecution for making false statements . . . .”  That is, 
“perjury prosecutions are permissible for false answers to questions following the grant 
of immunity” because “the Fifth Amendment privilege against compulsory self-
incrimination provides no protection for the commission of perjury . . . .”  Id. at 126-127.  
See also McKinley v City of Mansfield, 404 F3d 418, 427 (CA 6, 2005) (“As a matter of 
Fifth Amendment right, Garrity precludes use of public employees’ compelled 
incriminating statements in a later prosecution for the conduct under investigation.  
However, Garrity does not preclude use of such statements in prosecutions for the 
 
                                              
7 The federal use-immunity statute, 18 USC 6002, provides that when a witness is 
compelled to testify over his or her claim of a Fifth Amendment privilege, “no 
testimony . . . may be used against the witness in any criminal case, except a prosecution 
for perjury, giving a false statement, or otherwise failing to comply with the order.” 
 
 
 
7 
independent crimes of obstructing the public employer’s investigation or making false 
statements during it.”) (citation omitted); id. (“[T]he Fifth Amendment permits the 
government to use compelled statements obtained during an investigation if the use is 
limited to a prosecution for collateral crimes such as perjury or obstruction of justice.”). 
In light of this caselaw, it is clear that the Fifth Amendment does not protect a 
defendant from a subsequent prosecution for perjury or obstruction of justice predicated 
on false statements that the defendant made after having been granted immunity from 
prosecution.8  Therefore, defendants’ false statements are not inadmissible under the Fifth 
Amendment.  As a result, I agree with the Court of Appeals that 
[t]he Fifth Amendment did not bar the admission of defendants’ false 
statements in the instant prosecutions for obstruction of justice.  The district 
court abused its discretion by relying on the Fifth Amendment to exclude 
defendants’ false statements from evidence.  [Hughes, 306 Mich App at 
128.]  
B.  DLEOA 
The Court of Appeals also held that the DLEOA does not bar admission of 
defendant’s false statements, and again I agree.  MCL 15.393 of the DLEOA provides: 
An involuntary statement made by a law enforcement officer, and 
any information derived from that involuntary statement, shall not be used 
against the law enforcement officer in a criminal proceeding.[9]   
 
                                              
8 Indeed, defense counsel for defendant Little seemed to concede this at oral arguments 
before this Court.  Chief Justice YOUNG asked defense counsel, “The protection afforded 
by Garrity did not extend to lies made as a Garrity statement, correct?”  Defense counsel 
responded, “Absolutely correct[.]”   
9 In addition, MCL 15.395 provides, in pertinent part: 
 
 
 
 
8 
1.  “INFORMATION” 
MCL 15.391 defines the term “involuntary statement” as “information provided 
by a law enforcement officer, if compelled under threat of dismissal from employment or 
any other employment sanction . . . .”  (Emphasis added.)  “Information” is defined as 
“1. knowledge communicated or received concerning a particular fact or circumstance; 
news.  2. Knowledge gained through study, communication, research, instruction, etc.; 
data; facts.”  Random House Webster’s College Dictionary (1992).10  In turn, 
 
                                              
An involuntary statement made by a law enforcement officer is a 
confidential communication that is not open to public inspection.  The 
statement may be disclosed by the law enforcement agency only under 1 or 
more of the following circumstances: 
(a) With the written consent of the law enforcement officer who 
made the statement. 
(b) To a prosecuting attorney or the attorney general pursuant to a 
search warrant, subpoena, or court order, including an investigative 
subpoena issued under chapter VIIA of the code of criminal procedure, 
1927 PA 175, MCL 767a.1 to 767a.9.  However, a prosecuting attorney or 
attorney general who obtains an involuntary statement under this 
subdivision shall not disclose the contents of the statement except to a law 
enforcement agency working with the prosecuting attorney or attorney 
general or as ordered by the court having jurisdiction over the criminal 
matter or, as constitutionally required, to the defendant in a criminal case.  
10 Similarly, “inform” means “to give or impart knowledge of a fact or circumstance to” 
or “to supply (oneself) with knowledge of a matter or subject[.]”  Random House 
Webster’s College Dictionary (1992).  Lies do not “impart knowledge.”  Indeed, one 
becomes increasingly less informed as the result of lies.  Consider, for example, the 
concept of “informed consent,” which is defined as “a patient’s consent to a medical or 
surgical procedure or to participation in a clinical study after being properly advised of 
the relevant medical facts and the risks involved.”  Id. (emphasis added).  We would 
never state that a patient who consented to a medical procedure after being lied to about 
the relevant medical factors or risks in that medical procedure provided genuinely 
“informed consent.”  Likewise, we should not here conclude that officers who lied about 
 
 
 
 
9 
“knowledge” is defined as “acquaintance with facts, truths, or principles[.]”  Id. 
(emphasis added).11  As the Court of Appeals explained: 
The phrase “involuntary statement” is defined as “information 
provided by a law enforcement officer, if compelled under threat of 
dismissal from employment or any other employment sanction, by the law 
enforcement agency that employs the law enforcement officer.”  MCL 
15.391(a) (emphasis added).  But when an officer is compelled to make a 
statement 
during 
an 
internal 
investigation, 
and 
provides 
only 
misinformation and lies, he or she has not provided any “information” at all 
within the commonly understood meaning of that word.  Among other 
things, “information” is defined as “knowledge communicated or received 
concerning a particular fact or circumstance.”  Random House Webster’s 
College Dictionary (1997).  The word “knowledge,” in turn, is defined as 
“the body of truths or facts accumulated in the course of time.”  Id.  
Because an officer’s lies do not impart any truths or facts, they necessarily 
do not constitute “information.”  See MCL 15.391(a).[12]  In other words, an 
 
