Opinion ID: 848612
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 10

Heading: the due process problem

Text: This Court has ruled that exemptions and provisos in criminal statutes must be defined with specificity. Exemptions and provisos within a criminal statute must be defined with the same specificity as the prohibitive language of the statute. This court is not able, within the bounds of due process, to interpret a criminal statute which contains an ambiguous exemption such that it results in conviction of the defendant charged in the specific case. That is not the fair warning demanded by the Constitution. [ People v. Dempster, 396 Mich. 700, 715, 242 N.W.2d 381 (1976) (citation omitted).] Therefore, when a clarifying gloss is placed on a statute by a court, it can apply only to future violations. It cannot apply retroactively. This includes cases that clarify when an exemption or proviso exists. Id. at 715-717, 242 N.W.2d 381. This case constitutes the first instance when the clarifying gloss in question has been placed on MCL 750.224f(2). Therefore, at the least, the majority's interpretation of the statute cannot apply retroactively. Because the majority finds for the first time that the statute contains a proviso, defendant did not have constitutional fair warning of what he would have to prove. Accordingly, his conviction cannot stand. Dempster, supra at 717-718, 242 N.W.2d 381.