Opinion ID: 837953
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: further response to the dissent

Text: (1) The dissent asserts that we are swerving and dodging decisions of the United States Supreme Court by refusing to make Halbert retroactive in order to deny indigent defendants access to justice. Post at 827. The premise of this overheated assertion is that the United States Supreme Court has already rejected our reasoning, but its repetition by the dissent does not make this so. We have set forth what we think the law is, and we have followed Teague and other relevant decisions to their logical and reasonable conclusions. Whatever the dissent's personal conceptions of what should be required by the Constitution, we have applied what this Court and the United States Supreme Court have said the Constitution requires. (2) The dissent describes us as arbitrarily cutting off constitutional relief to defendants whose plea-based convictions became final between 1994 and 2005. We fail to see what is arbitrary about applying existing precedent to determine whether Halbert is retroactive and, having concluded that it is not, employing the date of the Halbert decision to determine who precisely is entitled to the benefits of that decision. Using the date of a decision that has granted a right as the starting date for entitlement to that right has long been the standard procedure of this Court. See Woods, supra at 138-139, 169 N.W.2d 473. (3) The dissent believes that because Halbert overruled this Court's determination in People v. Bulger, 462 Mich. 495, 614 N.W.2d 103 (2000), that MCL 770.3a was constitutional, his position in the instant case should prevail. This overlooks that the issues in Bulger and this case are simply different. Unlike Bulger, this case does not concern whether the right to first-tier appellate counsel exists; Halbert has decided this. Rather, the present issue concerns the extent to which Halbert is retroactive. Indeed, in Bulger, we expressly declined to address the constitutionality of MCL 770.3a because it did not apply to the defendant in that case. Id. at 506, 614 N.W.2d 103 (Because this new statute does not apply to defendant, the question of its constitutionality is not before us.). [12] While the analysis employed by the Supreme Court in recognizing a constitutional right may well be relevant in some instances in assessing the right's retroactivity, it will rarely be conclusive. Indeed, Teague and Danforth themselves confirm that assessments of retroactivity are independent of the recognition of the right itself and that the two determinations involve different questions and require the evaluation of different interests. (4) The dissent concludes that precedent compelled the result in Halbert by declaring the holding in Ross to be so clear that it does not support a claim that a reasonable jurist could conclude that the rule of Halbert was not compelled. Post at 829. We think the simple fact that Halbert was a 6 to 3 decision, and reversed a majority of this Court, makes sufficiently clear that reasonable jurists could conclude that Halbert was not compelled. Further, even the trial court that granted conditional habeas relief in Bulger recognized that this Court's position was not contrary to any clearly established Supreme Court precedent, Bulger v. Curtis, 328 F.Supp.2d 692, 703 (E.D.Mich., 2004) (emphasis added). [13] (5) The dissent complains that we rel[y] on the presumption that all defendants who plead guilty are indeed guilty. Post at 831. When a defendant pleads guilty, he admits guilt under oath. We freely admit that there is some sense on our part that defendants who plead guilty are indeed guilty. By taking an oath, defendants give courts permission to presume that admissions of guilt are true. This Court has made clear that after conviction, defendants are no longer cloaked with a presumption of innocence, People v. Mateo, 453 Mich. 203, 222, 551 N.W.2d 891 (1996) (Weaver, J., concurring), thereby permitting this Court to presume that those who have pleaded guilty are, in fact, guilty. More importantly, Halbert did not address the ascertainment of guilt, but rather discussed the complexity of appeals and why counsel is often required to navigate this process. Halbert, supra at 621, 125 S.Ct. 2582 (Navigating the appellate process without a lawyer's assistance is a perilous endeavor for a layperson....). Although the opinion refers to `myriad and often complicated' substantive issues potentially involved in appeals, at no time does it equate these issues with the ascertainment of guilt. Id. (citation omitted). Moreover, not only are several of the potential appellate issues that the dissent identifies clearly unrelated to questions of guilt (jurisdictional defects, double jeopardy claims, and claims that the state had no right to proceed such as having charged a defendant under an inapplicable statute), but it is nonsensical for the dissent to conclude that the Supreme Court determined that claims involving `constitutional defects that are irrelevant to [a defendant's] factual guilt ' apply to the guilt or innocence of a defendant. Post at 831 n. 2, quoting Bulger, supra at 561, 614 N.W.2d 103 (Cavanagh, J., dissenting) (emphasis added). Although we recognize that such procedural matters may well be essential and, in some cases, constitutionally mandated, their existence does not automatically convert them into issues concerning guilt or innocence. The United States Constitution provides criminal defendants the right to due process of law. U.S. Const., Am. V. The question of whether a defendant has received due process is different in many contexts from whether a given procedure affects the integrity of the fact-finding process. Sexton, supra at 63, 580 N.W.2d 404 (internal citation and quotation marks omitted). By conflating, as the dissent has done, whether a procedure is necessary for due process with whether a procedure ascertains a defendant's guilt or innocence, the dissent would compel that virtually all new rules of criminal procedure become retroactive. Perhaps the dissent could explain what new rules would not be retroactive under the analysis that he sets forth. And, while such automatic retroactivity may be the dissent's personal preference, Sexton's and Teague's very existence refute that proposition as the preference of the law.