                                              
misconduct nevertheless provided “information.”   
11 Similarly, “knowledgeable” means “well-informed.”  Random House Webster’s 
College Dictionary (1992).  We do not think of someone who knows nothing accurate 
about a subject as being “knowledgeable” or “well informed” regarding that subject.  
Accordingly, we should not think of someone who provided inaccurate statements as 
having imparted “knowledge” or “information” in that regard. 
12 The majority concludes that the definitions of “information” and “knowledge” do not 
exclude statements that are false.  However, all the definitions that the majority relies on 
do, in my opinion, exclude statements that are deliberately false, such as the ones at issue 
here.  The majority relies on the following definitions of “information”: “knowledge 
communicated or received concerning a particular fact or circumstance”; “[k]nowledge or 
facts communicated about a particular subject, event, etc.; intelligence, news”; and “the 
communication or reception of knowledge or intelligence[.]”  (Citations and quotation 
marks omitted).  In addition, the majority relies on the following definition of 
“knowledge”: “the sum of what is known[.]”  (Citation and quotation marks omitted).  
Each of these definitions strongly suggest that “information” and “knowledge” are things 
that are known, or at least believed, to be true at the time that they are communicated.  
However, when the officers here provided the statements at issue, they knew that their 
statements were false.  That is, the officers “knew” that defendant Hughes assaulted 
Hodges-Lamar and yet they stated just the opposite.  Thus, the officers’ statements were 
 
 
 
 
10 
officer’s lies and false statements do not qualify as “involuntary 
statement[s]” under MCL 15.393, and consequently may be used as 
evidence in a subsequent criminal prosecution.  [Hughes, 306 Mich App at 
129-130.] 
Judge WILDER concurred with the Court of Appeals majority regarding the Fifth 
Amendment issue, but dissented on the statutory issue on the basis that lies constitute 
“information.”  As already explained, I agree with the Court of Appeals majority that lies 
do not constitute “information” as that term is commonly understood.13  In other words, I 
do not believe most people would reasonably conclude that a person has provided them 
with “information” if all that the other person has done is tell them lies.14   
 
                                              
very much at odds with their “information” or “knowledge” on the subject of what had 
occurred concerning Hodges-Lamar.   
13 Even putting aside the dictionary definitions this opinion cites, I do not believe that any 
ordinary or reasonable meaning of the word “information” includes false statements, and 
the majority identifies none.  Would one person of a hundred taken at random from the 
streets of any community of this state disagree regarding this entirely ordinary meaning?  
And would it make the slightest difference whether any of them relied on a collegiate 
dictionary, a children’s dictionary, a supermarket dictionary, an English-as-a-second-
language dictionary, the Oxford English Dictionary, or no dictionary at all?  
14 The majority relies on the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), a truly 
remarkable and comprehensive source of ordinary English language usage compiled by 
linguistic scholars at Brigham Young University, in particular Professor Mark Davies.  
The COCA, available at  (accessed June 7, 2016), is an 
online “resource [that can be used by courts] for assessing the ordinary meaning of a 
statutory term.”  State v Rasabout, 2015 Utah 72, ¶ 72; 356 P3d 1258 (2015) (Lee, 
A.C.J., concurring in part) (assessing with an impressive thoroughness, in ¶¶ 40-134, the 
strengths and limitations of using a corpus to facilitate the interpretive processes of the 
judiciary).  By using the COCA, “we can access large bodies of real-world language to 
see how particular words or phrases are actually used in written or spoken English.”  Id. 
at ¶ 57.  However, notwithstanding the majority’s invocation of the COCA, I believe that 
the COCA actually supports the proposition set forth in this dissent that the common and 
most reasonable understanding of the term “information” excludes false statements.  The 
term “information” is found within the COCA 168,187 times and yet it is only modified 
 
 
 
 
11 
 
                                              
by the term “truthful” 28 times, “true” 18 times, “accurate” 508 times, “inaccurate” 112 
times, and “false” 271 times.  In other words, the term “information” is modified by one 
of these adjectives 937 times.  The other 167,250 times that the word “information” is 
used it is unmodified by one of these adjectives.  That is, 99.44% of the time 
“information” in the COCA is unmodified by any of these adjectives related to veracity.  
Therefore, I disagree with the majority’s contention that the COCA affords support for 
the proposition that the term “information” is “regularly” or “commonly” modified by 
one of these adjectives.  I find to the contrary.  And where “information” is unmodified 
by one of these adjectives, I believe it is overwhelmingly used to refer to truthful 
information.  See, e.g., the utterly ordinary, commonplace, and pedestrian usages of 
“information” set forth in the COCA (among 167,248 others) at Morgenson, Outside 
Advice on Boss’s Pay May Not Be So Independent, New York Times (April 10, 2006) 
(“The company operates Verizon’s employee benefits Web sites, where its workers get 
information about their pay, health and retirement benefits, college savings plans and the 
like.”); Anderson, As Lenders, Hedge Funds Draw Insider Scrutiny, New York Times 
(October 16, 2006) (“When a public company takes out a loan, it generally agrees to 
provide the lender with certain information, sometimes including monthly financial 
updates.”).  I do not believe that a judicial interpretation of “information” drawn from use 
of the term in ½ of 1% of all of its appearances in a corpus constitutes an ordinary, 
common, or reasonable interpretation of the term.  There is no word that cannot be 
abused, misused, or employed in an exotic or puzzling way in everyday discourse, and a 
corpus will reflect this reality; it is not, however, the purpose of a corpus to transform 
every such use of a word into a reasonable construction of the words of the law.  As 
Lincoln once remarked, “calling the tail [of a calf] a leg, [does] not make it a leg . . . .”  2 
Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 
2008), p 468 (citation and quotation marks omitted).  Furthermore, the reader may wish 
to peruse at random any number of the 167,250 uses of “information” in the COCA and 
assess whether the term was reasonably used and understood as indistinguishably 
referring to true and false information.  When, for example, the doctor is offered 
“information” from a patient concerning the latter’s condition, would either party suppose 
that the latter was not intending in a reasonably accurate manner to describe his 
symptoms as he then believed them to be?  Or, by further example, when a “contract” or 
“trade-off” of some kind is delineated by the elected representatives of the people in the 
Legislature, with an explicit quid pro quo defined in terms of the production of 
“information,” and presumably with some measure of public benefit to be derived by the 
production of that “information,” could that Legislature genuinely have been 
disinterested in whether such information was true or false?  
 
