Title: PEOPLE OF MI V LYMAN GENE KOONCE

State: michigan

Issuer: Michigan Supreme Court

Document:

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Michigan Supreme Court 
Lansing, Michigan 48909 
C hief Justice 
Justices 
Maura D. Corrigan  
Michael F. Cavanagh 
Elizabeth A. Weaver 
Marilyn Kelly 
Clifford W. Taylor 
Robert P. Young, Jr. 
Opinion 
Stephen J. Markman 
FILED JULY 9, 2002  
PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN,  
Plaintiff-Appellee,  
v  
No. 117527  
LYMAN GENE KOONCE,  
Defendant-Appellant.  
PER CURIAM  
After 
a 
jury 
trial, defendant was convicted of possession  
with intent to deliver less than 50 grams of cocaine.1  On  
appeal, defendant argued, among other things, that the trial  
court 
erred 
by 
denying 
his 
motion 
to 
dismiss, 
or,  
alternatively, that the trial court erred by failing to give  
a “missing witness” instruction on the basis of the  
prosecution’s failure to produce a witness.  The Court of  
Appeals rejected that argument and affirmed on authority of  
People v O’Quinn, 185 Mich App 40; 460 NW2d 264 (1990),  
1 MCL 333.7401(2)(a)(iv).  
 
holding that, while the prosecution is obligated to provide a  
defendant with reasonable assistance in locating and serving  
process upon witnesses, that duty does not apply to a witness  
who is also an accomplice. We overrule the Court of Appeals  
holding in O’Quinn to the extent that it applied an exception  
to the reasonable assistance requirement found in MCL  
767.40a(5), and remand this case to the Court of Appeals for  
reconsideration in light of this opinion.  
I  
In November 1995, police raided a motel room where  
defendant was living.  The police officers testified they  
found defendant in the room, along with Antoine Ennis.  Ennis  
was allegedly smoking crack cocaine at the time. The police  
discovered approximately nine grams of cocaine behind a  
dresser.  Ennis was found to be carrying a note that had  
defendant’s name and pager number, along with the motel’s  
address and telephone number.  It was the prosecution’s theory  
that Ennis, an out-of-state resident, had used this  
information to seek out defendant and purchase the cocaine  
that he was smoking at the time of the raid.  Defendant  
testified that he knew nothing about the cocaine in his room  
and that it was merely a coincidence that Ennis was present  
when the police executed the raid.  
Defendant was convicted as charged of possession with  
intent to deliver less than 50 grams of cocaine.  As required  
1  
 
by MCL 767.40a(1),2 the prosecutor listed Ennis on the  
information as a res gestae witness.  The prosecutor also told  
defendant of Ennis’ last-known address: 
a location in  
Baltimore, Maryland.  By so doing, he felt he had complied  
with MCL 767.40a(5), which requires, in part, that upon  
request the prosecutor assist the defendant in locating and  
serving process on the witness.3  At the beginning of trial,  
defense counsel argued that the prosecutor had not met the  
assistance 
requirement of MCL 767.40a(5).  Relying on O’Quinn,  
the prosecutor argued that, while greater assistance might  
have 
been 
required 
with a nonaccomplice witness, because Ennis  
was an accomplice the provision of Ennis’ address was  
sufficient assistance to comply with the statute. The trial  
2 MCL 767.40a(1) provides:  
The prosecuting attorney shall attach to the 
filed information a list of all witnesses known to  
the prosecuting attorney who might be called at 
trial and all res gestae witnesses known to the 
prosecuting 
attorney 
or 
investigating 
law  
enforcement officers.  
3 MCL 767.40a(5) provides:  
The prosecuting attorney or investigative law 
enforcement agency shall provide to the defendant, 
or defense counsel, upon request, reasonable  
assistance, including investigative assistance, as 
may be necessary to locate and serve process upon a 
witness. The request for assistance shall be made 
in writing by defendant or defense counsel not less 
than 10 days before the trial of the case or at 
such other time as the court directs. 
If the  
prosecuting attorney objects to a request by the 
defendant on the grounds that it is unreasonable, 
the prosecuting attorney shall file a pretrial 
motion before the court to hold a hearing to 
determine the reasonableness of the request.  
2  
 
