Opinion ID: 849107
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: legal impossibility in michigan

Text: The majority errs in concluding that legal impossibility has never been adopted in Michigan. It focuses on language in Tinskey [1] pertaining to legal impossibility as a defense to attempt, but ignores the reasoning of the decision. Viewing the forest as well as the trees, one observes that the reasoning and the conclusion of the Tinskey Court prove that it accepted the doctrine of legal impossibility. Tinskey held that the defendants could not be guilty of conspiracy to commit abortion because the woman who was to be aborted was not pregnant. Tinskey, supra at 109, 228 N.W.2d 782. The Court reasoned that the Legislature, in enacting the statute, purposely required that conspiracy to abort involve a pregnant woman. It thereby rejected prosecutions where the woman was not pregnant. It concluded that the defendants in Tinskey could not be prosecuted for conspiracy to commit abortion because one of the elements of the crime, a pregnant woman, could not be established. Significantly, the Tinskey Court stated that [t]he Legislature has not, as to most other offenses, so similarly indicated that impossibility is not a defense. Id. [2] By this language, Tinskey expressly recognized the existence of the legal impossibility defense in the common law of this state. Even though the reference to legal impossibility regarding the crime of attempt may be dictum, the later statement regarding the impossibility defense was part of the reasoning and conclusion in Tinskey. This Court recognized the defense, even if it did not do so expressly concerning charges for attempt or solicitation. Moreover, Michigan common law [3] is not limited to decisions from this Court. The majority should not ignore decisions from the Court of Appeals. That Court has accepted legal impossibility as a defense. For example, in People v. Ng, the Court of Appeals distinguished between factual impossibility and legal impossibility in rejecting a defendant's argument that he was not guilty of attempted murder. 156 Mich.App. 779, 786, 402 N.W.2d 500 (1986). It found that factual impossibility is not a defense to a charge of attempted murder, but observed that legal impossibility is a defense, citing Tinskey. Similarly, in People v. Cain, the court distinguished between legal impossibility and a defense based on a claim of right. 238 Mich.App. 95, 117-119, 605 N.W.2d 28 (1999). It implicitly read Tinskey as acknowledging the existence of the legal impossibility defense. [4] Accordingly, in this case, the Court of Appeals correctly considered legal impossibility a viable defense.