 
 
12 
Judge WILDER concluded that because “misinform” is defined as “giv[ing] false or 
misleading information,” Random House Webster’s College Dictionary (1997), “the term 
‘information’ as used in MCL 15.393 must be interpreted to include the giving of 
‘misinformation.’ ”  Hughes, 306 Mich App at 134 (WILDER, J., concurring in part and 
dissenting in part).  I respectfully disagree.  “Mis” is a prefix meaning the “opposite,” 
“lack of,” or negative of something.  Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th 
ed).15  Therefore, “misinformation” constitutes the “opposite” of “information,” and 
because “misinformation” means “false or misleading information,” it follows that 
“information” means true or accurate information.16  Contrary to the contentions of Judge 
WILDER and now the majority in this Court, “misinformation” by its prefix signifies that 
it is comparing itself to “information;” it is not referring to a subset, a type, or a class, of 
“information.” 
Judge WILDER, and the majority in this Court, also rely on the fact that a number 
of Michigan statutes refer to “inaccurate” or “misleading” information.  See, e.g, MCL 
769.34(10); MCL 750.492a(1); MCL 168.467b(6); MCL 487.2140(2); MCL 
791.235(1)(b).  However, I believe that this actually supports the Court of Appeals 
 
                                              
15 See also Random House Webster’s College Dictionary (1992), which defines “mis” as 
“a prefix applied to various parts of speech, meaning ‘ill,’ ‘mistaken,’ ‘wrong,’ 
‘wrongly,’ ‘incorrectly,’ or simply negating: mistrial; misprint; mistrust.” 
16 Similarly, “disinformation” means “false information deliberately and often covertly 
spread (as by the planting of rumors) in order to influence public opinion or obscure the 
truth,” and the prefix “dis” means “[to] do the opposite of[.]”  Merriam Webster’s 
Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed). 
 
 
 
13 
majority’s conclusion that “information” signifies truthful information because in those 
unusual circumstances in which the Legislature is intending to refer to untruthful 
information, it expressly refers to “inaccurate” or “misleading” information.  That is, the 
Legislature recognizes that when it intends to refer to untruthful information, it needs to 
supply a modifier to precede “information” because, when  unmodified, “information” 
signifies truthful information.17  The Legislature’s affirmative and specific references to 
“inaccurate” or “misleading” information in the previously cited provisions in contrast to 
the absence of such modifying terms in MCL 15.391 evidences its intention to limit the 
DLEOA’s protection to “information,” and what is ordinarily connoted by this term, and 
not to extend it to inaccurate or misleading information.  See Farrington v Total 
Petroleum, Inc, 442 Mich 201, 210; 501 NW2d 76 (1993) (“Courts cannot assume that 
the Legislature inadvertently omitted from one statute the language that it placed in 
another statute, and then, on the basis of that assumption, apply what is not there.”); 
Paselli v Utley, 286 Mich 638, 643; 282 NW2d 849 (1938) (“This court cannot write into 
the statutes [protections] that the legislature has not seen fit to enact.”). 
 
                                              
17 Judge WILDER also relied on the fact that MCL 15.393 refers to “a criminal 
proceeding,” rather than the criminal proceeding.  See MCL 15.393 (“An involuntary 
statement made by a law enforcement officer . . . shall not be used against the law 
enforcement officer in a criminal proceeding.”) (emphasis added.)  However, it would 
not make any sense for MCL 15.393 to refer to the criminal proceeding because at the 
time that a Garrity statement is given, there is no criminal proceeding to definitively 
identify by use of the definite article “the.”  Furthermore, the fact that the statute refers to 
“a criminal proceeding” rather than “the criminal proceeding” simply does not address 
the question at issue here-- whether an officer’s false statements can be used against the 
officer “in a criminal proceeding.”  
 
 
 
14 
The majority in this Court concludes that because the Legislature has modified the 
term “information” with the adjective “truthful” in other statutes, but not the instant one, 
it must have intended the term “information” in the instant statute to include both truthful 
and false information.  That is, the Legislature obviously knew how to limit 
“information” to only “truthful information,” and it chose not to limit “information” in 
that manner in the instant statute.  Again, I respectfully disagree.  The majority cites nine 
statutes that contain the phrase “truthful information.”18  However, six of those statutes 
were amended in the immediate aftermath of this Court’s decision in People v McIntire, 
461 Mich 147; 599 NW2d 102 (1999), which held that a witness did not have to answer 
questions truthfully in order to receive immunity under MCL 767.6.  See MCL 29.7(4); 
MCL 750.157; MCL 750.453; MCL 750.125(5); MCL 780.702(3); MCL 780.702a(6).  
That is, in the immediate aftermath of McIntire, the Legislature inserted “truthful” into 
 
                                              
18 These statutes will be discussed in greater detail in the main text of this opinion, but for 
context, I note that six of the statutes the majority relies on are either in the Michigan 
Penal Code or the Code of Criminal Procedure and one is in the Fire Prevention Code.  
These seven statutes provide that compelled, truthful information “shall not be used 
against the witness in a criminal case, except for impeachment purposes or in a 
prosecution for perjury,” with the exception of MCL 750.122(2), which is an exception to 
the bribery statute that allows a witness to be paid “reasonable costs” to “provide truthful 
information.”  The eighth and ninth statutes relied on by the majority, are quite different 
from the preceding seven statutes.  The eighth statute, MCL 400.111b, is part of the 
Social Welfare Act and it provides, in pertinent part, that a healthcare “provider shall 
certify that a claim for payment . . . does not contain untrue, misleading, or deceptive 
information” and that the “provider shall supply complete and truthful information as to 
his or her professional qualifications and training . . . .”  MCL 400.111b(17) and (20).  
The ninth statute, MCL 333.17014, is part of the Public Health Code and sets forth 
legislative findings, rather than substantive law.  It explains that the related substantive 
laws were designed to provide “objective, truthful information” so that women can make 
informed decisions about abortions. 
 