court, after concluding that Ennis was an accomplice, agreed  
with the prosecutor and denied relief, relying on O’Quinn.  
The Court of Appeals affirmed.4  Defendant has applied  
for leave to appeal.  
II  
Issues of statutory interpretation are questions of law  
that we review de novo.  People v Webb, 458 Mich 265, 274; 580  
NW2d 884 (1998).  In reviewing whether MCL 767.40a(5) can  
sustain the interpretation offered by O’Quinn, and now by the  
current Court of Appeals panel, we begin with the well-known  
rule that the goal of judicial interpretation of a statute is  
to ascertain and give effect to the intent of the Legislature.  
To do this, we first review the plain language of the statute  
itself.  If the language is clear, no further construction is  
necessary or allowed to expand what the Legislature clearly  
intended to cover.  People v Morey, 461 Mich 325, 329-330; 603  
NW2d 250 (1999). In considering this matter, the application  
of this rule is dispositive.  
III  
Before the enactment of the statutory revision that we  
consider herein, a prosecutor had a duty to present at trial  
“all the witnesses present at the transaction.”  See Hurd v  
People, 25 Mich 405, 415-416 (1872). 
In keeping with this  
general duty, 1859 PA 138, § 2 and its successor statutes  
4 
 Unpublished opinion per curiam, issued July 21, 2000 
(Docket No. 210326).  
3  
  
required the prosecutor to list the names of all known  
witnesses on the information and to supplement that list as  
further witnesses become known.5  This listing requirement  
served the function of alerting the defendant to the witnesses  
the prosecution intended to present at trial.  
Over time, this Court recognized a number of exceptions  
to the statutory duty of the prosecutor to list all witnesses  
on the information.6  The primary judicially identified  
exception to this duty was that the prosecutor was not  
required to list on the information, or call at trial, an  
accomplice. 
People v Resh, 107 Mich 251, 253; 65 NW 99  
5 Until 1986, the prosecutor’s duty to list witnesses on 
the information was contained in MCL 767.40. 
The 1986  
amendment shifted that requirement to MCL 767.40a(1) and (2).  
6 A good explanation of the thinking of this Court on 
this point is found in People v Raider, 256 Mich 131, 134-135; 
239 NW 387 (1931), where we explained:  
The rule that the prosecution must indorse and 
call all the eyewitnesses to a crime of violence 
who are available, except when they are numerous, 
and those not called obviously would be merely 
cumulative, . . . is too well established in this 
State to need the citation of authorities. . . .  
The purposes of the rule are to insure the 
disclosure of the whole of the res gestae, to  
protect the accused against the suppression of 
testimony favorable to him, and to give him the 
benefit of cross-examination.  The rule is not  
without exceptions.  The wife of an accused need  
not be called by the prosecution although her name 
is indorsed on the information and he demands the  
right to cross-examine her . . . ; nor need she be 
indorsed as a witness . . . ; one charged as an 
accessory need not be called by the people . . . ; 
and a sister of the accused was required to be 
called only because she was the fiancée of the 
victim . . . . [Citations omitted.]  
4  
 
(1895); People v McCullough, 81 Mich 25, 34; 45 NW 515 (1890).  
The development of this exception was not surprising because  
of the inequity occasioned by forcing the prosecutor to call  
a hostile accomplice, only to be bound by the accomplice’s  
testimony under the doctrine that the party who calls a  
witness vouches for that testimony. See People v White, 401  
Mich 482, 508; 257 NW2d 912 (1977).  Additional justification  
for this exception was derived from the intuition that the  
prosecutor should be relieved of the duty to produce a witness  
who participated in the crime because such a witness could not  
be compelled to testify anyway.7  
The Legislature subsequently enacted 1941 PA 336 (MCL  
767.40a), which provided that any res gestae witness could be  
impeached by the prosecution,8 even while continuing to impose  
on the prosecutor the duty to list all res gestae witnesses on  
the information and produce them at trial. Left unaddressed  
was the situation with accomplices, and thus, as this Court’s  
decision in White, supra at 508-509, made clear, the  
accomplice exception continued for res gestae witnesses.  
In 1986, the Legislature again amended MCL 767.40a. We  
can discern, from our review of the amended statute, that the  
amendments were made, at least in part, to resolve the last  
vestige of the incongruity that had troubled previous  
7 US Const, Am V and Const 1963, art 1, § 17.  
8 The current statute preserves the prosecution’s right 
to impeach any witness. MCL 767.40a(6).  
5  
Legislatures and courts by eliminating the prosecution’s duty  
to endorse all res gestae witnesses and to produce all  
endorsed 
witnesses. 
 
