Case Title: People v. Pollick

Citation: 448 Mich. 376, 531 N.W.2d 159

Docket Number: 99608

State: michigan

Court: Michigan Supreme Court

Date: 1995-04-12T00:00:00Z

Document:
448 Mich. 376 (1995)
531 N.W.2d 159
PEOPLE
v.
POLLICK
Docket No. 99608.

Supreme Court of Michigan.
Decided April 12, 1995.
Frank J. Kelley, Attorney General, Thomas L. Casey, Solicitor General, Richard Thompson, Prosecuting Attorney, Joyce F. Todd, Chief, Appellate *377 Division, and Richard H. Browne, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, for the people.
State Appellate Defender (by Richard B. Ginsberg) for the defendant.
PER CURIAM:
The defendant was convicted of assault with intent to murder, but the Court of Appeals reversed the conviction on the ground that the circuit court improperly instructed the jury. We reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and reinstate the judgment of the circuit court.
I
In late 1989, defendant David Pollick was in the second year of a relationship with a woman named Danyeil Lewis. They were arguing, and Ms. Lewis had indicated her desire to end the relationship.
On November 17, 1989, the defendant delivered a lengthy letter to Ms. Lewis. In an effort to persuade her to continue the relationship, he wrote that he would kill himself by driving an automobile across the center line. In this manner, he would take not only his own life, but also the life of someone else.
After receiving the letter, Ms. Lewis went to the home of a person who lived on Rochester Road in Oakland County. The defendant soon came to the Rochester Road house and borrowed Ms. Lewis' car. A few minutes later, the defendant telephoned Ms. Lewis to say that there would be an accident in front of the house on Rochester Road within ten minutes.
As promised, the defendant drove south on Rochester Road, crossed the center line, and collided with an oncoming car approximately two hundred feet from the house where Ms. Lewis was *378 staying.[1] The driver of the other car was seriously injured. The accident occurred within two hours of the time the defendant delivered the letter to Ms. Lewis.
The defendant was charged with assault with intent to murder. MCL 750.83; MSA 28.278. During the jury trial of this matter, the defendant acknowledged that he had stated his intention to commit suicide, but denied intending to harm anyone else.[2]
The jury was instructed on the charged offense of assault with intent to murder, as well as the lesser offenses of assault with intent to commit great bodily harm less than murder,[3] and assault with a dangerous weapon.[4] After deliberating thirty-nine minutes, the jury found the defendant guilty of assault with intent to murder.
The circuit court sentenced the defendant to serve 10 to 20 years in prison. Following a remand in the Court of Appeals, the circuit court denied the defendant's motion for new trial.[5]
The Court of Appeals reversed the defendant's conviction on the ground that the circuit court had improperly instructed the jury.[6] The prosecutor has applied for leave to appeal.[7]
*379 II
After explaining the elements of the assault offenses, the circuit court instructed the jury regarding how it was to conduct its deliberations. Defense counsel did not object when the court told the jury:
*380 Guilty of Assault With Intent to Commit Murder; or
Guilty of Felonious Assault; or
Not Guilty.
As noted above, the Court of Appeals reversed the defendant's conviction. It did so on the ground that the concluding statement ("Your second duty is to agree upon a unanimous verdict") was a substantial departure from a jury instruction that this Court approved in People v Goldsmith, 411 Mich 555; 309 NW2d 182 (1981), and People v Hardin, 421 Mich 296; 365 NW2d 101 (1984).[8] The Court of Appeals explained:
III
In People v Sullivan, 392 Mich 324; 220 NW2d 441 (1974), the circuit court gave a so-called Allen[10] charge to a jury that apparently was deadlocked. While finding the instruction neither coercive per se nor coercive in the situation that arose in Sullivan, this Court adopted the American Bar Association's Minimum Standard for Criminal Justice 5.4. Id. at 341-342. Here is the current version of that ABA standard:[11]
This Court concluded its Sullivan opinion by saying that "prospectively from the date of this opinion, the ABA standard jury instruction 5.4 as set forth herein is adopted by this Court," and that "[a]ny substantial departure therefrom shall be grounds for reversible error."[12] 392 Mich 342.
In Goldsmith, the circuit court added the following paragraph to a proper instruction that was given before the jury began deliberating:
*383 This Court characterized that addition as "a substantial departure" from the approved instruction:
Hardin concerned several instructions that were given on the day after a jury began deliberating. Before analyzing the particular language employed in Hardin, this Court emphasized that the test for determining whether instructional language substantially departs from the ABA standard is whether the instruction is unduly coercive, not whether the circuit court used words that match the words in the ABA standard:
Applying those principles to the instructions given in Hardin, this Court reinstated the defendant's convictions.
IV
It requires no special insight to see that there is a greater coercive potential when an instruction is given to a jury that already believes itself deadlocked. Instructions given to a jury that has not yet begun to deliberate are less likely to weigh on a dissenting juror, or to be understood as a request that a particular dissenting juror abandon the view that is preventing an otherwise unanimous jury from reaching its verdict.[13]
In the present case, the instruction preceded the jury's deliberations, and thus the coercive potential was reduced. Further, this case does not involve any improvidently added language, such as was found in Goldsmith. Indeed, the challenged instruction  that the jury had a "duty" to return a unanimous verdict  would be entirely unremarkable[14]*386 if this Court had not adopted in Sullivan a prophylactic rule designed to cure a problem that did not even arise in the present case. Probably for that reason, there was no objection from defense counsel.
We said in Sullivan that courts are to give an instruction that is substantially in the form of CJI2d 3.11. That is a sound instruction, and we continue to direct that it be given. However, the teaching of Hardin is that an instruction on this subject requires reversal only if it has an "undue tendency of coercion," not if it merely fails to contain the same words as the ABA standard.
In the context of this case, considering the timing and full content of the instructions, we see no significant possibility that the jury found the instruction to be unduly coercive.[15] The whole jurisprudence of Sullivan, including the cases and instructions that followed, is based on the need to avoid coercing jurors who are having a difficult time reaching a decision. Here, no such problem had arisen at the time of the instruction, nor did the jurors ever experience such a difficulty. Their deliberations were brief, and they did not choose any of the intermediate verdicts that were offered.
V
Further, Hardin explains that the failure of the defendant to object to the instruction serves as a waiver of any error in that regard.
In this case, the record indicates that defense *388 counsel stated, "I'm satisfied with the instructions as given." Thus any error was waived.[16]
VI
For these reasons, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and reinstate the judgment of the circuit court. MCR 7.302(F)(1).
BRICKLEY, C.J., and CAVANAGH, BOYLE, RILEY, MALLETT, and WEAVER, JJ., concurred.
LEVIN, J., concurred in the result only.
[1]  At this point on Rochester Road, the speed limit is 55 miles per hour.
[2]  The letter could not be produced at trial, so the witnesses testified regarding their recollections of its contents.
[3]  MCL 750.84; MSA 28.279.
[4]  MCL 750.82; MSA 28.277.
[5]  The motion and the remand proceedings did not concern the issue that is discussed in this opinion.
[6]  Unpublished opinion per curiam of the Court of Appeals, issued April 25, 1994 (Docket No. 136826).
[7]  The defendant has also filed an application for leave to appeal as cross-appellant. We deny the defendant's application because we are not persuaded that the questions presented should be reviewed by this Court.
[8]  The Court of Appeals rejected the defendant's other claims of error, saying that, "[a]lthough defendant raises several issues on appeal, only one has merit" and that "none of the [other] errors complained of would have warranted reversal...."
[9]  At the beginning of its instructions to the jury, the circuit court twice told the jury that its "job" was to decide the facts of the case.
[10]  Allen v United States, 164 US 492; 17 S Ct 154; 41 L Ed 528 (1896).
[11]  The material presented in the text is Standard 15-4.4 of the American Bar Association Standards for Criminal Justice (2d ed), p 133. The current standard reflects only stylistic changes in the original ABA Standard 5.4.
[12]  The ABA's model instruction is now incorporated in CJI2d 3.11. The earlier version was CJI 3:1:18. As adapted for a deadlocked jury, the instruction is stated in CJI2d 3.12 and CJI 3:1:18A.
[13]  In Sullivan, this Court addressed a situation in which a jury had been deliberating for several days without being able to return a verdict. Hardin likewise concerned instructions that were given to a jury that had been deliberating for some length of time. Of the cases discussed in the preceding pages, only Goldsmith focused on an instruction given to a jury before it began deliberating.
[14]  In a split opinion, this Court held in People v Burden, 395 Mich 462; 236 NW2d 505 (1975), that a jury should be instructed regarding its obligation to return a unanimous verdict.
[15]  More bluntly, the prosecuting attorney writes, "Only a juror who was a hopeless moron could believe that the trial judge was ordering the jury to agree on a verdict even when they didn't believe one was warranted."
[16]  The failure to object does not represent ineffective assistance of counsel because, for the reasons explained in part IV of this opinion, the disputed instruction would not provide a basis for reversal even if there had been an objection.