 
 
15 
MCL 767.6 and other related statutes.19  As this Court has recognized, this kind of 
legislative history constitutes the “highest quality” of legislative history.  In re Certified 
Question from the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, 468 Mich 109, 
115 n 5; 659 NW2d 597 (2003).  One of the other statutes that the majority relies on, 
MCL 750.122, was also enacted in the wake of McIntire.20  Thus, seven out of the nine 
statutes the majority relies on were amended or enacted immediately after McIntire was 
decided.  This is significant because it strongly suggests that before McIntire was 
decided, the Legislature understood that the term “information” by itself means “truthful 
information,” and it was not until after McIntire was decided that the Legislature felt it 
was necessary to modify “information” with “truthful” in order to limit the protections of 
these statutes to only “truthful information.”21 
 
                                              
19 McIntire was decided on September 14, 1999 and these statutes were amended on 
December 28, 1999. 
20 MCL 750.122 was enacted on January 9, 2001 and became effective on March 28, 
2001. 
21 The majority also suggests that because numerous statutes expressly state that 
compelled information “shall not be used against the witness in a criminal case, except 
for impeachment purposes or in a prosecution for perjury,” see, e.g., MCL 750.453, and 
the instant statute does not, we should not incorporate such an exception into the instant 
statute.  However, there are only eight statutes that contain this language and none of 
them contained that language until they were amended in 1999 immediately after 
McIntire was decided.  See MCL 29.7(4); MCL 750.125(5); MCL 750.157; MCL 
750.453; MCL 767.6(3); MCL 767.19b(2); MCL 780.702(3); MCL 780.702a(6).  In 
addition, see the discussion of Glickstein v United States, 222 US 139; 32 S Ct 71; 56 L 
Ed 128 (1911), later in this opinion. 
 
 
 
16 
The other two statutes that the majority relies on were enacted before McIntire 
was decided, but are quite distinguishable.  To begin with, MCL 400.111b, a statute 
within the Social Welfare Act, refers to both “untrue, misleading, or deceptive 
information” and “truthful information.”  Given that the statute initially uses the phrase 
“untrue information,” it makes sense that when the statute subsequently uses the term 
“information,” the Legislature would choose to clarify that it was referring to “truthful 
information” on this occasion, rather than the previously mentioned “untrue information.” 
The final statute the majority relies on, MCL 333.17014, a statute within the 
Public Health Code, sets forth the legislative findings that supported the Legislature’s 
enactment of MCL 333.17015 and MCL 333.17515.  Legislative findings do not 
constitute substantive law.  See Nat’l Pride at Work, Inc v Governor, 481 Mich 56, 79 
n 20; 748 NW2d 524 (2008).  Although the legislative-findings statute, MCL 333.17014, 
on one occasion refers to “truthful information,” neither of the substantive statutes, MCL 
333.17015; MCL 333.17515, refers to “truthful information,” even though one of the 
substantive statutes, MCL 333.17015, repeatedly refers to “information” and, given the 
context, it is clear that the statute is referring to “truthful information.”  Furthermore, 
although the legislative-findings statute itself repeatedly uses the word “information” in a 
manner that makes it clear the Legislature is referring to “truthful information,” the 
Legislature only modified the term “information” with “truthful” on a single occasion in 
that statute.  
The majority thus has identified nine statutes that use the phrase “truthful 
information” and from this the majority concludes that “information” unmodified by 
“truthful” must include both truthful and false information.  However, the majority does 
 
 
 
17 
not take into account that the Legislature has used the word “information” in 4,849 
statutes and only nine of these statutes modify “information” with “truthful.”  Does the 
majority truly believe that in the other 4,840 statutes in which the Legislature used 
“information” it was referring to both true and false information?22  I simply cannot 
believe it possible, that in the nearly 5,000 laws enacted by our Legislature in which 
“information” was required to be provided, considered, acted on, shared, or evaluated, 
those laws were unconcerned with, or disinterested in, whether such information was true 
or false.  
Although the Legislature added “truthful” before “information” in a handful of 
statutes following McIntire, the Legislature likely did not believe it needed to add 
“truthful” before “information” when it enacted the DLEOA in 2006 (seven years after 
McIntire was decided) because: (a) the DLEOA was viewed as a codification of Garrity 
and its progeny and it is clear that false statements are not protected under those 
decisions; and (b) the Legislature almost certainly perceived the word “information” as 
only connoting truthful information and simply did not feel obligated in perpetuity to add 
“truthful” every time it used the word “information” just as it might not feel obligated in 
 
                                              
22 I recognize that in a few of these statutes the word “information” is modified by other 
adjectives, such as “inaccurate” or “misleading;” as previously discussed, however, I 
believe that in the great majority of these statutes “information” is used to mean “truthful 
information.” 
 
 
 
18 
perpetuity to say “dogs but not cats” in place of “dogs” if, for example, this Court had 
issued an opinion stating that “dogs” means both “dogs and cats.”23 
The majority’s reliance on McIntire for anything other than explaining why the 
Legislature amended MCL 767.6 and similar statutes to add the word “truthful” is 
misplaced.  As the majority explains, McIntire involved the interpretation of MCL 767.6, 
which at the time provided, “[n]o person required to answer such questions shall 
thereafter be prosecuted for any offense concerning which such answers may have tended 
to incriminate him.”  MCL 767.7, as amended by 1951 PA 276.  Although the majority 
claims that the statute at issue in McIntire and the statute at issue here are “similar,” and 
perhaps in some ways they are, there is a critical and relevant difference-- only the latter 
pertains to “information.”  It is one thing to say that a person can answer questions 
 