Thus, after the amendment, the prosecutor  
has a duty to attach to the information a list of all  
witnesses the prosecutor might call at trial and of all known  
res gestae witnesses, to update the list as additional  
witnesses became known, and to provide to the defendant a list  
of witnesses the prosecution intended to call at trial. MCL  
767.40a(1), (2), and (3). Further, to assist the defendant,  
the prosecutor is now compelled to render reasonable  
assistance 
in 
locating and serving process upon witnesses upon  
request of the defendant.9  MCL 767.40a(5).  In other words,  
9 In People v Burwick, 450 Mich 281, 288-289; 537 NW2d 
813 (1995), we discussed the 1986 amendment of MCL 767.40a and 
explained:  
The prosecutor's former obligation to use due 
diligence to produce any individual who might have 
any knowledge, favorable or unfavorable, to either 
side, has been replaced by a scheme that 1) 
contemplates notice at the time of filing of the 
information of known witnesses who might be called 
and all other known res gestae witnesses, 2) 
imposes on the prosecution a continuing duty to 
advise the defense of all res gestae witnesses as 
they become known, and 3) directs that that list be 
refined before trial to advise the defendant of the  
witnesses the prosecutor intends to produce at 
trial.  The prosecutor's duty to produce res gestae 
witnesses has been replaced with an obligation to 
provide notice of known witnesses and reasonable 
assistance to locate witnesses on defendant's 
request. 
The Legislature has thus eliminated the 
prosecutor's burden to locate, endorse, and produce 
unknown persons who might be res gestae witnesses 
and has addressed defense concerns to require the 
prosecution to give initial and continuing notice  
6  
while the 1986 amendment retained the right of the prosecutor  
to 
impeach 
res 
gestae witnesses and eliminated the requirement  
that the prosecutor produce all endorsed witnesses, it added  
the requirement that the prosecutor provide reasonable  
assistance to the defendant, upon request, to secure the  
presence of witnesses—regardless of the label applied to them  
or whether they are listed on the information.  
IV  
In spite of the statutory changes outlined above, when  
the Court of Appeals in O’Quinn revisited this issue after the  
1986 statutory amendment of MCL 767.40a, it continued to apply  
the judicially made accomplice exception to excuse the  
prosecution from its duty to comply with the statute.  In  
discussing this issue, the Court noted that, under the statute  
in effect before the 1986 amendment, the prosecutor was  
required to endorse and produce all res gestae witnesses and  
further noted that there was a judicially created exception to  
the production requirement when the res gestae witness was an  
accomplice.
 Concluding that the rationale behind the  
accomplice exception was still applicable to the current  
statute, the Court held that there was no duty for the  
prosecutor to provide reasonable assistance to a defendant in  
locating and serving process upon an accomplice.  Because this  
of all known res gestae witnesses, identify 
witnesses the prosecutor intends to produce, and 
provide law enforcement assistance to investigate 
and produce witnesses the defense requests.  
7  
  
analysis miscomprehends the history cited above, as well as  
the clear dictates of the 1986 statutory amendments, we  
disagree.  
There is no mention in the current statute concerning an  
exception in the case of “accomplice witnesses.”  The language  
of subsection 5 clearly requires the prosecutor (on request)  
to reasonably assist the defendant in locating and serving  
process on a witness. 
Moreover, the statute does not  
differentiate 
between 
accomplice 
witnesses 
and 
other  
witnesses.  Because the language is plain and unambiguous, it  
is this reading that we give to the statute.  Huggett v Dep’t  
of Natural Resources, 464 Mich 711, 717; 629 NW2d 915 (2001).  
Since § 40a(5) does not permit the prosecution to avoid its  
statutory 
duty 
to 
provide “reasonable assistance” on the basis  
that the listed witness is an accomplice, it must give  
“reasonable assistance” without regard to the witness’  
accomplice status.10  
Because the prosecutor here only provided defendant with  
an address in Baltimore, Maryland, we remand this matter to  
the Court of Appeals to address whether the assistance offered  
by the prosecutor amounted to “reasonable assistance . . . to  
locate and serve process upon a witness” within the meaning of  
the statute.  
10 Our explication of this statute should not be 
understood as expressing a view on the issue of who is 
responsible for calling such a witness at trial, or, indeed, 
whether, because of privilege or some other testimonial bar, 
such a person could be called at trial.  
8  
 
 
 
 
Accordingly, we overrule the O’Quinn holding that there  
is an accomplice exception to MCL 767.40a(5), and remand this  
matter to the Court of Appeals for reconsideration in light of  
this opinion. This decision will apply to this case, to any  
case pending on appeal in which this issue has been raised and  
preserved, and to all future cases.  People v Pasha, 466 Mich  
__; __ NW2d __ (2002).  We have examined defendant’s remaining  
issues and find them to be without merit.  MCR 7.302(F)(1).  
We do not retain jurisdiction.  
CORRIGAN, C.J., and CAVANAGH, WEAVER, 
KELLY, TAYLOR, 
YOUNG, 
and  
MARKMAN, JJ., concurred.  
9