                                              
23 At some juncture after this Court has interpreted words in a highly unusual manner, the 
Legislature must be allowed again to use words as they are commonly understood by the 
people whom they represent.  That is, it is one thing to say that when, in the ordinary 
course of statutory interpretation, this Court has interpreted a word, the next time the 
Legislature uses that same word, it is presumed to mean what we have previously said it 
means, but it is quite another thing to say that when this Court has interpreted a word in a 
highly unusual manner, we will presume that whenever that same word is subsequently 
used by the Legislature,  it is presumed to mean what we have previously said it means.  
After some reasonable duration, we have to assume that when the Legislature uses the 
word “dogs,” it means “dogs,” and not forevermore “dogs and cats.”  And perhaps most 
importantly, in the final analysis, it is this Court that must adhere to the language of the 
people and their representatives and not the people and their representatives that must 
adhere to the language of this Court.  It was this Court’s decision in McIntire in 1999 that 
has now led to the extraordinarily odd circumstance 17 years later, that in order to 
effectively communicate its intentions, the Legislature apparently must whenever it seeks 
to legislate concerning “information” systematically insert in the law a disclaimer-- 
“provided, however, that the information requested or provided in this statute be 
truthful.”  This Court may understand the point of such language, but others who are 
governed by this law will only be confused and befuddled. 
 
 
 
19 
falsely; it is another thing to say that a person provides “information” when he or she 
provides false statements.  McIntire reached the former holding, but not the latter.  That 
is, nothing within McIntire can be read to suggest that false statements constitute 
“information.”  The only thing that McIntire held was that under MCL 767.6, as it was 
drafted at the time, a witness who answered questions under an order granting immunity 
was entitled to such immunity, regardless of whether the witness answered the questions 
truthfully or falsely. 
I agree with the majority that McIntire’s actual holding has not been overruled by 
this Court and presumably never will be because, as already discussed, the statute at issue 
has since been amended in such a way that the issue addressed in McIntire will not arise 
again.  The majority seems to believe that this means that we are forevermore 
encumbered with McIntire’s holding that a person’s statements do not have to be truthful 
in order for that person to be entitled to immunity.  Apparently, the majority believes that 
to be the case even though McIntire has been superseded by statute and the Legislature 
has employed statutory language that is entirely different from the language that was at 
issue in McIntire.  Importantly, the statute at issue in McIntire did not use the word 
“information,” and McIntire thus did not address its meaning, but the majority uses 
McIntire to support its conclusion that “information” refers to both true and false 
statements.  However, because the statute at issue here, unlike that at issue in McIntire, 
only protects “information,” McIntire does not require us to hold that false statements are 
protected by the statute at issue here.  And simply because the Legislature directly 
reacted to McIntire by inserting the word “truthful” before the word “information” in a 
handful of statutes, does not mean that we must forevermore hold that whenever the 
 
 
 
20 
Legislature does not add the word “truthful” before “information,” it must be referring to 
both truthful and false statements.  Rather, what most obviously can be drawn from the 
Legislature’s response to McIntire is that McIntire’s equivalent treatment of truthful and 
false statements was squarely repudiated, an equivalency that is exactly repeated in the 
majority’s interpretation in the instant case. 
The majority asserts that “the existence of McIntire at the time the DLEOA was 
enacted provides us great insight into the intent of the Legislature” and “we see no reason 
to abandon McIntire now.”  However, given that McIntire did not interpret the term 
“information” as we are called upon to do now, and given that McIntire has already been 
emphatically superseded by legislative enactments, see note 19 of this opinion, I am 
baffled as to what “great insight into the intent of the Legislature” the majority has 
derived from McIntire that I am supposedly urging it to “abandon.”  If this “great insight” 
is this Court’s obligation to adhere to the plain language of a statute, I am hardly urging 
the majority to abandon this.  Indeed, it is precisely the plain language of the DLEOA 
that causes me to conclude that the act does not protect false statements.  That is, because 
the DLEOA only protects “information,” and because the plain meaning of the term 
“information” does not encompass false statements, the DLEOA does not protect false 
statements. 
2.  “COMPELLED” 
Additionally, MCL 15.391 defines the term “involuntary statement” as 
“information provided by a law enforcement officer, if compelled . . . .”  (Emphasis 
 
 
 
21 
added.)  Not only are lies not “information,” but they are also not “compelled.”24  That is 
exactly why the Fifth Amendment prohibition against compelled self-incrimination does 
not protect perjury.  See Wong, 431 US at 178 (“It grants a privilege to remain silent 
without risking contempt, but it does not endow the person who testifies with a license to 
commit perjury.”) (citation and quotation marks omitted); Lefkowitz v Turley, 414 US 70, 
77; 94 S Ct 316; 38 L Ed 2d 274 (1973) (“The object of the Amendment ‘was to insure 
that a person should not be compelled . . . to give testimony which might tend to show 
that he himself had committed a crime.’ ”) (citation omitted).  Neither the Fifth 
Amendment nor the DLEOA was ever intended to protect false statements made to cover 
up criminal activity. 
As previously noted, the Fifth Amendment provides that no person “shall be 
compelled . . . to be a witness against himself . . . .”  US Const, Am V.  “The design of 
the [Fifth Amendment] privilege is . . . to protect [a person] against being compelled to 
furnish evidence to convict him of a criminal charge.”  Brown v Walker, 161 US 591, 
605-606; 16 S Ct 644; 40 L Ed 819 (1896).  In other words, “the Fifth Amendment 
privilege speaks only of compulsion[.]”  People v Wyngaard, 462 Mich 659, 672; 614 
NW2d 143 (2000).  Therefore, the applicability of Fifth Amendment protection often 
turns on whether a person’s testimony or statements were compelled.25  
 
                                              
24 Defense counsel for defendant Harris admitted this at oral arguments when he stated, 
“Nobody’s compelled to lie . . . .”   
25 See, e.g., Minnesota v Murphy, 465 US 420, 440; 104 S Ct 1136; 79 L Ed 2d 409 
(1984) (holding that because the defendant’s disclosures were not compelled 
incriminations, he could not invoke the Fifth Amendment privilege); Miranda v Arizona, 
 
 
 
 
22 
Pertinent to the instant case, the United States Supreme Court has long recognized 
that the Fifth Amendment does not endow a person with a license to commit perjury.  See 
Glickstein v United States, 222 US 139, 142; 32 S Ct 71; 56 L Ed 128 (1911) (“[T]he 
immunity afforded by the constitutional guaranty relates to the past and does not endow 
the person who testifies with a license to commit perjury.”).  In Glickstein, the Court 
construed a similar immunity statute that did not contain an exception for perjury.26  In 
addressing whether the statute immunized false statements, the Court stated: 
[T]he statute expressly commands the giving of testimony, and its manifest 
purpose is to secure truthful testimony, while the limited and exclusive 
meaning which the contention attributes to the immunity clause would 
cause the section to be a mere license to commit perjury, and hence not to 
command the giving of testimony in the true sense of the word. 
The argument that because the section does not contain an 
expression of the reservation of a right to prosecute for perjury in harmony 
with the reservations in Rev. Stat., § 860, and the act of 1893, therefore it is 
to be presumed that it was intended that no such right should exist, we 
think, simply begs the question for decision, since it is impossible in reason 
to conceive that Congress commanded the giving of testimony, and at the 
same time intended that false testimony might be given with impunity in 
the absence of the most express and specific command to that effect. 
Bearing in mind the subject dealt with we think the reservation of 
the right to prosecute for perjury made in the statutes to which we have 
referred was but the manifestation of abundant caution, and hence the 
 
                                              
384 US 436, 467; 86 S Ct 1602; 16 L Ed 2d 694 (1966) (“[W]ithout proper safeguards 
the process of in-custody interrogation of persons suspected or accused of crime contains 
inherently compelling pressures which work to undermine the individual’s will to resist 
and to compel him to speak where he would not otherwise do so freely.”). 
26 The statute provided, in pertinent part, “ ‘no testimony given by him shall be offered in 
evidence against him in any criminal proceeding.’ ”  Glickstein, 222 US at 140-141 
(citation omitted).  See also note 21 of this opinion.  
 
 
 
23 
absence of such reservation in the statute under consideration may not be 
taken as indicative of an intention on the part of Congress that perjury 
might be committed at pleasure.  [Id. at 143-144.][27] 
The Court concluded that the statute, in compelling the giving of testimony, did not 
confer immunity wider than that guaranteed by the Constitution.  Id. at 142-144.  
I believe Glickstein is instructive in assessing the majority’s argument that the 
DLEOA includes false statements because the Legislature did not use the term “truthful 
information.”  Glickstein rejected the defendant’s analogous argument that, because the 
statute in that case did not include a perjury exemption that had been included in other 
statutes, such an exemption did not exist.  Similarly, the Michigan Legislature’s use of 
“truthful” in other statutes appears at most to only reflect a “manifestation of abundant 
caution” rather than suggesting that the DLEOA does not extend to false statements.  Id. 
at 144. 
Further, although Glickstein did not clearly explain why the Fifth Amendment 
does not endow a person with a license to commit perjury, it recognized the critical 
relationship between compelled statements and the truth.  The United States Supreme 
Court expounded on this relationship in United States v Knox, 396 US 77; 90 S Ct 363; 
24 L Ed 2d 275 (1969), holding that the Fifth Amendment does not protect perjury 
because those false statements are not compelled.  In Knox, the defendant was indicted 
for including false, material information in his tax filings.  He sought Fifth Amendment 
 
                                              
27 This passage suggests that, absent manifest legislative intent to the contrary, statutes 
compelling the giving of testimony are presumed to require that the testimony be truthful.  
If such a presumption had been in play in McIntire, perhaps this Court would have 
reached a different result. 
 
 
 
24 
protection, arguing that his tax filings were compelled by statute and, had he not filed 
truthful and complete forms as required, he would have incriminated himself.  Similarly, 
filing no forms at all would also have subjected him to prosecution.  The Court rejected 
the defendant’s argument, noting he had “taken a course other than the one that the 
statute was designed to compel, a course that the Fifth Amendment gave him no privilege 
to take.”  Id. at 82.  The Court stated, “when [defendant] responded to the pressure under 
which he found himself by communicating false information, this was simply not 
testimonial compulsion.”  Id.  Similarly, in Wong, 431 US at 178, the Court confirmed 
that the Fifth Amendment does not condone perjury, emphasizing that “the predicament 
of being forced to choose between incriminatory truth and falsehood, as opposed to 
refusing to answer, does not justify perjury.”28 
Garrity statements are protected by the Fifth Amendment because, by requiring an 
individual to choose between self-incrimination and job forfeiture, the resulting 
statements are compelled.  Garrity, 385 US at 497-498.  These statements are “infected 
by the coercion inherent in [the] scheme of questioning and cannot be sustained as 
 
                                              
28 Other courts have reached the same conclusion.  See, e.g., United States v Thomas, 612 
F3d 1107, 1128 (CA 9, 2010) (“But [defendant] was not in any way compelled to 
‘knowingly giv[e] Grand Jury testimony that was intentionally evasive, false, and 
misleading’ by virtue of her grand jury subpoena.”) (second alteration in original); United 
States v Phillips, 540 F2d 319,  332 (CA 8, 1976) (“[Defendant’s] decision to proffer 
false answers was in no way compelled; it was a voluntary decision on his part.”); 
Commonwealth v Good, 461 PA 546, 553; 337 A2d 288 (1975) (holding witnesses who 
lied to a grand jury were not compelled to be witnesses against themselves); United 
States v Tramunti, 500 F2d 1334, 1342 (CA 2, 1974) (“If he gives false testimony, it is 
not compelled at all. . . .  [False testimony] is not the incriminatory truth which the 
Constitution was intended to protect.”). 
 
 
 
25 
voluntary . . . .”  Id.  But, Garrity does not provide a license to lie or commit perjury.  
United States v Veal, 153 F3d 1233, 1243 (CA 11, 1998).29  The Fifth Amendment does 
not protect false Garrity statements because those “deliberate, false statements” result 
from “independent, voluntary choices.”  Id. at 1244.30  The statements therefore provide 
an avenue for the prosecution of obstruction of justice. 
The issue here is whether defendants’ statements were protected by the DLEOA, 
not the Fifth Amendment.  But in the DLEOA, the Legislature used the term “compelled” 
when providing statutory protection to Garrity statements.  As already explained in this 
opinion, when considering whether the privilege against self-incrimination is implicated, 
Fifth Amendment jurisprudence focuses extensively on whether the testimony or 
statements were “compelled.”  In this context, “compelled” has acquired a particular 
meaning, requiring courts to consider whether specific circumstances giving rise to 
compulsion are present such that Fifth Amendment protection applies.31  Because of this, 
“compelled” should be construed and understood in accordance with that meaning.  
 
                                              
29 Veal was overruled on other grounds by Fowler v United States, 563 US 668 (2011). 
30 The fact that Garrity statements are not made under oath is immaterial to the Fifth 
Amendment analysis.  Veal, 153 F3d at 1241 (“Like false testimony before a grand jury, 
the Court has not excluded from criminal liability false statements made to government 
agents or agencies, whether or not those statements were made under oath.”).  See also 
LaChance v Erickson, 522 US 262, 267; 118 S Ct 753; 139 L Ed 2d 695 (1998) (holding 
that it was irrelevant that statements were not made under oath for the purpose of 
criminal culpability for making false statements to government agency investigators). 
31 Cf. Howes v Fields, 565 US ___, ___; 132 S Ct 1181, 1189; 182 L Ed 2d 17 (2012) 
(“As used in our Miranda case law, ‘custody’ is a term of art that specifies circumstances 
that are thought generally to present a serious danger of coercion.”). 
 
 
 
26 
MCL 8.3a; People v Law, 459 Mich 419, 425 n 8; 591 NW2d 20 (1999).  Giving the 
appropriate meaning to this term of art, the DLEOA does not bar the use of the 
statements because defendants’ decision to lie constituted a voluntary choice that was not 
“compelled under threat of dismissal from employment or any other employment 
sanction . . . .”  MCL 15.391. 
The government here did not “compel” defendants to lie.  Rather, it sought only to 
“compel” defendants to tell the truth.  That defendants chose to provide exculpatory 
falsehoods, rather than inculpatory truths, resulted in their loss of protection under the 
Fifth Amendment and MCL 15.393.  See Wong, 431 US at 178 (“[E]ven the predicament 
of being forced to choose between incriminatory truth and falsehood, as opposed to 
refusing to answer, does not justify perjury.”).32  Our Constitution and laws protect 
compelled “information”-- incriminating truths, not exculpatory falsehoods.33    
 
                                              
32 Nothing in the way of rational public policy would result from protecting exculpatory 
falsehoods.  By such a conclusion, the government would be unable to obtain information 
that it needs to uncover police misconduct, and officers who possess such information 
would be permitted to lie about it without concern for criminal repercussions.   
33 For what it is worth, interpreting MCL 15.393 as providing the same protections as 
Garrity and its progeny, i.e., as not protecting false statements, is also consistent with 
House Legislative Analysis, SB 647, December 7, 2006, which states: 
The U.S. Supreme Court has already established that involuntary 
statements made by law enforcement officers during internal investigations 
cannot be used against the officers in a criminal prosecution.  Concerning 
this matter, the bill would simply codify the federal court ruling.  
[Emphasis added.]  
It is likewise consistent with Senate Legislative Analysis, SB 647, February 20, 2007, 
which states: 
 
 
 
 
27 
3.  CONTEXT 
It must finally be noted that “[a] court does not construe the meaning of statutory 
terms in a vacuum.”  Manuel v Gill, 481 Mich 637, 650; 753 NW2d 48 (2008) (quotation 
marks and citation omitted).  “Rather, we interpret the words in their context and with a 
view to their place in the overall statutory scheme.”  Id. (quotation marks and citations 
omitted).  See also Michigan ex rel Gurganus v CVS Caremark Corp, 496 Mich 45, 59; 
852 NW2d 103 (2014) (“Individual words and phrases are not read in a vacuum; we 
examine the statute as a whole, reading individual words and phrases in the context of the 
entire legislative scheme.”) (quotation marks and citation omitted).  The statute at issue 
here is based upon an obvious theory of quid pro quo: police officers provide information 
to the government about police misconduct and in exchange the government agrees not to 
use the information against the officers.  Both the government and the officers thereby 
receive a benefit-- the government receives information that may be helpful in identifying 
criminal misconduct and the officers effectively receive immunity.34  However, where the 
 
                                              
By providing that an involuntary statement made by a law 
enforcement officer, and any information derived from it, may not be used 
against the officer in a criminal proceeding, the bill effectively codifies 
Garrity protections in Michigan statutory law.  [Emphasis added.] 
Contrary to the majority’s suggestion, by the time that the DLEOA was enacted in 2006, 
the “Garrity protections” were well understood as excluding protection of false 
statements.  While I recognize the limitations inherent in reliance on legislative analyses 
as an aid in the construction of a statute, see In re Certified Question, 468 Mich at 115 
n 5, it is nonetheless notable when the construction of a statute, reached without reliance 
on a legislative analysis, conforms fully with such a legislative analysis.        
34 More specifically, the officers’ statements cannot be used against them in a criminal 
proceeding.  However, the practical effect of that is almost always going to be the same 
as immunity, as it was in this case.  
 
 
 
28 
officers proceed to lie to the government, the government is deprived of that to which it 
was entitled in exchange for the grant of immunity-- information.35  There is simply no 
longer any consideration given by the officers. i.e., there is no quid pro quo.  In such a 
situation, the officers should likewise be deprived of that for which they bargained-- 
immunity.  Otherwise, they would receive what they bargained for-- immunity-- without 
having to fulfill their part of the bargain-- providing information-- and the manifest truth-
seeking function of the statute would thus be nullified.  No Legislature, and no legislator, 
could conceivably have intended such a result.  As the Court of Appeals explained: 
We conclude that the Legislature’s manifest intent was to create a 
mechanism for facilitating internal police investigations and to provide an 
incentive for officers who cooperate by providing needed facts.  The 
Legislature certainly did not intend to immunize police officers by 
precluding the use of their lies and false statements in criminal proceedings.  
Indeed, such a strained construction of MCL 15.393 would be wholly 
contrary to the Legislature’s purpose in enacting the statute.  In sum, the 
plain language of MCL 15.391(a) establishes that an “involuntary 
statement” includes only truthful and factual information.  Quite simply, 
when an officer lies, he or she provides no “information.”  Accordingly, 
MCL 15.393 does not preclude the use of the officer’s lies in a criminal 
proceeding.  [Hughes, 306 Mich App at 130.] 
Reference to “information provided by a law enforcement officer,” MCL 15.391(a), in 
exchange for immunity, cannot reasonably be interpreted to mean simply any utterance of 
words; instead, it must reasonably be interpreted as meaning truthful information.  Given 
 
                                              
35 Cf. Apfelbaum, 445 US at 132 (Brennan, J., concurring in the judgment) (recognizing 
that the perjury exception to the Fifth Amendment is based in part on “the simple reality 
that affording the witness a right to lie with impunity would render the entire immunity 
transaction futile.”); id. at 135 (Blackmun, J., concurring in the judgment) (“Perjury or 
the making of false statements under a grant of immunity thus violates a basic assumption 
upon which the privilege and hence the immunity depend.”). 
 
 
 
29 
that the obvious purpose of the statute at issue is to assist in the discovery of police 
misconduct, an indispensable element of the induced statement is that it be truthful so 
that it may-- in fact or potentially-- assist in such discovery.  If the police officers who are 
questioned are allowed to provide false statements without consequence, i.e., without 
adversely affecting their guarantee of immunity, not only is the government not assisted 
in its responsibilities to investigate and punish police misconduct, but it may be 
affirmatively hindered or obstructed in this regard by the false statements, which indeed 
is exactly what occurred in the case at hand.36  In this case, after defendants stated that 
 
                                              
36 As one commentator explained: 
The state has a strong preference against allowing persons to lie with 
impunity, for lying prejudices the state in ways that neither silence nor 
truth-telling does.  Silence with impunity may disable the state from 
acquiring information from a witness, but it has the virtue of leaving the 
state no worse off than if the witness had never existed.  Truth-telling with 
impunity may disable the state from using a witness’s statements against 
him criminally, but it enlightens the state and enables the state to use the 
information for all other purposes.  In contrast, lying with impunity leaves 
the state worse off than it was before.  Lying with impunity not only 
disables the state from using the lies as criminal evidence against the 
person, but it affirmatively misleads and confuses the state regarding the 
truth.  Not surprisingly, the Court finds no place for lying: 
In [the] constitutional process of securing a witness’[s] 
testimony, perjury simply has no place whatever.  Perjured 
testimony is an obvious and flagrant affront to the basic 
concepts of judicial proceedings . . . .  Congress has made the 
giving of false answers a criminal act punishable by severe 
penalties; [for] in no other way can criminal conduct be 
flushed into the open where the law can deal with it.  
[Westen, Answer Self-Incriminating Questions or Be Fired, 
37 Am J Crim L 97, 123-124 (2010), quoting United States v 
 
 
 
 
30 
defendant Hughes did not have any improper physical contact with the complainant, the 
investigation was terminated and it was not revived until a year later and that was only 
because the person who had been assaulted by defendant Hughes hired a private 
investigator who later discovered the video recording of the assault.  Allowing an officer 
to provide false statements and yet receive full immunity utterly defeats the obvious 
purpose of the statute and serves no comprehensible alternative purpose.37  As a result, I 
believe that construing the DLEOA in light of its obvious purpose-- assisting in the 
discovery of police misconduct-- strongly supports the conclusion that “information” 
presupposes “truthful information.”  Simply put, there is no reason to enact an immunity 
 
                                              
Mandujano, 425 US 564, 576; 96 S Ct 1768; 48 L Ed 2d 212 
(1976) (alterations in original).] 
37 The majority asserts that “the protections offered by the DLEOA are intended to 
encourage and facilitate officers’ participation in internal investigations, with the goal of 
rendering those investigations more fruitful and effective.”  I fail to see how lies render 
investigations more fruitful and effective.  Indeed, I believe that they have the very 
opposite effect-- they hinder and thwart investigations.  I do not believe that any 
reasonable Legislature could conceivably have wished to encourage police officers to lie 
during an internal investigation, or even been disinterested in whether such lies took 
place.  The majority posits that “[n]ot all statements, after all, are clearly true or entirely 
false, and the Legislature may have concluded that qualifying the DLEOA’s statutory 
protections based on veracity would unduly complicate the implementation of those 
protections or undermine the certainty and effectiveness of the protections offered.”  It is 
one thing to conclude that the Legislature intended to protect statements that were made 
by a person who at the time believed the statements to be true, even if it is subsequently 
determined that the statements were incorrect, but it is quite another thing to suppose that 
the Legislature intended to protect statements that were made by a person who at the time 
knew that his or her statements were false, which is what happened in the instant case.  
Given that the Legislature only extended protection to “compelled information,” I simply 
cannot believe it intended to protect deliberate falsehoods.  Deliberate falsehoods clearly 
do not constitute “compelled information.”    
 
 
 
31 
statute if it cannot produce “information” that is helpful in uncovering police misconduct.  
As the United States Supreme Court explained, “it is impossible in reason to conceive 
that Congress commanded the giving of testimony, and at the same time intended that 
false testimony might be given with impunity in the absence of the most express and 
specific command to that effect.”  Glickstein, 222 US at 143.  Similarly, I am not 
persuaded that the DLEOA protects false statements absent any “express and specific 
command to that effect,” which the DLEOA does not contain.  Id. 
III.  CONCLUSION 
Because I agree with the Court of Appeals that neither the Fifth Amendment nor 
the DLEOA forbid the use of a law enforcement officer’s false statements in a subsequent 
prosecution for obstruction of justice, I respectfully dissent and would affirm the 
judgment of the Court of Appeals. 
 
 
Stephen J. Markman 
 
David F. Viviano